The 9 Best Credit Cards With No Foreign Transaction Fees 2022

The Chase Sapphire Preferred credit card offers a whopping 5x points on travel purchased through Chase Ultimate Rewards. You then get 2x points on all other travel purchases, 3x points on online grocery purchases, dining purchases, and streaming services, and 1x points on all other purchases. Plus, for a limited time, you’ll get 5x points on Lyft (until March 31, 2025). 

When you’re ready to cash in your points, you can log on to the Chase Ultimate Rewards portal or transfer your points at a 1:1 ratio to any of Chase’s 11 airline partners or 3 hotel partners. However, you’ll get more value booking travel on the Chase Ultimate Rewards website because your points are worth 25% more when you book through Chase. 

This 25% value addition also amplifies your sign up bonus. When you sign up, you’ll receive 60,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 in the first three months. With the 25% increase, these points are worth approximately $750 when redeemed for travel purchased through Chase Ultimate Rewards. 

Chase also rewards you for booking hotels through their website with their annual hotel credit. You can receive up to $50 in statement credits each year if you purchase hotels through Ultimate Rewards. 

As if all that wasn’t enough, to top it off you’ll get 10% of your total points back each anniversary as a reward for keeping your credit card account open. 

The Chase Sapphire Preferred card of course has no foreign transaction fee for international purchases, but it doesn’t offer any Global Entry reimbursement or airport lounge access which is a bummer. 

However, you do get Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver, Trip Cancellation/Trip Interruption Insurance, travel and emergency assistance services, extended warranty protection, and purchase protection–some nice perks if you’re using this card for an oversea adventure but you want to keep it from becoming too adventurous. 

The Capital One Venture X credit card claims to be an elevated rewards card and, for the most part, it delivers. 

First off, you get 75,000 bonus miles when you spend $4,000 on purchases within the first 3 months of the account opening. 

This large sign up bonus isn’t the end of Capital One’s bonus points, with 10,000 points each account anniversary year. Plus, they’ll reimburse up to $300 in travel when booked through Capital One Travel. 

When booking travel, you can feel secure you’re always getting Capital One’s best prices with their free price drop protection and free 24 hour price match. 

These perks start to make the hefty $395 annual fee feel much more manageable. 

When it comes to earning points, you’ll get 10x points for hotels and rental cars booked through Capital One Travel and 5x points for flights when they are also booked through Capital One Travel. All other purchases get 2x points for every dollar spent. 

You also get access to the Capital One Lounges and their partner lounge network. You can get you and 2 guests into the lounge each visit. While the partner lounge network is pretty vast, there is only one actual Capital One Lounge located in Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, with two being built in the Denver and Dulles airports. 

Capital One adds TSA Precheck or Global Entry reimbursement to their no foreign transaction fees and travel perks. You also get peace of mind with cell phone protection, primary auto insurance, and travel accident insurance. 

In many ways, the American Express Gold Card is an international foodie’s dream. With the combination of no foreign transaction fees and 4x points for restaurants worldwide, this card rewards you for sampling the newest international cuisine.

You also receive 4x points on US supermarket purchases (up to $25,000 annually), 3x points on flights booked with airlines or at amextravel.com, and 1x points on all other purchases.

American Express Gold Card also offers a $120 dining credit. Basically, you earn $10 in statement credit monthly when you use your card to pay at select restaurants. Enrollment is required, but it’s like free food money.

Speaking of free money, the Gold Card also offers $120 Uber cash credit. All you have to do is add the card to your Uber account and you’ll get $10 of Uber Cash each month to spend on Uber eats or Uber rides in the US.

You also can get 60,000 membership rewards points in a sign up bonus after you spend $4,000 in the first 6 months.

These points can be transferred to American Express’ 17 airline partners and 3 hotel partners. Most of the transfers are 1:1, but know that you will be charged $0.00006 per point with a maximum fee of $99 when you send them to US airlines.

While these perks are great, the annual fee is higher than most other similar credit cards. If you’re raking in points, it can still definitely be worth it, but it’s worth checking that you’ll be spending enough in those categories.

The Discover it Cashback card offers 5% cash back on rotating bonus categories that change quarterly. You have to activate these categories because you aren’t signed up for the bonus automatically, but we think the 5% return makes a little work worth it. 

The rotating categories are:

• January through March – 5% back on grocery stores (excluding Walmart, Target, and warehouse stores) and fitness clubs or gym memberships
• April through June – 5% on gas stations and Target
• July through September –  5% on restaurants and Paypal
• October through December – 5% on Amazon.com and digital wallet purchases  

You have to log onto your account to activate the bonus category each quarter. Also, each category has a $1,500 maximum rewards return. All other purchases receive 1%.

While getting your extra 5% cash back bonus category is a little complicated, getting your rewards into your pocket couldn’t be easier. With Discover, your cash rewards can be deposited directly to your bank account, applied as a statement credit, or sent to Amazon.com or Paypal. 

As icing on the cake, you’ll also get Discover’s Unlimited Cashback Match where they’ll give you a dollar-for-dollar match of your cashback earned automatically at the end of your first year. 

While there are no specific travel rewards with this card (Discover does have a travel specific card, but the reward rate of this card is better), it does have awesome customer service that’s available to help you 24/7. 

One of people’s main concerns with Discover is that it’s not as widely accepted. Within the US, this is no longer true with Discover being accepted 99% of the time. Outside of the US, however, Discover’s coverage is more limited in Africa, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe, which is why we couldn’t give it 5 stars. 

The Capital One QuickSilver Cash Rewards card is a no fuss credit card that offers a decent return on all purchases. This simplicity does cost you a little in reward returns, but you can get 5% back on hotels and rental cars booked through Capital One Travel.

We love the low intro APR with 0% for 15 months on purchases and balance transfers, then 17.99% to 27.99 % after that. Plus, they also currently offer a $200 cash bonus if you spend $500 on purchases in the first three months.

Because Mastercard is the credit card issuer, the Capital One QuickSilver is accepted pretty widely internationally, so the no foreign transaction fees will come in handy.

Besides that, they offer $0 fraud liability, 24 hour travel assistance services, extended warranty, and travel accident insurance.

It might not be the way to earn rewards quickly, but the Capital One QuickSilver is a good option for simple earning and easy foreign spending.

The United Explorer Card offers 2 miles for every dollar spent at United Airlines, restaurants, and hotels. All other purchases earn you 1 mile per dollar.

You can also currently earn 50,000 miles in a sign up bonus when you spend $3,000 in the first 3 months. Plus, you can claim a $0 introductory rate for the annual fee, making the card an easy financial decision.

While traveling with the United Explorer Card, you get no forieign transaction fees, priority boarding, and a free checked bag for you and a friend.

You can also get a $100 TSA PreCheck, Global Entry, or NEXUS fee credit and two one-time passes to the United Club airport lounge. It’s not a yearly membership, but for the annual fee, it’s a nice perk.

As you earn points, you can achieve United’s Premier Status which gives you preferred seating, upgrades, waived fees and access to Saver Award flights–flights offered at a lower miles rate.

One of the biggest draws to the Ink Business Preferred card is the huge sign up bonus. You’re rewarded 100,000 bonus points after you spend $15,000 on purchases in the first 3 months of opening your account. That’s about $1,000 in cash or $1,250 in travel points on Chase Ultimate Rewards. 

Off the bat, that’s a great start for a business card. 

You can also earn points on your business spending, earning 3 points for every dollar spent (up to $150,000 each year) on common business expense like:

• Shipping
• Advertising purchases with social media sites and search engines
• Internet, cable, phone purchases
• Business travel

Everything else earns 1 point per dollar, but these common business spending returns will probably more than compensate for the $95 annual fee.

Like other cards offered by Chase, you get 25% more value with your points when you redeem them for travel through Chase Ultimate Rewards or you can transfer them to Chase’s airline or hotel partners on a 1:1 basis. 

Other business perks with the Ink Business Preferred card include free employee cards, 24/7 access to quarterly reports, fraud protection, trip cancellation insurance, and more. We especially like the cell phone protection plan which will give you up to $1,000 per claim for you and any of your employees listed on your bill. 

If you’re looking at this list and worried that you won’t qualify for any of the cards above, the Petal 1 “No Annual Fee” Visa Credit Card might be the right choice for you. It’s an unsecured card that offers no annual fee and no foreign transaction fees.

With this card, credit limits start around $300 but can go as high as $5,000. You can qualify for a credit increase each 6 months by making qualifying on-time payments and keeping your credit score within a specific, personalized range. Many “bad credit” cards have much lower credit limits, so we love the possibility of such a high limit.

As expected, this card has a high APR that can really hurt you if you carry a balance. However, many similar credit cards charge an annual fee, so the fact that this one doesn’t and you can still receive cashback at select merchants is a nice feature.