Non-euro card fees: what Belgian banks charge

Paying €150 in dollars with your debit card costs €2.75 at Belfius and €4.70 at Keytrade. Withdrawing the same amount at a cash machine costs up to €10.54 at ING. I went through the fee documents of seven banks on 29 September 2026 to put these charges on one and the same spending pattern.

Seven fee schedules, two cards, one transaction

Belgian banks do not publish their non-euro charges in a comparable format. Argenta writes "€0.60 + 2.00%", BNP Paribas Fortis "1.21% with a €0.60 minimum + 1.90%", KBC gives worked examples without a formula, and ING files its exchange margin under withdrawals. Nobody is cheating. But nobody makes comparison easy either.

The only way to line them up is to run the same transaction through each one. I used a €150 payment in a foreign currency and a €150 cash withdrawal, because KBC publishes exactly that amount among its examples and because it matches a tank of fuel in Norway or two nights in an Arizona motel. Each line is calculated from the bank's current fee document, and each bank carries the annual cost of the current account the card is issued on, because a cheap exchange rate on a €66-a-year account is not a bargain.

Calculated from: Belfius, rates and fees in force on 1 February 2026; KBC, worked examples on its "pay and withdraw abroad" page, consulted on 29 September 2026, and Basic Account at 1 January 2026; Argenta, fee list DW 26234 of 16 September 2026; BNP Paribas Fortis, schedule announced in April 2025 and Easy Go at 1 January 2025; Keytrade, fees published on 29 September 2026; ING, fee information documents Do Basic (1 January 2026) and Do More (1 July 2025); Revolut, Belgian branch schedule at 9 July 2026.

Three lines stand out. Belfius is the cheapest traditional bank for debit card payments, as long as you are outside the SEPA area, more on that below. Keytrade is the only one charging a withdrawal exactly like a payment, €4.70 in both cases, which makes it the cheapest at the cash machine. ING is the most expensive at the cash machine, debit and credit alike, and its fee information document does not detail the commission on a simple debit card payment in a foreign currency.

"Outside the euro area" does not mean the same thing at every bank

The table hides a geography trap.

Three boundaries coexist in Belgian fee documents, and they do not overlap. The euro area has twenty-one countries. The European Economic Area adds the EU members without the euro, plus Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein. The SEPA area goes further still and includes the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Monaco and a few micro-states. Each bank picks one of these boundaries to trigger its commission, while the exchange margin kicks in as soon as the currency is not the euro.

Belfius only charges its €0.50 per debit card payment outside the SEPA area. In London, Zurich or Copenhagen, a Belfius customer therefore pays only the 1.50% exchange margin, €2.25 on €150. BNP Paribas Fortis, by contrast, announced in April 2025 that its 1.21% commission applies to payments outside the European Economic Area, which the UK and Switzerland are not part of: the same €150 in pounds costs a BNP Paribas Fortis customer €4.67. Argenta, finally, reasons by currency: any payment in a currency other than the euro carries its €0.60 plus 2.00%, whether you are in Warsaw or Bangkok.

€150 payment converted, schedules cited above, checked on 29 September 2026.

A weekend in London and three weeks in California therefore cannot be compared with the same grid. The line to look for in your fee document is not just the percentage: it is the definition of the area it applies to, often tucked away in a footnote.

Why does ING charge twice as much as Belfius for currency conversion?

Because the exchange margin is a free price, and ING has set a high one on its debit card.

The exchange margin is the gap between the reference rate of the day and the rate the bank applies to you. It never appears as a fee line on your statement: it is built into the rate, which explains why one Belgian in five does not know that paying outside the euro area costs anything, according to a Wise survey of 1,000 respondents published by Business AM on 22 May 2024. In the schedules checked, it ranges from 1.40% at Keytrade to 3.90% on the ING debit card, via 1.50% at Belfius, 1.60% on KBC credit cards, 1.90% at BNP Paribas Fortis and 2.00% on the Argenta debit card.

On a €150 withdrawal, the ING margin alone comes to €5.85, more than the entire withdrawal at Keytrade, flat fee included.

EU law regulates how transparent this margin must be, not how high it may be. Regulation (EU) 2021/1230, which codifies the rules introduced in 2019, requires banks to express their conversion charges as a percentage mark-up over the latest European Central Bank reference rate. For a payment in an EU currency such as the Danish krone or the forint, the bank must also send the cardholder an electronic message showing that mark-up. For a payment in dollars, Swiss francs or baht, no message is owed: you have to read your statement.

The withdrawal flat fee outweighs the percentage

At the cash machine, the maths changes. Every bank adds a flat fee to its margin, from €2.00 at Keytrade to €6.00 at Argenta, and that fee crushes small withdrawals: taking out €50 with the Argenta debit card costs €7.00, or 14% of the amount, whereas taking out €300 costs €12.00, or 4%.

The resulting habit is counter-intuitive for anyone watching a holiday budget. It is better to withdraw rarely and in larger amounts than often and in small ones, within what you are comfortable carrying. Two €150 withdrawals at Argenta cost €18.00; one €300 withdrawal, €12.00. Six euros saved for the same cash in your pocket.

A credit card does not rescue you at the cash machine. At Argenta and ING it carries the same €6.00 flat fee as the debit card, with a slightly lower margin, and at Belfius both cards end up at exactly the same price: €5.00 plus 1% plus the 1.50% margin. Only KBC does noticeably better on credit than on debit for a €150 withdrawal (€7.40 against €8.05), and the gap widens beyond €500, where KBC charges €13.00 on credit against €19.05 on debit, a point its own worked examples show without comment.

One detail specific to Belgian debit cards: they are blocked outside Europe by default. Belfius lets you unblock them for three months in its app, longer at a branch; the other banks offer the same option in their apps. At the first cash machine in Bangkok, a card that has not been unblocked costs nothing, it simply does not dispense any money.

Two weeks in the United States: €7 to €62 in fees depending on the card

Fee grids only really speak once applied to a trip. I took a typical two-week stay: ten payments of €150 (hotels, restaurants, fuel), €1,500 of spending, and two €150 cash withdrawals, €1,800 in total. On that basis, the cheapest debit card among traditional banks is Belfius at €45.00 in fees, followed by KBC at €51.20, Argenta at €54.00, Keytrade at €56.40 and BNP Paribas Fortis at €62.35, which means 3.5% of the trip budget gone in commissions and margin. On the credit card side, the Keytrade Visa clearly beats all the others at €30.40, ahead of KBC (€38.80), Belfius (€40.00), Argenta (€40.80) and ING (€51.00).

• Revolut Standard, on weekdays: about €7.00. The first €1,000 of currency exchange each month is free, the remaining €500 carries 1%, or €5.00; the first €200 of withdrawals each month is free, the remaining €100 carries 2%, or €2.00.
• Keytrade, Visa Classic: €30.40, i.e. €21.00 of margin on payments and €9.40 on withdrawals. The card is free from twelve transactions a year, €25 below that.
• Belfius, debit card: €45.00, because the United States is outside the SEPA area and triggers the €0.50 fee per payment.
• BNP Paribas Fortis, debit card: €62.35, of which €46.65 on payments alone.

The gap between the first and last lines is one to nine for exactly the same trip. Revolut still has two catches that its July 2026 schedule spells out: exchange carries a 1% mark-up at weekends, from Friday 11 pm to Monday midnight Belgian time, and the free allowance runs over a rolling month, not per trip. The account in detail, including the Lithuanian deposit guarantee that applies despite the Belgian IBAN, is covered in our article on Revolut in Belgium.

Pay in euros or in local currency at the terminal?

In local currency, almost always.

Outside the euro area, a payment terminal or cash machine will often offer to convert the amount into euros on the spot. The mechanism is called dynamic currency conversion, and it moves the conversion from your bank to the merchant or its provider, who sets its own rate. Wikifin, the financial education website of the FSMA (the Belgian financial markets regulator), puts it plainly: paying in local currency is generally cheaper than paying in euros.

Is there a Belgian bank card with no fees abroad?

Not at a traditional Belgian bank, going by the seven schedules checked. None makes a foreign-currency payment free, even on premium cards: at Keytrade, the 1.40% margin is identical on the Classic, Gold and Platinum, and at Belfius, premium Mastercards only include withdrawals up to €250 a month.

The only cards that are truly free outside the euro area are those of neobanks, and within precise limits: €1,000 of exchange a month and €200 of withdrawals at Revolut Standard, on weekdays. It is a monthly quota, which the neobank can revise.

Four lines to check before you leave

Your bank's fee information document contains everything, provided you know where to look. Our five-minute reading method works for this item too:

• the commission per payment in foreign currency, as a flat amount or a percentage, with any minimum;
• the exchange margin, expressed as a percentage above the reference rate, for the debit card and the credit card separately;
• the withdrawal flat fee at cash machines outside the euro area, which almost always comes on top of the margin;
• the area that triggers the commission: euro area, European Economic Area or SEPA area.

Your destination decides which card to use

This item stays marginal in an ordinary year. It becomes real as soon as you travel: €62 over two weeks is more than the annual cost of most Belgian current accounts checked here. To put these fees into the total cost of your bank, our ranking of Belgian banks shows the annual current-account cost bank by bank, and the comparison tool puts two offers side by side. The choice between the two cards themselves, annual fee included, is covered in debit card or credit card.

Sources

• Wikifin (FSMA), Debit and credit cards abroad (in French): types of fees outside the euro area, advice to pay in local currency, unblocking cards outside Europe. Updated 17 February 2025.
• EUR-Lex, Regulation (EU) 2021/1230 on cross-border payments in the Union: conversion charges expressed as a mark-up over the ECB rate, electronic message for EU currencies.
• Business AM, 1 Belgian in 5 does not know that payments outside the euro area cost money (in French): Wise survey of 1,000 Belgians. Published 22 May 2024.
• Test-Achats, BNP Paribas Fortis current account more expensive (in French): Easy Go pack at €24 a year from 1 January 2025. Published 25 November 2024.
• Belfius, Rates and fees in force on 01-02-2026 (in French): debit card payment outside SEPA at €0.50 (€2.00 on Beats Pulse), withdrawal at €5.00 + 1%, 1.50% exchange margin, Beats New at €3.90 a month without credit card.
• KBC, Pay and withdraw abroad (in French): worked examples at €25, €150 and €500, 1.60% margin on credit cards. Consulted 29 September 2026.
• Argenta, Fee list, document DW 26234 (in French): valid from 16 September 2026.
• ING, Do Basic fee information document (1 January 2026) and Do More (1 July 2025): foreign-currency withdrawal at €4.24 + 0.3025% with a 3.9% margin on debit, €6.00 + 1% with a 2% margin on credit.
• Keytrade Bank, Fees: foreign-currency payment and withdrawal at €2 + 0.40% + 1.40% exchange commission on debit, 1.40% on credit card payments. Consulted 29 September 2026.
• Guide-Epargne, BNP Paribas Fortis changes its card fees abroad (in French): 1.21% with a €0.60 minimum + 1.90% outside the EEA, withdrawal at €5 + 1.90%. Published 8 April 2025.