Cross-border fees: what merchants pay on foreign cards

Cross-border fees are the extra charges on a card sale when the customer's card was issued in a different country from the one your business is in. The card networks classify that sale as cross-border and charge more for it, and the issuing bank's interchange can come from a different part of the network's schedule. If you price or get paid in another currency, converting the money costs something too. Your processor pays the network and interchange costs and bills them back to you.

You'll meet these fees if customers cross a border to shop with you, or you ship orders across one, usually under statement labels that explain very little. Below, we take each fee in turn: where it sits on an interchange-plus statement, how it differs from the foreign transaction fee your customer's bank may charge, what you can honestly do about it, and how to book it. Network documents cited are as of October 2026.

What counts as a cross-border card payment?

A card payment is cross-border when the bank that issued the card is in a different country from the merchant. In its annual report for fiscal 2023, Visa says it earns international transaction revenues from cross-border transaction processing and currency conversion activities, and it treats a transaction as cross-border when the issuer's country of origin differs from the beneficiary's, which for a card sale is the merchant. Mastercard's annual report for 2019 described cross-border volume fees charged to issuers and acquirers on activity where the merchant's country and the card's country of issuance differ.

Two things don't decide it: where your customer lives and which currency the price is in. The card's home country and your business's location do.

For online stores, location is something you tell the customer. Visa expects an online merchant to display, prominently, the country its sales will be processed from. Its guidance puts that on the checkout screen showing the final amount or inside the checkout steps, and says a link to a separate page isn't enough (Visa). That guidance dates from 2017, so check the current version with your acquirer. The point is simple: a shopper should know before paying that the purchase is foreign.

What fees come with cross-border card payments?

Up to four kinds, and only one of them is your processor's own price. Our page on credit card processing fees covers the domestic layers; here's what changes when the card is foreign:

Network cross-border fees

Mastercard has been plain that cross-border sales cost more. Its 2017 annual report said a cross-border transaction brought in more revenue than a domestic one because its cross-border fees are higher than domestic fees, and that they can include fees for currency conversion. Its filings describe charging these fees to issuers and to acquirers. The acquirer's share is the part that reaches you, through your processor.

We don't quote amounts for these fees. The US cross-border assessments weren't on the public Visa and Mastercard pages we checked, and the figure that matters is the one printed on your own statement.

Interchange on a card from another country

The rates in our guides to Visa interchange rates and Mastercard interchange rates come from the networks' main US programs. Visa's US schedule, with rates effective April 18, 2026, says its tables cover Visa transactions completed within the 50 states and the District of Columbia, and it has a separate section headed International Transactions (Visa). So a card from Calgary or Lyon isn't necessarily priced from the same rows as a card from Cleveland, even when both are tapped at the same counter.

On interchange-plus pricing, look for those sales under their own category names in the interchange detail. The interchange still goes to the foreign bank that issued each card; our explainer on what interchange fees are covers how that money flows. A quick check: the number of sales in those categories should match the number of foreign cards you took.

Currency conversion

A sale that changes currency adds a cost, and where the conversion happens decides who carries it:

• You price in your own currency and the customer's card is billed in theirs. The conversion happens on the customer's side, and any fee for it lands on their card statement, not yours.
• You price in the customer's currency but get paid in your own. Somebody converts the money on your side, and that has a price, either as a separate line or built into the exchange rate. Ask your processor which, and at what rate.
• The customer chooses their home currency at your terminal through dynamic currency conversion, a service your acquirer or a DCC provider runs. The network rules for that, and who pockets the markup, are in our dynamic currency conversion guide.

Your processor's charge for foreign cards

Read the fee schedule in your merchant agreement for a fee or a higher rate on foreign cards, under names like "international," "foreign card" or "non-domestic." Anything you find there is your processor's pricing, not the network's. Ask what it covers, and get the answer in writing.

How do cross-border fees show up on an interchange-plus statement?

They're spread across sections you already know: the interchange detail, the network fees and your processor's own fees. Every processor labels these lines differently, so look for patterns rather than exact names:

If your statement shows one rate for every card, none of these lines will appear, and you can't tell what foreign cards cost you. For a tour of a whole statement, page by page, see our guide on how to read a merchant statement.

A worked example: what foreign cards cost one store

Picture a made-up sporting goods store in Buffalo. It takes $52,000 a month in card sales, and its processor's report by card country puts $8,320 of that, or 16%, on cards issued in Canada.

1. Total every statement line tied to the Canadian cards: their interchange categories, the networks' cross-border fees and any processor charge for foreign cards.
2. Divide that total by $8,320. The result is the store's effective rate on foreign cards.
3. Do the same for the other $43,680 and its fees, then compare the two rates. The gap is what a foreign card really costs this store per dollar of sales.

Now say the store's agreement also includes a 1% processor fee on foreign cards, a figure we made up for the example. On $8,320 a month, that's $83.20, or $998.40 a year. Unlike the network's share, it's negotiable, which makes it the first line to raise with the processor.

Cross-border fees vs foreign transaction fees

They're separate charges, paid by different people. You pay cross-border fees through your processor. Your customer pays any foreign transaction fee to their own card issuer, if their card agreement includes one. A single sale can carry both.

The CFPB's official interpretation of Regulation Z treats a card issuer's charge for a purchase in a foreign currency or with a foreign merchant as a finance charge, and that includes a purchase in US dollars from a merchant outside the US. It also says a conversion fee from a third party, such as a card network, can be part of that charge, and that the issuer doesn't have to disclose a fee the merchant imposes.

That matters at the counter. Pricing in US dollars doesn't promise a US customer a fee-free purchase from a Canadian business, because their bank can still treat the merchant as foreign. Tell customers which currency they'll be charged in, and leave the fee question to their bank.

How to reduce fees for cross-border payments

You can't negotiate the network's share. What you can do is stop paying more than that share, and stop paying for conversions you don't need. Here's where we'd start:

1. Get network fees passed through at cost. On interchange-plus pricing, the networks' cross-border fees sit on their own lines at the network's price. Washington State's Attorney General explains that under interchange-plus, the provider passes through what it's charged and adds a flat-fee markup (Washington State Attorney General). Our pricing page explains how ours works.
2. Challenge any processor charge for foreign cards. It's a markup, and markups are negotiable.
3. Price and get paid in your own currency, unless you've checked that selling in the customer's currency brings in more than the conversion costs.
4. Show your country and currency before checkout. A customer who knew the purchase was foreign is less likely to be caught off guard by their bank's fee.
5. Set fraud rules with foreign cards in mind. Our guide to the address verification service explains what to do when an issuer can't check an address, and our 3D Secure guide covers the issuer check for online orders.
6. Judge dynamic currency conversion as a decision of its own, with its own rules and dispute risks, rather than as a fix for these fees.
7. Compare quotes on your real card mix. A headline rate says little about how a processor prices foreign cards, so ask each one to price an actual month of your sales.

If you sell online with us, AVS, CVV checks and velocity rules come built into the fraud screening on Clearo's online payments.

When is it not worth chasing?

When foreign cards are a sliver of your sales. Say 2% of a $20,000 month comes from foreign cards: that's $400 of volume, and even a made-up 1% processor charge on it comes to $4. Spend the hour on your domestic interchange instead; our guide to interchange optimization shows where that money usually goes.

Accounting for cross-border payment fees

Treat them as processing costs, next to interchange and network fees, but give them an expense account of their own so you can see what foreign cards cost you. Your merchant statement is the source document, and the bank feed is the check.

1. Record card sales at the gross amount on the statement, not the net deposit. The IRS says the gross figure on Form 1099-K doesn't include adjustments for fees, credits or refunds, so your books need fees as a separate line to tie back to it.
2. Record the month's fees from the statement as expenses, with the foreign interchange categories, cross-border network fees and any processor charge for foreign cards in a sub-account of their own.
3. Reconcile. Gross sales, minus refunds, chargebacks and fees, should equal the month's card deposits, apart from timing at each end. The payment reconciliation guide walks through the matching line by line.
4. If a deposit or fee arrives in another currency, book it in your home currency with one method your accountant picks, and use it every time. Exchange gains and losses are theirs to classify.
5. Keep every statement with your tax records.

How the fees are treated for tax is your accountant's decision. The IRS describes deductible business expenses as ordinary and necessary, and the CRA lets a business deduct any reasonable current expense it incurs to earn income. For both countries' rules in more depth, see are credit card processing fees tax deductible.

Merchants in Canada start with better paperwork. Under Canada's Code of Conduct for the Payment Card Industry, a merchant must be able to see, at least once a month, the rate and total charged for interchange, for network assessment fees and for everything else, along with an effective rate for each card type (FCAC). Mastercard also posts its Canadian network assessment fees in a public document. The edition we found is dated July 1, 2025, so look for a newer one before you compare.

Where to start with your own statement

Find last month's statement, look for anything labeled international, interregional or cross-border, and work out what share of your card sales came from foreign cards. If the statement won't let you separate them, you've already learned something about your pricing. Send it to us for a free statement review: we'll pull out your foreign-card volume, mark which lines are network costs and which are markup, and price the same month on interchange-plus. Questions about one line? Contact us and a rep will go through it with you.