Is a Visa Forex card commonly accepted in the Netherlands?

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As far as I understand most places that accept credit cards will accept your prepaid card, but it is a while since my friend had one of those. All cash points will accept all credit cards, including the prepaid ones, but check with the provider what the costs will be per transaction and/or which percentage. That can be expensive for some credit cards. It might be better to bring a bank card from home, as long as that is cheaper, even if you can not pay with it in shops.

Most shops, including all main supermarkets, will accept cash, if not at all pay points. For buses and trains, get an OV chip card, which will work out cheaper if you use the bus or train more than a few times. You can buy those cards and load a first amount in main stations for cash, or with coins out of a ticket machine, if your card does not work with them.

As far as I know all places that accept cards will accept Visa as well as MasterCard/Meastro, but they may not all accept credit card. Some Dutch banks work with their cards on the Visa system and others on the MasterCard/Meastro system, so shops and restaurants are used to the diverse cards.

My boyfriend, from the UK, uses Visa based cards and has/had a prepaid card at least once. Card acceptance has improved since that time so I expect you have even less problems than he had and he did not have many.

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Willeke's answer is certainly correct. I'm posting this answer to make a couple of additional points.

Is a Visa Forex card commonly accepted in the Netherlands?

In general, a merchant who accepts Visa cards will accept all Visa cards. From their point of view, they pay the same fee to their payment processor for all Visa transactions. The amount you pay for the transaction isn't important to the merchant. Merchants who decide not to accept Visa cards (or any other card) have decided that they don't want to pay the necessary fees. This is about the fees that the merchant pays to the payment processor; it has nothing to do with fees you pay to the card issuer.

it seems like my best bet is to use a pre-paid Visa Forex debit card which, as far as I understand, does not carry any transaction charges.

Be careful: in my experience, a prepaid card that does not carry any transaction charges will typically employ a very poor exchange rate. Most credit card and debit cards that do charge fees use a rate that is much closer to the market rate. When I was a foreign student in the Netherlands, I paid for most things using a US credit or debit card with no foreign transaction fees or with cash that I took using my US bank card with no foreign transaction fees. These gave an exchange rate that was very close to the market rate.

I was able to avoid transaction fees on my debit card by opening an account jointly with my mother, who had another account at the same bank with a balance that exceeded a certain minimum. Even if you don't have a possibility like this, it might be worthwhile to shop around a bit. Ask a few banks what their fees are and how they calculate the exchange rate. Maybe it makes sense to switch banks or open an additional account.

But also consider how much money you expect to funnel through this payment method. If you're not planning to spend a lot, then getting an exchange rate that's 1% better won't save much money -- just $10 for every $1000 you spend.

Also, be careful of foreign merchants who offer to charge your card in your home currency. They typically include a significant markup to do this (after all, they have to convert those dollars or pounds to euros before they deposit them into their own account). Furthermore, the transaction is still a foreign transaction even though it is no longer a foreign currency transaction. So, depending on the fee structure of your card, you may still be paying an extra fee on top.

You may want to try a small test purchase first. A few months ago I did this with a Geneva public transportation ticket. The ticket was 2 francs, but they offered the choice of being charged USD 2.31 if I recall correctly. I elected to be charged in CHF, and the debit from my account was $2.17.

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