Transaction Fees to retire yens at ATM

Hello,
I keep hearing in youtube videos that withdrawing money from ATM can be done with a credit card and that there are no feed. Is that correct? I fear that maybe it is in country-dependent and I doubt Switzerland would do that. Any Swiss / European traveller with experience at ATM’s

You need to ask your bank if they have fees for this. No good asking here.

Hi, yes, it's possible to withdraw cash without fees.

The fees can come from two things:

1) The ATM itself

Lawson/7-Eleven charge between 110-300 yens per transaction depending on the amount you withdraw. That fee is displayed on the screen just before the confirmation prompt. From my experience, Aeon ATMs don't have withdrawal fees.

2) Your bank

I'm from France, where some banks don't charge any fee abroad. They apply the Visa/Mastercard rate of the day to any foreign currency payment/withdrawal. For others banks, it would be between 1-3%. No idea about the options in Switzerland. Maybe N26 or Revolut? You can also try to negotiate lower fees/no fees with your current bank.

In any case, on the ATM, ALWAYS select the amount in JPY, not your home currency.

Ah, thanks for the info. It already helps with different options to consider and follow-up.

I assume you mean debit card (cash withdrawals from your checking or savings account) and not credit card (cash advances that you pay back later, with usually a very high fee added)? I’m from the U.S. but I assume it works the same way for European accounts.

Also, some card issuers (not all) want you to inform them in advance that you will be traveling. You can usually do this online.

Thanks, Kim. Good advice!

Using a credit card to withdraw yen with no fees - if your bank offers this, do you think they are doing this for "free" - not a chance. They are likely to slug you with a lousy exchange rate.

As an example, you take out 50,000 yen from an atm and rather than paying a fee of a few hundred yen, you pay 3% of the transaction or and extra 1,500 yen. Banks are good at making money from "free" services.

Forgot to add, if you are doing a cash advance (ie credit card, not debit card), the horrendous interest rates applies instantly.

I don’t know any cheaper way to get cash yen than to withdraw from a postal ATM. The exchange rate is the same as I get when I use my card to pay for hotels and restaurants, which is very close to the market rate posted on worldwide exchange listings. Possibly a percent off, but certainly not three percent. (I pay close attention to the rate I get on both cash withdrawals and credit card charges.) And it’s better than I have seen at any places in Japan where you can physically exchange dollars to yen. Those vary considerably, with some of them being awful.

It will definitely depend on what financial institution issues your cards, though. And always you should make sure the transaction is initiated in yen.

Never had a 7eleven or Lawsons charge me a fee.

Always used a credit card to withdraw cash. As they work internationally. Not all cheque/debit account cards do.

Yes get done about 3% worse exchange rate than current ongoing rate, as explained earlier. On 50,000 yen, currently it's about 17aud/11usd/10eur/9gbp.

Always avoid extra high cash advancement rates as get online that day and transfer money onto credit card. Interest is calculated daily, at the end of the day.

Whatever you do. Don't get one of those travel currency cards. They charge a fee to add currency. The give you the poor exchange rate on top of that. These travel currency cards are such a con job.

I guess that a lot of it boils down to whether the card issuer is able to make money from you in other ways. Obviously, they need to make money some way. Banks (and investment companies, which also issue credit and debit cards) tend to charge fewer and lower fees to customers with more money in their accounts. (There are tiers with different charge and benefit structures.) And some credit card companies that have no foreign transaction fees have an annual charge for the account (but they offer some other perks intended to attract account holders, and these can sometimes make those cards worth the annual fee). If you travel internationally very much, it pays to look at foreign ATM withdrawal fees, foreign transaction fees, and exchange rate policies when you decide where to keep your money and which credit cards to carry. The differences can be surprising.

I only have experience with U.S. financial institutions, though.

I love planning for my trip, but every single aspect leads to many questions and sometimes it is overwhelming.

Has anyone traveled to Japan with just cash brought from their countries? I have never withdrawn money in any of my trips to other countires. I think the influence of Youtube makes just believe that ATM’s are a must.

@H
Never had a 7eleven or Lawsons charge me a fee.
Really?? Since 2022, several ATMs charged me a small fee (in Tokyo and Sendai), and that was the experience of friends & family who traveled last year as well.

@Kim
No fees on ATMs in Japan post offices? Good to know, so I'm not limited to Aeon supermarkets :)

@JapanCustomTours
Using a credit card to withdraw yen with no fees - if your bank offers this, do you think they are doing this for "free" - not a chance. They are likely to slug you with a lousy exchange rate.
In my case, the bank strictly applies the exchange rate from Visa, which has a markup over the ECB rate.
Today's Visa markup for JPY/CHF is 1.02%, JPY/EUR is 0.23% (and any fees from your bank will come on top of this). I never had any surprise, the posted rate of the day is exactly the one I get. So there are fees, but not from the bank.
https://www.visa.co.uk/support/consumer/travel-support/exchange-rate-c...
(So... if you have a Mastercard, a Visa and an Amex, you can choose to pay with the card that offer the better rates on that day)

My card is a credit type, but withdrawals get debited instantly, unlike payments. That might be specific to my bank though.

@SG
Has anyone traveled to Japan with just cash brought from their countries?
Partly, but it was 10+ years ago, when I had a credit card that had a very low withdrawal limit, flat fees AND 3% fee on top of that for any payment/withdrawal.

I think the influence of Youtube makes just believe that ATM’s are a must.
It's not a must, but much more convenient since you don't have to travel with a stack of banknotes and the exchange rate can be better, even with your bank's fees. You just get the money you need for the next few days, so there's a lot less leftover at the end of your trip (converting the banknotes back to CHF will also cost you money). Also, it's easy to exchange cash at the airport, but not sure about doing it outside of bigger cities.

If it stresses you out too much, you can of course travel as you usually do. Or bring cash from Switzerland, exchange some of it, while also trying to use your credit card. That way you can compare both strategies.

Whoops, I was wrong about postal ATMs not charging a fee! That used to be the case, but that changed at some point and there is a fee now. Sorry about that… The fee is fairly small but I can’t remember what it is.

I understand how difficult (or at least time-consuming) it can be to plan a trip to Japan. I have done it many times, and it still takes me hours and hours up front. I wouldn’t want to be doing it for the first time, to be honest. But I will say that dealing with ATMs is not something I even think about. Of course you can get by without using them, but I think they make things easier (and with less money wasted on fees and exchange rates) than dealing with currency exchange.

@Kim
No prob :) Let us know if you ever chance upon one that doesn't!

My card is a credit type, but withdrawals get debited instantly, unlike payments. That might be specific to my bank though.

That's a cash advance. Works the same world wide.

You seem to be confusing purchases with cash advances though from the why your explaining things.

Purchases - no purchase fee and 2-3 days processing.

Cash advance - possible withdrawl fee, instantly processed, higher interest rate to begin instantly.

Wow! Excellent descriptions and tips. So happy that I found this forum. I guess I will be a regular 😁 for a couple of weeks.

@H
We don't have the concept of cash advance here, as far as I know. Nobody gets charged any fee when withdrawing cash from an ATM. It's not considered as borrowing money (why would it? The money comes directly from your account).

Another way to see it is : we only have debit cards, but can have our payments delayed until the Xth (fixed) day of the next month (usually), free of charge. If the balance happens to be negative, there are interests rates to pay, yes. That's the only situation where we are "borrowing" money from the bank with a credit (debit) card.

@SG
Sorry, we went really far off-topic!
Wishing you a happy planning :)