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When a card terminal abroad offers to bill you in your home currency, it's almost always a bad deal. Learn how DCC works, why merchants push it, and how to politely refuse.
Dynamic Currency Conversion (DCC) is an option offered at card terminals and ATMs abroad β and on many online checkouts β that lets you 'see the price in your home currency' instead of the local one. The merchant or terminal operator performs the conversion themselves and applies a markup, usually 5β12% above the interbank rate. Your card network (Visa/Mastercard) is bypassed for the conversion step.
DCC is profitable for the merchant and the terminal provider β they split the markup. That is why staff are sometimes trained to default to DCC, why the 'pay in your home currency' button is often larger and brighter, and why the local-currency option may be hidden under a smaller link. The legal requirement (in the EU, UK, and many other jurisdictions) is that DCC must be optional and clearly disclosed; in practice the disclosure is often weak.
Visa and Mastercard convert at their daily wholesale rate, which sits within 0.2β0.5% of the mid-market rate. Even a card that charges a 3% foreign transaction fee will normally beat a DCC quote of 7β10%. The only edge case where DCC might match is if your card has a very high FX surcharge (4%+) and the DCC markup is unusually small (rare).
When the terminal shows two prices, pick the one in the local currency (EUR, JPY, THB, etc.). At an ATM, choose 'continue without conversion' or 'decline conversion' when prompted. For online purchases, look for a currency switcher near checkout and set it to the merchant's local currency before paying. If a staff member presses you, politely insist on 'local currency, please' β they are required to honor it.
Look for credit and debit cards advertised as having 'no foreign transaction fee.' In the US: Capital One, Charles Schwab debit, and several travel rewards cards. In the UK: Chase, Starling, Revolut, and Wise debit. In the EU: N26, Revolut, and Wise. Multi-currency accounts like Wise also let you hold a balance in the local currency and spend at the interbank rate with no markup.
Use our live converter with real-time rates and historical charts.