Forex Markup Calculator

The forex markup is a percentage your card issuer adds to every foreign-currency transaction, and some countries tax it: India charges 18% GST on the markup and the UAE 5% VAT. Total charged = converted amount + markup + tax on the markup. A USD 100 bill at 96.42 on a card with a 3.5% markup costs ₹10,040.21 in India, which is 4.13% above the converted amount, not the 3.5% on the card’s fee schedule.

Quick reference

Forex markup by credit card

Cards are sorted by effective cost: the markup plus any tax charged on it, as a percentage of the converted amount. Each rate links to the issuer's own page and shows when we last checked it.

What does forex markup actually mean?

When you pay a foreign merchant in their currency, three things happen. The card network (Visa, Mastercard, American Express, RuPay or Diners Club) converts the amount into your card’s currency at its own daily rate. Your issuer then adds its markup, a flat percentage of that converted amount. Finally, where the law requires it, tax is charged on the markup, not on the purchase itself.

Indian card terms call this the “foreign currency transaction fee” or “forex markup”. In the US the same charge is the foreign transaction fee, and UK issuers often call it a non-sterling transaction fee. The name changes; the arithmetic does not.

What makes the published figure misleading is the tax. An Indian card advertised at 3.5% really costs 4.13%, because 18% GST on 3.5 points adds 0.63 points. A 1.99% card costs 2.35%. In the UAE the tax is smaller (5% VAT, so a 3.05% fee becomes about 3.20%), but there is a second wrinkle: many UAE banks quote their own fee separately from a card-network fee of around 1.15% that they pass through. The cards in this calculator record the UAE cost all-in, the bank’s fee before VAT plus the network fee the bank states, and the calculator applies the VAT on top.

The rate the calculator pre-fills is a reference rate, not the rate your card will use. Visa and Mastercard each publish their own conversion rate, which usually sits within a fraction of a percent of mid-market, so your statement may differ slightly. Replace the rate with the one on your statement and the totals will match it.

How do I calculate the forex markup on my card?

1. Choose the country your card was issued in. This sets the home currency and the tax on the markup.
2. Pick your card. Its researched markup fills in, along with a link to the issuer’s terms and the date the figure was checked.
3. Enter the bill amount and the currency you were charged in.
4. Check the exchange rate. Keep the reference rate for an estimate, or type the rate from your statement for an exact figure.
5. Read the converted amount, the markup, the tax on it and the total, then look at the ranked table to see what every other card from that country would have charged.

If your card is not listed, pick any card and overwrite the markup; the result is labelled as a custom markup. You can also edit the GST or VAT rate.

Worked example: SBI Cashback card, USD 100 bill. SBI Card charges a 3.5% foreign currency transaction fee on the Cashback card, and GST is 18%.

The fee and its tax come to ₹398.21, which is 4.13% of the converted amount. Put the same USD 100 on a zero-markup card and the total is the converted ₹9,642.00, so the SBI card costs about ₹398 more per hundred dollars spent. On a ₹2 lakh foreign trip that gap is roughly ₹8,260.

Which credit cards have zero forex markup?

These cards charge no forex markup on foreign-currency purchases, and with no fee there is no GST or VAT on it either:

• India: AU Small Finance Bank ixigo AU Credit Card, Federal Bank Scapia Federal Credit Card, IDFC FIRST Bank FIRST WOW!, RBL Bank World Safari Credit Card
• United States: American Express Gold Card, American Express The Platinum Card, Capital One Venture X Rewards, Chase Sapphire Preferred
• United Kingdom: Barclaycard Rewards, Nationwide Building Society Member Credit Card, The NatWest Credit Card
• Singapore: Trust Bank Trust Freedom Credit Card, Trust Bank Trust Link Credit Card
• Australia: Commonwealth Bank Ultimate Credit Card, ING Australia Orange One Low Rate, Latitude Financial 28° Global Platinum Mastercard, NAB Rewards Travel Card

The UAE has none at 0% here, because its figures include the card network’s fee of about 1.15%, which applies even when the bank waives its own. A zero-markup card is not completely free abroad: you still convert at the card network’s rate, and ATM withdrawals and annual fees are separate. Each card’s source and the date we last checked it are in the tables above.

Variations: zero-markup cards, DCC and tax rules

Zero-markup cards. IDFC FIRST dropped the fee on all its credit cards from 9 September 2026, one of several Indian issuers now at 0% (the full list is in the section above). A 0% markup also means 0% tax on it, since there is nothing to tax. You still pay the network’s exchange rate, so a zero-markup total will sit close to, not exactly on, the reference-rate figure.

Dynamic currency conversion (DCC). Abroad, a card terminal or ATM may offer to charge you in rupees instead of the local currency. That is DCC: the merchant’s provider does the conversion, at a rate it sets, and the margin built into that rate is often larger than a card markup. Some issuers also apply their international fee to home-currency purchases processed by an overseas merchant: CBA and Westpac in Australia, for example, and SBI Card in India on rupee transactions of ₹1,000 or more. Check your card’s terms. Choose the local currency and let your card do the conversion; this calculator then tells you exactly what that costs.

GST and VAT specifics. India’s 18% GST and the UAE’s 5% VAT apply to the issuer’s fee, not to the purchase, so they scale with the markup. That is why the gap between a 3.5% card and a 0% card is 4.13 points in India but 3.5 points in Australia. In the UAE, the VAT is applied to the whole all-in figure; if part of it is a network fee that is not VAT-able, the calculator may overstate the cost by a few hundredths of a percent.

Bigger picture. A 4% fee on overseas spending is small next to what inflation does to a travel fund saved over years; the inflation calculator shows how much a trip budgeted today will cost later. If you are setting money aside monthly for a trip, the SIP calculator projects what a fixed monthly investment grows to, and the compound interest calculator does the same for a lump sum. To judge whether a premium card’s annual fee is paid back by its lower markup, treat the fee as the cost and the markup saved as the gain in the ROI calculator.

Common mistakes

• Comparing the advertised markup instead of the effective one. Symptom: your statement shows more than 3.5% on a 3.5% card. Fix: in India, multiply by 1.18 (or 1.05 in the UAE); the calculator’s “Effective” column does it for you.
• Using a search-engine rate to check your statement. Symptom: a difference of a few rupees you cannot explain. Fix: the network’s rate is not the mid-market rate; enter the rate on your statement.
• Accepting payment in your home currency abroad. Symptom: no markup line on the statement, but a total higher than expected. Fix: that is DCC; decline it next time.
• Assuming the markup covers ATM withdrawals. Symptom: extra charges after withdrawing cash abroad. Fix: cash withdrawals on credit cards carry cash-advance fees and interest on top of the markup; this calculator covers purchases only.
• Trusting an old fee schedule. Symptom: a card’s markup changed after a policy update. Fix: each card links to the issuer’s terms with the date it was last checked; confirm there before applying.

Privacy

Everything you type stays in your browser; the arithmetic runs on this page and nothing is saved or sent. The one request the calculator itself makes is for the reference exchange rate: it sends two currency codes to ExchangeRate-API, never your amount, card or markup, though like any web request it reveals your IP address to that provider. If that request fails or is blocked, type the rate from your statement and the calculator works exactly the same.