What the Crypto.com card actually costs and who should bother with it
Available in US
The Crypto.com card is a prepaid Visa that draws on a balance you load from the Crypto.com app. You hold crypto, you convert it to local currency, and the card spends that balance wherever Visa is taken. It is not a bank account, it is not a credit card, and you cannot load crypto onto it directly. Everything you read below comes from what Crypto.com publishes on its own pages, plus a small set of third-party notes where the official pages simply do not say. I have tried to be honest about which is which.
Conditions are current as of October 28, 2026.
Conditions are current as of 20 October 2026.
Verdict
I give the Crypto.com card 7.0 out of 10. The everyday experience of paying with it is genuinely good: it is a prepaid Visa with a free monthly ATM allowance, mobile-wallet support, and tier-based CRO rewards that can be generous if you stake enough of the platform’s own token. The catch is everything around that: the tier system is fiddly, the fees outside the free allowances add up quickly, the issuer changes depending on where you live, and the user reviews of the wider Crypto.com product are not flattering.
| Criterion | Mark | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Who can get it | 8 / 10 | Available in the US, Europe (31 countries), Singapore, Canada, Australia, the UK, and a USD card in Brazil for use outside Brazil |
| Cost | 6 / 10 | Tiered subscriptions from Free to $29.99/month, plus Europe-specific fees like a 1% card top-up, 2% ATM fee above the allowance, and a 0.2% or 2.0% FX margin depending on tier and region |
| Top-up options | 6 / 10 | Top up from the Crypto Wallet, Cash Account, or another card, but crypto has to be converted to fiat first; it cannot be loaded directly |
| Reliability and complaints | 6 / 10 | Issuer varies by region, and Trustpilot sits at 2.0/5 from 9,493 reviews, with 72% of those being one-star |
| Everyday use | 9 / 10 | Prepaid Visa with a free ATM limit of EUR 200 on the Midnight tier, plus unofficial support for Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Samsung Pay |
If you live in Europe or Singapore, are happy to lock up some CRO tokens to unlock better rewards, and are not put off by the brand’s mixed reputation, this card does what it says on the tin. If you want something simple, with no staking and no tier system, you will probably find the fee structure annoying.
Will they give you the card
Crypto.com issues the card through different licensed entities depending on where you live, and the card itself is a prepaid Visa in the local currency of the issuer you get:
- United States: Community Federal Savings Bank (Member FDIC, Visa U.S.A. licensed)
- Europe: Foris MT Limited (the European help article, dated 20 July 2026, lists 31 countries: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK)
- Singapore: Foris Asia Pte. Ltd., licensed by MAS as a Major Payment Institution
- Canada: Digital Commerce Bank, offered by Foris, Inc., with a CAD-only card
- Australia: Foris GFS Australia Pty Ltd, an AFSL holder
- United Kingdom: ForisGFS UK Limited, FCA-authorised as an e-money institution but not FSCS-covered
- Brazil: a USD card issued by Foris MT, for use outside Brazil only
The rule for eligibility is by residential address, not by citizenship, but citizenship itself is not stated on the public pages I read. The European fee articles are split by “residential address in Europe / Singapore / non-Europe Brazil and LATAM,” which is how Crypto.com segments its customers.
Unofficial third-party sources list ten restricted countries: Afghanistan, China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. The same third-party source lists Sudan among both the restricted and the available countries, which is a sign of inconsistency. This is not confirmed by Crypto.com’s own pages.
How to get it
The sign-up flow is handled in the Crypto.com app. The cards page itself shows only a US PATRIOT Act notice: name, address, date of birth, and a national ID number (SSN for the US, or a country ID number elsewhere), and it may ask for a driver’s licence or another photo ID. The page does not state a minimum age, does not state whether proof of address is required, and does not state the verification levels or processing time. There is no citizenship rule spelled out.
Unofficial reporting from third-party sites says identity verification can include a government ID, a selfie, and proof of address, and that a virtual card becomes available immediately on approval while a physical card is shipped later. None of that is confirmed on the official pages I read.
Once the card is approved, the physical card costs depend on tier and region. In Europe, the Midnight tier charges EUR 4.99 for issuance, while Ruby Steel charges EUR 24.99 (waived for some Level Up Plus subscribers and CRO stakers), and a replacement costs EUR 45.01 on Midnight or EUR 50 on other tiers. Card upgrades are free. Delivery time is not stated on the public page.
Unofficial US figures from third-party sites: physical card USD 4.99 on Midnight, USD 29.99 on Ruby, no charge on higher tiers, and a replacement of USD 7 on Midnight or USD 50 on others. Delivery time is also not stated.
Fees: what it really costs
There are two layers of fees. The first is the subscription tier, which is tied to how much CRO you lock up. The second is the per-transaction fee, which depends on your tier, your region, and what you are doing with the card.
The card page itself says top-up fees, an interbank exchange rate, and ATM fees “may apply” depending on jurisdiction and tier, without giving the amounts. The amounts are in the per-region help articles.
| Fee or limit | Free tier | $4.99 tier | $29.99 tier | $50,000 lockup | $500,000 lockup |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Subscription | Free | $4.99/month, $49.90/year, or $500 CRO lockup | $29.99/month, $299.90/year, or $5,000 CRO lockup | $50,000 lockup | $500,000 lockup |
| Issuance (Europe) | EUR 4.99 Midnight | EUR 24.99 Ruby | — | — | — |
| Replacement (Europe) | EUR 45.01 Midnight | EUR 50 other | EUR 50 | — | — |
| Card top-up (Europe) | 1% | 1% | 1% | 1% | 1% |
| ATM fee above free allowance | 2% | 2% | 2% | 2% | 2% |
| Free ATM per month | $200 | $400 | $800 | $1,000 | $1,000 |
| Free ATM monthly cap | $5,000 | $10,000 | $10,000 | $10,000 | $10,000 |
| FX in EU/UK (Midnight) | 0.2% | — | — | — | — |
| FX outside EU/UK (Midnight) | 2.0% | — | — | — | — |
| Ruby FX-free allowance (outside EU/UK) | — | None | None | — | — |
| Jade/Indigo FX-free allowance | — | — | EUR 800/month | — | — |
| Icy/Rose/Obsidian FX | — | — | No FX fee | — | — |
| Inactivity fee (Europe) | EUR 5/month after 12 months (EUR 6 from 1 Oct 2026) | — | — | — | — |
| Account closure (Europe) | EUR 50 | — | — | — | — |
The aggregated top-up limit across all tiers is $25,000 per month. ATM daily and monthly limits in Europe are EUR 2,000 and EUR 10,000, with a yearly cap of EUR 75,000 and a 3-daily, 30-monthly, 360-yearly limit on the number of withdrawals. POS spending is capped at EUR 25,000 per day and per month, EUR 250,000 per year, with a maximum card balance of EUR 25,000.
To make this less abstract, here are three everyday payments and what fees apply:
- Buying coffee in Berlin with the Midnight tier: no subscription fee, no top-up fee if the balance is already loaded, no FX fee (EUR transaction in the EU), and the EUR 0.20 in CRO rewards on the Midnight tier is zero, since Midnight earns 0% on everyday spend. The only cost is whatever your original conversion from crypto to EUR cost you.
- Withdrawing EUR 300 from an ATM in Madrid on the Midnight tier: the first EUR 200 is free, the remaining EUR 100 is charged at 2%, so EUR 2.00. If the ATM operator adds its own surcharge, that counts toward your monthly limit.
- Paying for a hotel in Tokyo on the Ruby Steel tier: the FX fee outside the EU/UK is 2.0% with no free allowance, and you also earn 1.5% CRO rewards on the first USD 750 of monthly spend. The 2% FX fee is the real cost here; the 1.5% reward is paid in CRO tokens, not as a cash discount, and its value depends on what CRO is worth when you convert it.
Top up: how to load the card
There are three ways to put money on the card: from your Crypto Wallet, from your Cash Account, or from another credit or debit card. Crypto cannot be loaded directly; it has to be converted to local currency first, which means a conversion happens before the card sees the money, and that conversion is a moment where FX and conversion fees can apply.
In Europe, the practical rules are these: a top-up from a debit or credit card costs 1% and has a EUR 20 minimum. The aggregated top-up cap is EUR 25,000 per day and per month, EUR 250,000 per year, and that cap is shared between crypto-to-card, cash-account-to-card, and card-to-card loads. The maximum card balance is EUR 25,000, and you can load up to 12 times per day and 140 times per month.
If you want to withdraw the balance back to your wallet or to a bank account, the help article does not state a fee or a procedure for that. The Europe fee article does mention an account closure fee of EUR 50 and an inactivity fee of EUR 5 per month (rising to EUR 6 from 1 October 2026) after 12 months with no cardholder-initiated activity, so the practical question of “how do I get my money back” is one I would test in the app’s support chat before relying on the card for anything you cannot afford to leave sitting there.
Paying with it every day
The card is a prepaid Visa. The Crypto.com app manages it, and the App Store listing for “Crypto.com: Trade Every Market” carries a 4.7/5 average from 336K ratings as of 20 October 2026, with Russian among 26 supported languages. Unofficial sources also cite a Google Play rating of 4.5/5 from 661K ratings.
Mobile-wallet support is not described on the official cards page, but unofficial reporting from August 2026 says Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Samsung Pay are supported, with availability varying by region.
The reason most people pick a Crypto.com card is the CRO rewards, paid in CRO token to your Crypto Wallet after each eligible transaction. The main published schedule for everyday spending is:
| Tier | CRO reward rate | Monthly cap |
|---|---|---|
| Midnight Blue | 0% | — |
| Ruby Steel | 1.5% | Up to USD 750/month |
| Jade Green / Royal Indigo | 2.5% | Up to USD 1,500/month |
| Icy White / Rose Gold | 3.5% (then 0.5%) | Up to USD 3,000/month |
| Obsidian | 4.5% (then 1%) | Up to USD 5,000/month |
Travel bookings are rewarded more generously, up to 5% on Midnight, 20% on Ruby Steel, 25% on Jade/Indigo, 30% on Icy/Rose, and 40% on Obsidian, with the same monthly caps. Crypto.com also publishes smaller tables with different values, but the main table is the one I have used here.
A few caveats. The reward is paid in CRO, not as a cash discount, so its value depends on the price of CRO at the moment you eventually convert it. Certain merchant categories and channels are excluded from CRO rewards, and the full exclusion list is in a help article I did not read in full. The card page does not state whether gambling merchants are blocked, and it does not state which merchant category codes count as excluded.
The card is custodial, meaning your balance and your crypto are held by Crypto.com and the relevant issuer, not by you. The page cites AICPA SOC, ISO 27701, ISO 22301, and PCI DSS as standards the platform meets, but it does not describe card-level security features like two-factor authentication, card freeze, or spending controls on the cards page itself.
What can go wrong
The most important thing to know is who actually holds your money. Crypto.com’s brand is on the card, but the issuer is a bank or e-money institution licensed in your region, and the funds are held by that issuer under the local payment-services or e-money rules. In the UK, the issuer is an e-money institution that is FCA-authorised but not FSCS-covered, so your balance is not protected by the UK deposit guarantee scheme in the way a UK bank account would be.
There is no official incident report on the public pages I read. There is a fee change coming in Europe: the inactivity fee rises from EUR 5 to EUR 6 from 1 October 2026, and the published FX schedule is dated “before and from 1 October 2026.” I did not find any 2026 licence or issuer news in search.
The wider user-reported picture is less reassuring. On Trustpilot, Crypto.com sits at 2.0/5 from 9,493 reviews as of 20 October 2026, with 72% of those being one-star and the company responding to 31% of negative reviews. The recent themes in October 2026 are mostly about the app and the exchange, but several are directly card-relevant: users report being unable to fund the card, payment failures, subscriptions being cancelled but still charged, cashback terms changing after sign-up, withdrawals failing, support feeling like a chatbot with long waits, and tokens being delisted without conversion. None of these are official statements, and the sample is self-selected, but the volume is worth noting.
Programmes do close. In November 2022, Visa said it had “terminated our global agreements with FTX” and the FTX US debit card was wound down by its issuer. In 2018, Visa suspended WaveCrest in Europe, closing every WaveCrest-issued Visa programme. A 2026 closure reported by a single secondary source described new loads ending on 8 July 2026 and spending stopping on 8 August 2026, but that is a single unconfirmed source. The pattern, though, is real: when a programme closes, users get a notice period, then loading stops, then spending stops, then they are asked to withdraw their remaining balance. If your card balance ever becomes meaningful to you, do not let it sit there indefinitely.
What to take instead
Crypto cards are not all the same. The two I would compare directly to Crypto.com are MSX and Bybit, with MEXC as a third option. The numbers below come from the same kind of source mix as the rest of this page, official where the official page speaks, unofficial where it does not.
| Card | Score | Where it works | What stands out | Where it falls short |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MSX | 6.4 / 10 | Not stated on an official page I could read | Comparable positioning to other crypto cards | Public pages do not state fees, regions, or rewards clearly |
| Bybit Card | 6.0 / 10 | Argentina, AIFC (Kazakhstan), Georgia, Kazakhstan, Australia, Mexico, Brazil, Peru, Asia Pacific; explicitly not for EEA customers | From 5 October 2026 only crypto-funded transactions earn cashback; tiers from 2% to 10% by monthly spend | No physical card in Peru; the card draws on the Funding Account and Flexible Easy Earn rather than a balance of its own; restricted list includes Belarus, Russia, Serbia, China, US |
| MEXC | 5.6 / 10 | Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand and others (full list not shown) | Virtual card with cashback by M-Score tier, 4% to 10% by tier | Virtual only at the time of writing, USD 20 issuance fee on the page, and very little stated about fees or networks |
| Crypto.com | 7.0 / 10 | US, Europe (31 countries), Singapore, Canada, Australia, UK, USD card for use outside Brazil | Prepaid Visa with up to 4.5% CRO rewards on Obsidian, free ATM allowance, and mobile-wallet support | Tier system is fiddly, fees add up outside the allowances, and user reviews of the wider product are weak |
The honest takeaway: if you live in a place where Crypto.com is licensed and you are happy to stake CRO, it is the most generous card in this group on raw reward percentage. If you want something simpler, Bybit’s cashback is paid in USDT rather than the platform’s own token, which removes one layer of price risk. MSX is harder to evaluate because its public pages do not say much.
Who I would recommend it to
I would recommend the Crypto.com card to someone who lives in one of the supported European countries or in Singapore, is comfortable with the idea of locking up CRO tokens to access a higher tier, and uses the card for everyday spending that fits inside the monthly reward caps. The Midnight tier with no staking is honest and fine; the Ruby Steel and Jade Green tiers are where the value proposition becomes interesting, and Obsidian only really pays off if your monthly spend is consistently above USD 3,000.
I would not recommend it to someone who wants a credit card, who wants a card that earns straight cashback without a token-conversion step, who lives outside the supported regions, or who is uncomfortable with a platform whose public user reviews are dominated by one-star complaints about funding, withdrawals, and support. The card itself is prepaid, which means you cannot build a credit history with it, and the rewards are paid in a volatile token rather than in fiat. If those are deal-breakers, look at a fiat cashback card first and a crypto card second.
Frequently asked questions
What is the Crypto.com card?
The Crypto.com card is a prepaid Visa debit card issued by Crypto.com’s regional partners. You load it from a fiat balance inside the Crypto.com app, and you fund that balance either from the Crypto Wallet by converting crypto, from the Cash Account, or by topping up with another card.
How does the Crypto.com card work?
You convert crypto to local currency, that money lands in your card balance, and the card spends that balance wherever Visa is taken. The card is prepaid, so it cannot overdraw, and it is not linked to a bank account in the traditional sense.
Is Crypto.com a bank?
No. Crypto.com is a brand. The card is issued by licensed banks and e-money institutions depending on your region: Community Federal Savings Bank in the US, Foris MT Limited in Europe, ForisGFS UK Limited in the UK, Foris Asia in Singapore, Digital Commerce Bank in Canada, and Foris GFS Australia in Australia. In the UK, the issuer is FCA-authorised as an e-money institution but is not FSCS-covered, which means your balance is not protected by the UK deposit guarantee scheme.
Is the Crypto.com card available in my country?
The card is available in the US, 31 European countries (Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK), Singapore, Canada, Australia, and as a USD card in Brazil for use outside Brazil. The rule is by residential address, and citizenship is not stated on the public pages.
Does the Crypto.com card require KYC?
Yes. The sign-up flow asks for name, address, date of birth, and a national ID number, and may also ask for a driver’s licence or another photo ID. Unofficial third-party sources say identity verification can include a government ID, a selfie, and proof of address, but that is not stated on Crypto.com’s own page.
How do I top up the Crypto.com card?
You top up from the Crypto Wallet, from the Cash Account, or from another credit or debit card. Crypto has to be converted to local currency before it is loaded. In Europe, a top-up from another card costs 1% with a EUR 20 minimum, and you can load up to 12 times a day.
How do I add the Crypto.com card to Apple Wallet or Google Pay?
The official cards page does not describe this, but unofficial reporting from August 2026 says Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Samsung Pay are supported, with availability varying by region. In practice, the path is through the Crypto.com app once your virtual card is active.
Is the Crypto.com card free?
The Midnight tier is free in subscription terms, but it charges EUR 4.99 for card issuance in Europe, charges 1% on top-ups from another card, charges 2% on ATM withdrawals above the free monthly allowance, and pays 0% rewards on everyday spend. The more generous tiers require a paid subscription, a CRO lockup, or both.
Is the Crypto.com card safe?
The card-side security is the same as any other Visa: 3-D Secure on online payments, mobile-wallet tokenisation where supported, and the ability to freeze the card. The platform cites AICPA SOC, ISO 27701, ISO 22301, and PCI DSS. What is not stated on the public page is the safeguarding regime for the underlying funds, which is a question for the issuer in your region.
Is the Crypto.com card worth it?
It depends on where you live, how much you spend on the card each month, and whether you are willing to lock up CRO tokens. On the Obsidian tier, the 4.5% CRO reward on the first USD 5,000 of monthly spending is one of the more generous rates in the category. On Midnight, with no staking and 0% everyday rewards, the card is fine but no better than a basic prepaid Visa.
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