Cheapest Commissions for Foreign-Currency Purchases: Visa, Amex, PayPal, and the Real Winners

"Is Amex's exchange rate better than Visa's or PayPal's?" is a natural question, but it's slightly the wrong one. The exchange rate itself — the raw number Visa, Mastercard, or Amex uses to convert one currency to another — barely differs between them and sits close to the real market rate. What actually decides your final cost is a second, separate charge stacked on top: your card issuer's own foreign-currency fee, or the platform's conversion markup. This guide verifies the real numbers for each option, including the two that usually beat Visa, Amex, and PayPal entirely.

Two separate costs, easy to confuse as one

Card networks like Visa and Mastercard publish a daily exchange rate that tracks the real market rate closely: Visa runs about 0.30% above the mid-market rate on average, and Mastercard about 0.21% above, according to Nomad Gate's analysis. That's a small, structural difference, and it's roughly the same whoever's card you're using on that network.

The much bigger variable is layered on top of that: your card issuer's own foreign-transaction fee, set by your bank, not by Visa or Mastercard. As the same analysis puts it, this issuer fee is often a flat rate — around 2.5% across most major banks in the market studied — regardless of whether the card is Visa or Mastercard. That's the detail that reframes the original question: "Visa vs. Amex" isn't really a network comparison at all. It's a comparison of whichever specific card's issuer fee you're holding.

Amex, verified: 2.90%

American Express Spain's own published fee schedule is explicit: a 2.90% currency conversion commission on the charged amount, applied to any transaction processed in a currency other than the euro, on both credit and charge cards, according to American Express's official fees page. That's a clear, disclosed number — and it sits right in the same range as an ordinary Spanish bank card's fee. Spain's traditional banks (Santander, BBVA, ING, CaixaBank, Sabadell) typically charge 2-3% on foreign purchases and 3-5% on foreign ATM withdrawals, with BBVA specifically charging 3% on non-eurozone purchases, according to roams.es and kelisto.es. Several major Spanish banks (BBVA, Sabadell, CaixaBank, Santander, and others) charge as much as 5% on cash withdrawals outside the eurozone specifically.

So the honest answer to "is Amex better than Visa": it depends entirely on which specific card you're comparing it to, not on the network name. Amex's 2.90% beats several traditional Spanish bank cards' worst cases (5% on foreign withdrawals) but is roughly in line with — or slightly better than — their typical purchase fee. Neither is remotely close to the genuinely cheap options covered further down.

PayPal, verified: worse than most guides say

PayPal's currency conversion markup runs 3.5% above the mid-market rate as standard, rising to 4% or more for less commonly traded currency pairs, according to Curve's analysis of PayPal's disclosed rates. What often gets missed: that markup is separate from PayPal's own cross-border transaction fee, which can add another 1.5% on top for many international payments — meaning a single PayPal international purchase can easily carry 5% or more in combined costs once both charges stack, per the same source. This is a materially worse picture than "PayPal is usually worst" alone suggests — it's not just a worse rate, it's a worse rate plus a separate fee most people don't realize is being charged simultaneously.

The one lever you do have: when PayPal offers a choice at checkout, choose to be charged in the seller's currency, not euros, and let your card issuer handle the conversion instead of PayPal. That single choice avoids PayPal's markup — though your card's own issuer fee (see above) still applies.

The Dynamic Currency Conversion trap — the same mistake, any card

There's a third cost that has nothing to do with which card or platform you use, and everything to do with one choice at the point of payment. Whenever a foreign card terminal or an international website asks "pay in euros or [local currency]?", choosing your home currency triggers Dynamic Currency Conversion (DCC): the merchant's bank sets the exchange rate at that point, not Visa, Mastercard, or your own issuer — and that rate typically carries a 3-8% markup over the real rate, according to Euromoney Exchange and TripCabinet's guide to the DCC trap. It's often framed as a convenience ("see the total in your currency now!"), which is exactly what makes it easy to accept without noticing. The rule, verified across every source above: always choose to pay in the local or seller's currency, never your home currency, whenever a terminal or checkout gives you the option — this applies identically to a card swipe abroad, an ATM withdrawal, and PayPal's own currency selector.

The real winners: what actually beats Visa, Amex, and PayPal

This is the part most comparisons of "Visa vs. Amex vs. PayPal" skip entirely, and it's the most actionable answer to "what's cheapest": a small set of neobanks structurally beat all three.

• N26 applies no foreign-currency markup at all on card purchases, in any currency, on any day of the week — the only cost is a 1.7% fee on cash withdrawals outside the eurozone, according to roams.es.
• Revolut uses the interbank rate on weekdays, which is highly competitive, but adds a 1% markup on weekends; ATM withdrawals cost 2% (minimum €1) once you exceed the free monthly allowance on standard plans, per the same source.
• Wise applies the real mid-market rate with a small, transparent, published fee that varies by currency pair — widely regarded as the most transparent option available, according to Comiviajeros's comparison.
• Bnext, once a common recommendation in this space, changed its conditions and is no longer considered competitive for this purpose, per the same comparison — a useful reminder to re-check current terms rather than relying on older advice, including this article's own figures over time.

Direct answer: converting USD to EUR

Putting the verified numbers side by side, from cheapest to most expensive for a purchase priced in US dollars and settled in euros:

On a $1,000 purchase, that spread is the difference between paying roughly what €1,000-worth-of-dollars is actually worth at N26 or Wise, and paying somewhere between 3% and 8% more — €30 to €80 — for exactly the same purchase, depending purely on which payment method you picked. Small percentages like these are exactly the kind of recurring cost that our opportunity cost guide covers: a few percent here and there feels trivial in any single transaction, but adds up meaningfully across a year of foreign purchases or a habit of international online shopping.

A real example

A concrete data point from an actual purchase, on 30 July 2026: a $476 charge came out to €436 via PayPal and €416 via Visa — the exact same purchase, two different final prices. That day's mid-market EUR/USD rate was around 1.1525-1.1531 (1 EUR ≈ that many USD), according to TradingEconomics and ExchangeRates.org.uk, which puts the real mid-market value of $476 at roughly €412.80-413.00.

Against that benchmark: Visa's €416 was about 0.7% above the mid-market rate — a bit more than the network's own ~0.2-0.3% spread alone would suggest, which is normal given intraday rate movement and the fact that "mid-market rate" itself varies slightly by source and exact timestamp. PayPal's €436 was about 5.6% above mid-market — landing right in the combined markup-plus-fee range this article cites above — and 4.8% more expensive than Visa (€20) for the identical purchase. That real-world gap lines up closely with the sourced ranges throughout this guide, not just the illustrative averages.

Quick answers

So is Amex's exchange rate better than Visa's or PayPal's? Amex's underlying network rate is comparable to Visa's — both are close to the mid-market rate. What actually differs is the fee stacked on top: Amex Spain discloses 2.90%, which beats PayPal's combined 3.5-5%+ but is roughly in line with a typical Spanish bank card, and clearly loses to a fee-free neobank card.

Is it ever worth paying PayPal's conversion instead of my card's? Rarely, based on the numbers above — the only scenario is if your specific card's own issuer fee is even higher than PayPal's combined cost, which would be unusual given most standard cards sit in the 2-3% range. Checking your own card's disclosed foreign-transaction fee before assuming either option is cheap is the actual comparison that matters.

Does any of this matter for a single small purchase? Marginally less for one purchase, but the same percentage applies every time — anyone who travels internationally often, shops on foreign websites regularly, or holds savings for a trip is effectively choosing this fee structure repeatedly, which is exactly when a 3-8% difference stops being trivial.

This article offers general, educational information about foreign-currency transaction costs and does not constitute financial advice. Fees, exchange-rate spreads, and provider terms cited reflect published information at the time of writing and can change — verify current fees directly with your card issuer or payment provider before relying on any figure here.