Which major US bank chains have the lowest ATM fees for foreign cardholders?
- By
- Aparna Patel
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- 7 Aug, 2023
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I have tried using my British (Nationwide BS) UK Debit card for cash withdrawal from ATMs located in Delaware. Target ATM charged me $6 for withdrawing $400, while WAWA/PNC was free (no charges) to withdraw $500 from my UK bank account. So there are some free ATMs specially ATMs located inside gas stations such as WAWA and probably some Exxons are way better than Target/supermarkets or any other banks in USA.
Most states do not allow ATMs to charge foreign cards a fee. California, where I live, is an exception, and the Citibank ATM has a list of states where the fee will be imposed. Either you are here or in one of the other such states.
Many 7-11s have an ATM with $2 or less fee. You might also see if your home bank has any sort of reciprocity arrangement.
I think what you’re actually want is to get money from foreign bank card without paying a fee, right?
I had the same problem – wanted to withdraw money from my foreign card in the US. At first I also thought that ATM is the only option, but there’s a way to do this for free, of course if your card’s bank does not charge some weird fees.
You just need to ask bank teller (a person) in any major bank office that you want to withdraw from your foreign bank card and get cash (or top up your US bank account). They will need your id for this. That’s it.
Presumably, they may ask you to use ATM if amount is too small.
I’m still looking for a more comprehensive answer, but I ended up withdrawing cash from a Chase ATM, which charged me a $3 fee.
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Unfortunately this depends on a combination of things. There 3-4 types of fees: You pay the owner of the ATM for using their services, you pay the issuer of your card for their services, you may also pay a foreign currency exchange or handling fee. There may also be some other middle-man (Visa, MC, etc.) involved.
Things tend to be the cheapest, if you use an ATM owner that has a partner agreement with the bank that issued the card that you are using. Bank of America, for example, partner with China Construction Bank in China, so when using a BoA card at CCB ATM, you may little or no fees.
So the short answer is: ask your Bank and make sure they tell you about any hidden and add-on fees as well.
Your list is a couple of years out of date, but as you can see the big banks tend to charge fees that are about the same. You could try searching ATM fees for those on the list with lowest costs back then to see if any are cheaper than the $5 to $6 now being charged.
You can check with your bank to see if they have any corresponding US banks with free ATM privileges.
Otherwise you just have to bite the bullet and absorb the fee. Perhaps taking out the maximum allowed so as to maximize cash versus fee.
But one has to ask, why are $5 ATM fees ridiculous? Some countries, like Thailand now charge closer to US$7 for using a foreign card in an ATM. Someone has to pay for the services you are getting, someone has to buy and repair the ATM, someone has to hire security guards to go stock the ATM, someone has to pay Visa, MasterCard etc for the network the machine uses.
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