Enter the rate you were given and compare it against the live mid-market rate — see the real markup, in percent and in money, not just the fee line your statement shows.
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The mid-market rate is the midpoint between the global buy and sell rates for a currency pair — the rate you'd see quoted on financial news, and the rate banks and card networks trade with each other at. Banks, card issuers, and currency exchange counters add a markup on top of that rate — sometimes disclosed as a fee, often just built invisibly into a worse exchange rate — which is how they profit on the conversion.
Check your bank statement, card transaction detail, or the receipt from a currency exchange counter — most show the exact rate applied, or show both the original and converted amounts, from which you can back into the rate by dividing one by the other. Some cards only show the converted amount without an explicit rate; in that case, divide what you were charged by the original amount to get your effective rate.
Not always — and this is exactly why FX markups are sometimes called a hidden fee. A separate, clearly labeled "foreign transaction fee" is disclosed by definition, but many providers simply apply a worse exchange rate without calling out the markup as a line item. The cost is real either way, just less visible when it's baked into the rate rather than itemized separately.
Worked example: converting $1,000 at a bank rate of 0.90 (into EUR) when the live mid-market rate is 0.925 means you received €900 instead of the €925 the mid-market rate would have given — a hidden cost of €25, about a 2.7% markup on the transaction.
Need a straightforward conversion instead? Use the Currency Converter. Comparing central bank rate moves? See Japan and China's diverging rate paths or Brazil's Selic rate cuts.