Currency exchange cost calculator

How the currency exchange cost calculator works

An exchange rate markup is the gap between the mid-market rate and the rate you were actually given, kept by whoever converted your money. Pick a pair, enter what you're buying and what you were charged, and this splits the cost into the part stated as a fee and the part buried in the rate.

It isn't a live converter, deliberately. The reason is worth two paragraphs.

Why this measures cost, and does not quote a rate

The converters that rank for this subject are very good at rates and silent on what you pay. OANDA carries 212 currencies and history back to January 1990. XE stamps its rate to the minute.

XE also states the problem outright: it shows the mid-market rate, tells you that you won't receive it when sending money, and then asks you to log in to find out what you would receive. Wise's whole pitch is that banks mark up the rate, without publishing a figure for how much or any way to work it out.

So this page anchors on the European Central Bank reference rate, published once each working day at about 16:00 CET, and measures a real transaction against it. A dated official benchmark is the honest thing to compare against. A daily figure dressed up as a live quote would not be.

One consequence to state plainly: the ECB publishes everything against the euro, so USD to INR is a cross-rate, derived by dividing the rupee rate per euro by the dollar rate per euro. On the shipped file that's 110.1020 over 1.1435, giving 96.2851, which matched the live rate reported elsewhere the same day to four decimal places.

The fee you can see is the smaller one

Bill.com publishes an example worth walking through. Spend 500 euros abroad. The market rate is 0.90 euros per dollar, the card converts at 0.85, and a 2% foreign transaction fee is added.

The undisclosed part is 2.8 times the disclosed part. Only the $11.76 appears on a fee schedule.

Every ranked explainer describes this and none of them turns it into a calculator, which is the entire reason this page exists.

What the published markups actually are

Treat these as interested estimates. Every source below sells an alternative to banks, so they have a reason for the number to be large. They agree on the shape and disagree on the size, which is itself informative.

Worked figures the field publishes, all consistent with the same arithmetic: Bancoli puts an interbank USD/EUR of 0.9200 against a bank's 0.8924 and calls it 3%, costing $1,500 on a $50,000 payment. Airwallex uses 0.85 against 0.82 and gets $3,500 on $100,000.

A card fee is two fees

Foreign transaction fees run 1% to 3% overall, and the split matters more than the total. TD Bank puts the payment network's share at around 1% and the issuing bank's at typically 2%; Airwallex gives 1% and 1.5% to 2%. Those are the only two sources that break it out and they agree.

Only the issuer's share is negotiable. A card advertising no foreign transaction fee is dropping its own portion, not the network's.

The worst line in the data

Dynamic currency conversion, the offer at a foreign terminal to bill you in your home currency, carries a markup of 3% to 12% per LegalClarity. Several times a normal card conversion, presented as a convenience, at the moment you're least able to compare.

India stacks two more layers, and the bigger one is refundable

Sending money out of India adds costs no US-facing page mentions.

GST applies to the markup itself and not to the transaction, so an 18% charge lands on a few percent of the amount, not the whole of it.

Then there's tax collected at source. Under the Liberalised Remittance Scheme, from 1 April 2026:

The 10 lakh threshold counts every purpose together across a financial year, and the LRS cap is 250,000 US dollars a year. ClearTax, Wise and ICICI Bank all publish the same figures.

On an investment remittance, that 20% dwarfs any exchange rate markup. A 3% spread is a rounding error beside it.

And here's the part that gets lost: TCS is not a fee. It's adjustable against your final tax liability when you file, and refundable outright if you have none, evidenced through Form 27D or Form 26AS. The largest number this page will show you on an investment transfer is money you get back. No currency tool we fetched mentions TCS at all, let alone that it's recoverable.

Tax treatment depends on your own position, so a chartered accountant is the right check here, not this page.

What this calculator does not do

It won't quote a rate you can trade at, and it isn't a live converter. The anchor is yesterday's or today's ECB reference rate, dated on the page, withheld entirely if it falls more than three working days behind.

It won't tell you which provider to use or name any bank's markup. Those change, and verifying them per issuer is not something we can keep current. The markup is an input you take from your own statement, which is also the only figure that is true for you and not for an average.

Nor does it compute anyone's tax position. It applies the published TCS rates and says the amount is recoverable; what you can actually claim depends on the rest of your return.

Results are arithmetic on your inputs, not financial advice. For decisions about your money, speak to a licensed financial adviser, and for the India tax layer, a CA. To see what inflation does to a sum over time, the inflation calculator covers that, and the ROI calculator handles gains net of costs.

The most useful thing here isn't the total. It's the split: once you can see that the rate took nearly three times what the fee did, the fee stops being the number worth shopping on.

Frequently asked questions

What is an exchange rate markup? An exchange rate markup is the gap between the mid-market rate and the rate you are actually given, kept by whoever converted the money. It never appears on a fee schedule because it is built into the rate itself. Published estimates put bank markups at 1 to 5 percent on major currencies and 7 to 10 percent on less traded ones per LegalClarity, around 2.5 to 3 percent per Koho, and above 4 percent on some pairs per Airwallex.

Why is the hidden cost usually bigger than the fee? Because the fee is a stated percentage and the markup is a worse rate applied to the whole amount. On a 500 euro purchase at a 0.90 market rate converted at 0.85 with a 2 percent fee, the card charges 600.00 dollars against 555.56 at the reference rate. Of that 44.44 of cost, 32.68 comes from the rate and 11.76 from the fee, so the part you cannot see is 2.8 times the part you can.

What rate does this use and is it live? It uses the European Central Bank euro reference rate, published once each working day at about 16:00 CET, and it is deliberately not a live quote. That makes it a benchmark to measure a real transaction against, and not a price you can trade at. Live converters like XE and OANDA update far more often, and XE itself states you will not receive the rate it displays when sending money.

Why is USD to INR called a cross-rate? Because the ECB publishes every rate against the euro and none directly against the dollar. USD to INR is derived by dividing the rupee rate per euro by the dollar rate per euro. On the shipped file that gives 110.1020 divided by 1.1435, or 96.2851, which matched the live rate reported elsewhere the same day to four decimals.

What is the difference between the network fee and the issuer fee? A card foreign transaction fee is two fees stacked. The payment network takes around 1 percent and the bank that issued the card adds roughly 2 percent, per TD Bank and Airwallex, which are the two sources that break it out. Only the issuer portion is negotiable, which is why cards advertised as having no foreign transaction fee are dropping their own share and leaving the network one in place.

What is TCS on foreign remittance from India? TCS is tax collected at source on outward remittance under the Liberalised Remittance Scheme. From 1 April 2026 the threshold is 10 lakh rupees cumulative across all purposes in a financial year, with 20 percent above it on investments, gifts and property, 2 percent on self-funded education or medical remittance, 2 percent flat on overseas tour packages, and nil on education funded by a Section 80E loan. The LRS annual cap is 250,000 US dollars.

Is TCS an actual cost? No, and this is the part most easily misread. TCS is adjustable against your final tax liability when you file a return and refundable outright if you have no liability, evidenced through Form 27D or Form 26AS per ClearTax. It is the largest number this page will show on an investment remittance and it is money you get back, unlike the markup beside it. A chartered accountant is the right check on your own position.

What is dynamic currency conversion and why does it matter? Dynamic currency conversion is the offer at a foreign terminal to bill you in your home currency instead of the local one. The markup applied runs 3 to 12 percent per LegalClarity, which is several times a normal card conversion, and it is presented as a convenience at the moment of payment. It is the worst single line in the published fee data for this whole subject.

Sources

• ECB euro foreign exchange reference rates, the benchmark this page measures against
• ClearTax on TCS for foreign remittance, the source for the rates, threshold and refundability
• ICICI Bank on the Liberalised Remittance Scheme, corroborating the rates and the 250,000 dollar cap
• LegalClarity on bank currency exchange fees, the source for the markup and DCC ranges
• Airwallex on bank exchange rate markups, the source for the network and issuer split
• XE currency converter, which states you will not receive the rate it displays