This guide will compare different exchanges that accept credit cards as a deposit method to buy cryptocurrencies.
- The main advantage of buying crypto with a credit or debit card is that it’s instant
- The main disadvantage is the high fees
- Nexo, Binance, and Bitpanda offer some of the lowest deposit fees with credit or debit card.
Exchanges that Accept the Credit Card
In this article, we go through seven top cryptocurrency exchanges that accept credit card payments from their users.
The platforms are evaluated in terms of the verification requirements, credit card fees, regional availability and fiat currency coverage.
These platforms are Coinbase, BitPanda, and Binance and you can see fee for deposit with debit or credit card in the table below.
Company
Deposit Fee
SignUp
Luno EUR Credit Card Deposits
- Luno only accepts EUR deposits via credit and debit card
- Luno charge 1.5% in fee for EUR deposits via credit card or debit card
- Luno offers a 25 EUR first deposit bonus if you buy crypto for 250 EUR.
UpHold Credit and Debit card Deposits
Uphold charges high fees for credit card and debit card deposits.
Uphold charges no trading fees but they charge a spread and you can read more about this fee structure in our Uphold review.
Uphold is a great place for beginners to sign up and start buying Bitcoin and crypto since it is user-friendly. Also, it has some unique features like
- Uphold offers trading with equities and precious metals
- US citizens can buy and trade Ripple XRP. Many US exchanges have delisted XRP due to the ongoing lawsuit by SEC.
Coinbase Credit card Deposit Fee
Coinbase is one of the largest crypto exchanges, especially for US customers.
The platform is very user-friendly and easy to start with. However, their credit card fee is quite high.
Their services are available for 32 countries only but do offer credit card purchases for a fee of 3.99%. The payment process is quite simple. You need to provide your credit card details and set the volume of BTC, as shown below.
Read our Coinbase review for a complete guide on the crypto exchange with pros and cons.
Apart from credit card verification, you have to provide scanned ID and proof of address prior to the trade. Thus, the crypto exchange does not offer privacy when buying currencies. You can purchase Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin among many other cryptocurrencies at Coinbase.
Read our full, step-by-step guide, on how to buy Bitcoin on Coinbase with credit card.
BitPanda Credit Card deposit Fee
BitPanda is a European cryptocurrency exchange and wallet that offers several purchase options, credit cards included.
The payment method is available once the trader achieved Gold level verification, which requires scanned ID and web camera conversation.
Available cryptos are BTC, ETH, DASH, LTC, and BCH while a fiat currency that you can use is EUR.
Binance Credit Card Deposit Fee
Binance is offering the best credit card deposit fee. They are not very transparent about their credit card fee but we have tried to purchase with credit card on the Binance platform.
The exchange fee might vary dependent on what fiat currency you use and from what country you are from.
Binance is the largest crypto trading platform and have the best overall fee for trading. Also, you will find all kinds of different features here like, margin trading, futures trading, P2P exchange, Binance Earn and a lot more.
Kraken Credit Card Deposit Fee
Kraken is offering a competitive credit card fee for being a regulated exchange in the US.
Here, you will have to pay 3.75%+0.25 EUR in comparison with Coinbase who charges 3.99% for credit card deposits.
Kraken Pros and Cons
Kraken Pros
- Regulated and Licensed US crypto exchange
- Staking rewards feature
- Polkadot Parachain auctions
- One of the overall best crypto exchanges for US customers
Kraken Cons
- Limited cryptocurrencies in the “Earn” feature for staking rewards
Crypto.com App Credit Card Deposit Fee
In the Crypto.com mobile app you can buy cryptocurrencies directly with your credit or debit card for a fee of 2.99%.
This is the best rate for US customers since Binance doesn´t allow for US citizens and NEXO is charging higher fees for Non-EU countries. Also, Bitpanda does not allow US citizens either.
Crypto.com Pros and Cons
Crypto.com Pros
- High interest rates
- Best crypto prepaid VISA card
- No fiat withdrawal fees
Crypto.com Cons
- You have to lock your funds for 3 months and stake CRO to receive the best interest rates
NEXO Credit Card Deposit Fee
NEXO charges 1.49% for EU and 3.49% for non-EU countries to deposit via card.
NEXO card purchases criteria
- The minimum and maximum transaction amounts are $50 and $5000, respectively.
- You can buy up to $10,000 worth of crypto within a one-month rolling period.
Why is it high transaction costs for Credit and Debit card Deposits?
Crypto exchanges are charging high fees for credit card and debit card deposits. However, these fees are not applied from the crypto exchanges themselves but rather from the credit card and debit card issuers, like VISA and Mastercard.
They charges high fees to compensate for high credit card processing costs.
There are probably 2 reasons why they have high processing costs
- Old settlement system (at least compared to crypto settlement system)
- Security updates. Credit cards are experiences a lot of fraud activity. For example, in 2018 $24.26 Billion was lost due to payment card fraud worldwide. Of course, VISA and Mastercard do whatever they can to hide such statistics.
How to get your own Crypto Credit or Debit Card?
Several companies are now offering you to get a crypto credit or debit card from VISA or Mastercard. With these cards you can make the opposite from deposit fiat to buy crypto. Here, you can spend crypto with your card and buy products anywhere where VISA and Mastercard is accepted.
Crypto.com is one of all these actors and they also have the best current offer.
There are several loyalty levels and you can increase your rewards by staking more in their native currency, CRO.
We use this CRO Visa credit card ourselves and with 100.000 CRO staked we get
- 2% extra interest rates on Crypto.com Earn
- Free Spotify music streaming
- Free Amazon Prime video streaming
- Free Netflix video streaming
- Free Airport lounge access
- 5% cashback on all purchases (Paid directly in CRO)
