Crypto.com Changes Its Card Fees: From October 1 the Paid Tiers Pay a Foreign Transaction Fee Too
From October 1, 2026 the foreign transaction fee on the Crypto.com card also applies to Ruby, Jade and Indigo, and the inactivity fee rises from 5 to 6 euros a month. We checked nine card offers in the European Economic Area to see who discloses such fees at all.
Anyone using a Crypto.com card needs to prepare for two changed amounts on October 1, 2026. The fee for payments in a foreign currency will from that day also apply to the paid card tiers, and the fee for a card left idle rises from 5 to 6 euros per month. Both appear in the fee and limit overview the provider maintains for cardholders resident in Europe, and both carry an explicit date there.
The amount sounds small. But the change hits precisely those customers who already pay for their card. Anyone holding a Ruby Steel or a Royal Indigo today settles a payment in Swiss francs, British pounds or Swedish kronor without any surcharge. From October that will apply only up to a monthly allowance, after which a rate of 2.0 percent applies outside the EU and the United Kingdom.
This article places the change in context, works through it with examples and sets it against a survey of our own: on September 2, 2026 we checked the published fee pages of nine card offers to see whether they disclose an inactivity fee and how they settle foreign currency. This analysis was carried out by cryptoticker.io itself on September 2, 2026.
What changes on October 1, 2026 in the fees of the Crypto.com card
The provider's European fee overview carries two effective dates. The first concerns the foreign transaction fee and separates the period up to September 30, 2026 from the period starting October 1, 2026. The second concerns the inactivity fee and names a new amount for October 1, 2026.
Up to September 30, only the free entry-level Midnight card pays a foreign transaction fee: 0.2 percent within the EU and the United Kingdom, 2.0 percent outside. All higher tiers have so far settled foreign currency without a fee.
From October 1 that changes for the middle tiers. Ruby will then pay 2.0 percent outside the EU and the United Kingdom, though only above an allowance of 400 euros per month; within the EU and the United Kingdom the rate of 0.2 percent applies. The same tiering applies to Jade and Indigo with an allowance of 800 euros per month. According to the overview, the two top tiers remain free of any foreign transaction fee, and the entry-level card keeps its existing rule.
The inactivity fee today stands at 5 euros per month and falls due after twelve months without a payment initiated by the cardholder. From October 1 the overview names 6 euros for it. Declined and refunded payments explicitly do not count as activity.
Foreign transaction fee, inactivity fee and card tier: each term in a single sentence
A foreign transaction fee is a percentage surcharge the card issuer charges when a payment is settled in a currency other than the one in which the card account is held.
An inactivity fee is a recurring amount the issuer debits from a card account once no payment initiated by the holder has taken place over a defined period.
A card tier is a product variant of the same card programme that differs through a running fee or through a locked amount of the in-house token, and brings its own conditions with it at each level.
The new foreign transaction fee also hits Ruby, Jade and Indigo from October
The heart of the change lies in its extension. Until now the surcharge was a feature of the free card, and the monthly fee of the higher tiers bought it away. From October the middle tiers buy it away only in part, namely up to the level of their allowance.
The card tiers themselves cost the same as before according to the provider's product page: Midnight is free, Ruby Steel comes to 3.99 euros per month or 39.90 euros per year, Royal Indigo and Jade Green to 24.99 euros per month or 249.90 euros per year. Alternatively each tier can be reached by locking the in-house token CRO for twelve months, and the product page names 450 euros for Ruby Steel and 4,500 euros for Royal Indigo. The two top tiers can be reached only through such a lock-up, with 45,000 and 450,000 euros named.
For a user's own calculation this means the monthly fee stays and one benefit behind it gets smaller. Whether the tier still pays off depends from October on how much foreign currency is actually spent and where. Anyone using the card at home and in the euro area will notice little of the change, because no foreign currency is settled at all in that case. Anyone regularly paying in the United Kingdom, in Switzerland or outside Europe will notice it clearly.
An allowance of 400 and 800 euros: how the new tiering calculates
The two allowances are the decisive part of the rule, and they are easily missed. According to the overview they apply to the rate of 2.0 percent outside the EU and the United Kingdom, not to the rate of 0.2 percent within.
An example for a Ruby card: anyone spending 1,000 euros outside the EU and the United Kingdom in October has 400 euros free and pays 2.0 percent on the remaining 600 euros, which is 12 euros. With a Jade or Indigo card and its 800-euro allowance, 200 euros of the same 1,000 would remain, which comes to 4 euros.
Within the EU and the United Kingdom the amounts are smaller, but they start with the first payment. 0.2 percent on 500 euros in British pounds is one euro. That is bearable, and it is still an item that did not exist at these tiers before. Anyone wanting to know which cards are available in Germany at all and what conditions they carry will find the overview in our comparison of crypto credit cards.
Inactivity fee rises to 6 euros: when a card counts as inactive
The second change hits an entirely different group: cards nobody uses any more. After twelve months without financial activity initiated by the holder, the provider charges a fixed amount per month, today 5 euros, from October 6 euros.
The definition is narrower than it sounds. Activity means a payment the cardholder initiates themselves. Declined payments and refunds do not count according to the overview. So for a card whose last attempt failed on insufficient funds, the clock keeps running.
In practice this is the most expensive part of the change, because it accrues without anyone doing anything. Twelve months of doing nothing costs 72 euros a year from October, provided there is a balance from which the fee can be deducted. Anyone still holding an old card from a trial period in their account should therefore look today, and not wait until next autumn.
Our September 2 survey: what nine card offers disclose about inactivity
To judge whether an inactivity fee is common in the market, on September 2, 2026 we retrieved the publicly accessible fee and product pages of nine card offers aimed at users in the European Economic Area, and looked in each case for two disclosures: a fee for inactivity and the settlement of foreign currency. The pages checked were those of Crypto.com, Nexo, Bitpanda, Plutus, MetaMask, Gnosis Pay, Wirex, Bybit and Coinbase.
The result is clearer than we had expected. Of the nine offers checked, exactly one discloses an inactivity fee, and it is the one raising it on October 1. A second provider explicitly rules it out: the Nexo card page states that neither monthly nor annual nor inactivity fees apply to the card.
At three further offers we found no inactivity fee on the public pages, which is something different from an explicit no. The Bitpanda card page names no fixed monthly costs and puts a replacement card at 9.90 euros; the Plutus fee page lists card issuance, trading and withdrawal, with no inactivity item there; the MetaMask card page refers to a separate fee table for details, which could not be read on retrieval.
Three offers we could not document. The Wirex fee page answered with 404 under two paths checked, the help article on the Bybit card with 503 and the Coinbase card page with 403, that is with a defence against automated retrieval. For these three our analysis carries no value, and we have not taken one from secondary sources either. Two contradictory figures circulate on Wirex in reviews, which is why we leave the question open.
Nexo, Bitpanda and Plutus: how the competitors settle foreign currency
On foreign currency, one correspondence stands out that is hard to read as coincidence. The Nexo card page names 0.2 percent on weekdays for the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom and Switzerland, plus 2 percent for the rest of the world; at the weekend the rates rise to 0.7 and 2.5 percent. That is exactly the tiering into which Crypto.com is moving its middle card tiers on October 1, apart from the weekend surcharge.
Bitpanda takes the other route and advertises 0 percent foreign transaction fees on its German card page, while pointing out that surcharges from the card network remain possible. Plutus names no foreign transaction fee as such, but 2.5 percent for payments outside the home country and likewise 2.5 percent at ATMs. At MetaMask the wording is that conversion happens at the card network's rate without a surcharge of its own.
That leaves two models facing each other. One charges a small, visible percentage and names it. The other forgoes a surcharge of its own and points to the card network's rate, which need not be the interbank rate either. For a user's cost calculation the second case is the harder one, because the surcharge only becomes visible in the statement.
Why 0.2 percent within the EU is not the same as 0 percent
A small percentage looks harmless, and in many cases it is. It becomes interesting where a card is deliberately held for spending abroad. Anyone paying 6,000 euros a year in British pounds or Swiss francs arrives at 12 euros at 0.2 percent. That is less than three monthly fees of the Ruby tier and still an amount that did not arise before.
The larger item sits in the 2.0 percent outside the EU and the United Kingdom. A trip on which 2,000 euros are paid in US dollars costs a Ruby card 32 euros under the new tiering, because 400 euros stay free and 1,600 euros are charged at 2.0 percent. On the entry-level card, which carries no monthly fee, it would be 40 euros. The gap between the free and the paid tier thus shrinks to 8 euros, while the Ruby tier has cost three monthly fees over the same period.
This calculation does not replace a decision, it only makes one traceable. Anyone using their card almost entirely in euros changes nothing. Anyone paying outside Europe for two weeks a year should run the numbers once. The same mechanism turns up elsewhere in the chain, for instance in the withdrawal and network fees of a trading venue.
What the monthly fee of a card tier still carries after October 1
A card tier is a bundle. Alongside foreign currency settlement it includes, among other things, a monthly allowance for ATM withdrawals which according to the European overview lies between 200 and 1,000 euros depending on the tier; above that the provider charges 2 percent. Added to this is a cashback on payments that the provider advertises at up to 5 percent on the highest tiers.
What is missing from October is complete freedom from fees on foreign currency. For a tier costing 3.99 euros a month, that is just under 48 euros a year now set against a smaller benefit. Whether the bundle still carries is a calculation every user has to run with their own turnover. The provider's fee overview supplies all the figures needed for it, and it is the only binding place for them.
Crypto cards and German tax: every card payment is a disposal
With a card that sells cryptocurrency in the background, a second calculation joins the fees, and it is overlooked more often than any percentage. Anyone paying with such a card is selling cryptocurrency for euros at that moment. For tax purposes that is a disposal.
For private investors in Germany the framework of the private sale transaction under section 23 of the Income Tax Act applies. A gain remains tax-free if more than a year lies between acquisition and disposal. Within that year a gain is taxable, and an exemption threshold of 1,000 euros per calendar year applies to the total of all private sale transactions. Exemption threshold means: once it is exceeded, the entire gain is taxable and not merely the part above it.
The practical burden lies in the volume. A card used day to day produces dozens of small disposals a month, each with its own acquisition date and its own price. How this is to be handled in detail we have described at length in our article on the taxation of payments made with a crypto credit card. Anyone unwilling to keep these records by hand will hardly get around a tool; our comparison of crypto tax tools shows which providers can import card transactions at all.
This section describes the legal position and does not replace tax advice in an individual case.
What cardholders should check right now
The change calls for no haste, but for a decision by the end of September. Three questions lead to it.
The first question is: is the card still running at all? Anyone who has not used it for a while should look up the date of the last payment they initiated themselves. From twelve months without such a payment the inactivity fee starts to run, and from October it costs 6 euros a month instead of 5.
The second question is: in which currency is spending actually taking place? Anyone going through the past twelve months of statements and adding up the payments outside the euro area has the basis for the new calculation. Below a few hundred euros a month outside the EU and the United Kingdom, almost nothing changes.
The third question is: does the paid card tier still carry itself? Anyone paying for a tier whose most important benefit to them was fee-free foreign currency has a reason from October to reopen the calculation.
How to check your own card statement in five minutes
The route is short and needs no special knowledge. Open the card overview in the provider's app and look for the date of the last payment you initiated yourself. Note it down. Anything more than eleven months back is a case for a small payment that resets the counter, or for a decision about the card.
In the second step, export the transaction history of the past twelve months and sort it by currency. Add up what was not settled in euros, separating payments within the EU and the United Kingdom from those outside. Multiply the first sum by 0.002; from the second, subtract your monthly allowance and multiply the remainder by 0.02.
In the third step, set that figure against the annual fee of your card tier. The result is not a recommendation, it is a number. That number tells you whether the change stays a rounding error for you or becomes an item worth looking at.
How we surveyed and what we could not check
Method in one sentence: on September 2, 2026 we retrieved the publicly accessible fee, help and product pages of nine card offers for the European Economic Area, recorded every retrieval with its HTTP status code and looked for two disclosures per offer, the inactivity fee and the settlement of foreign currency.
Objects checked: nine card offers, six of them with a reachable page and three without a reliable response. Only disclosures appearing on the providers' own pages were evaluated.
Five points we could not check, and we name them one by one. First, the fees of Wirex, Bybit and Coinbase, whose pages answered with 404, 503 and 403. Second, the fee table of the MetaMask card, which could not be read on retrieval. Third, whether the classification «within the EU and the United Kingdom» depends on the currency of settlement or on the merchant's location; the overview sets out neither, and what governs in the end is the card contract. Fourth, whether the provider additionally notifies its customers of the change individually. Fifth, how many cardholders in Germany are affected at all, because no reliable public figure exists on that.
What we did not do: we have extrapolated no costs whose starting values we did not retrieve ourselves, estimated no user numbers and presented no figure from a review as a provider disclosure.
Frequently asked questions about the Crypto.com card fee change
From when does the new foreign transaction fee apply?
From October 1, 2026. Up to September 30 the existing rule applies, under which only the free entry-level card carries a foreign transaction fee.
Do I pay the fee on euro payments abroad as well?
By the logic of a foreign transaction fee, it arises when settlement takes place in a currency other than that of the card account. A payment settled in euros does not trigger it. The card contract is what binds.
How high is the inactivity fee exactly?
Today 5 euros per month, from October 1, 2026 6 euros per month, falling due after twelve months without a payment initiated by the cardholder.
Does a declined payment reset the counter?
No. The overview explicitly names declined and refunded payments as transactions that do not count.
Do I have to cancel my card now?
That is a calculation and not a rule. Anyone using the card regularly and rarely paying in foreign currency is barely affected by either change. Anyone leaving it idle pays more per month from October.
Checking your Crypto.com card: what to take away
- Look up the date of your last own payment. If it is more than eleven months back, decide by the end of September whether you keep the card or close it. Which alternatives exist in Germany is shown by our comparison of crypto credit cards.
- Add up your foreign currency turnover of the past twelve months. Separate the EU and the United Kingdom from the rest of the world and set the new tiering against the annual fee of your card tier. Anyone who has to document their turnover cleanly anyway will find the right tools in our comparison of crypto tax tools.
- Think through the tax side. Every card payment out of a crypto balance is a disposal and belongs in the records. Where you top up your balance and on what terms is decided at the trading venue; the selection is in our comparison of crypto exchanges.
The governing source for all amounts named is the provider's fee and limit overview for Europe, retrieved on September 2, 2026.
(As of September 2, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)
Transparency note: This article was produced with the assistance of artificial intelligence and reviewed by our editorial team before publication. All figures and claims were checked against the primary sources linked in the text. The feature image was generated with AI.
