Stripe International Card Fees Explained
If you have any international customers, you're paying more than 2.9% on their transactions — often significantly more. Here's exactly how Stripe's cross-border fees work and what you can do about them.
What is the Stripe international card fee?
When a customer pays with a card issued by a bank outside the US (or outside your Stripe account's country), Stripe charges an additional 1.5% cross-border fee on top of the standard processing rate.
This means a transaction that would normally cost 2.9% + $0.30 instead costs 4.4% + $0.30 — a 52% increase in percentage fees. The $0.30 fixed fee stays the same.
Example: $100 payment
What counts as an "international" card?
The fee applies when the card-issuing bank is in a different country than your Stripe account. For a US Stripe account:
- →A UK customer paying with a Barclays card → international fee applies
- →A US customer traveling abroad, paying with their Chase card → no fee (card is US-issued)
- →A Canadian customer paying with an RBC card → international fee applies
- →A US customer with a card issued by a foreign bank → international fee applies
The determining factor is where the card was issued, not where the customer is currently located or what currency they're paying in.
How to find international card charges in your data
In your Stripe Balance CSV export, international card transactions are identified by the text [international] appearing in the description field. For example:
To quantify the impact manually: filter your CSV for rows containing "[international]", sum the fee column for those rows, and compare to what the fee would have been at the domestic rate. The difference is your annual international card surcharge cost.
feeauditor.com does this automatically — it identifies international card anomalies, calculates the excess fee, and estimates your annual savings opportunity if you shifted those transactions to cheaper payment methods.
How much is this actually costing you?
It depends on what percentage of your customers are international. Some rough math:
Annual extra cost on $100k/year processing volume
At $500k/year volume, multiply by 5. At $1M/year, multiply by 10.
How to reduce international card fees
Offer local payment methods in Europe
SEPA Direct Debit costs 0.8% capped at €5 — there's no cross-border surcharge because it's a bank transfer, not a card. For European B2B customers paying recurring invoices, this can cut fees by 80%.
Use iDEAL for Netherlands customers
iDEAL is the dominant payment method in the Netherlands and costs a flat €0.29 per transaction regardless of size. For a €100 payment, that's 0.29% vs 4.4% with an international card.
Enable BECS Direct Debit for Australia
For Australian customers, BECS Direct Debit is 1.75% capped at $3.50 AUD — cheaper than international card processing for most transaction sizes.
Set up a local Stripe account
If you have significant volume in one country, setting up a separate Stripe account in that country eliminates the cross-border fee for those customers entirely. This adds operational complexity but can be worth it at scale.
See how much international cards cost you
Upload your Stripe Balance CSV to feeauditor.com and see exactly which transactions are international, how much extra you paid, and your estimated annual savings from switching to local payment methods.