If you’ve done any shopping in the United States, you know that your credit card purchases are hit with a currency conversion fee. This fee is applied by the bank who issued the card, and it usually rings in close to 3%. If you do enough shopping, then these charges will add up, which is why it makes perfect sense to supplement your wallet with a USD credit card. There aren’t very many of these niche cards available, so we’ve ranked them below to help you narrow down your selection.
Each of these cards functions in basically the same way, eliminating fees for currency exchange when buying goods in/from the United States, but they have a few differences. We ranked them based on important factors like APR, but we also looked at hundreds of actual user reviews to draw our final conclusions:
Number One: Scotiabank US Dollar Visa
Our top pick is the newest card on the market, but it’s had time to garner quite a few good reviews. This card offers a modest 19.99% APR, as well as the ability to order supplemental cards for your family at no extra charge. The annual fee on the Scotiabank USD Visa is only $35.
Number Two: RBC US Dollar Visa Gold
This card falls behind the Scotiabank offering, but not by too wide of a margin. The APR is the same at 19.99%, but this card has fewer positive reviews from actual users. Another downfall: the RBC USD Visa carries a $65 annual fee, which is pretty high by most standards.
Number Three: CIBC US Dollar Visa Card
We’ve ranked this card higher than most card comparison sites, but that’s largely because we looked at cardholder feedback. While the CIBC card isn’t all that impressive on paper, it’s still free of the poor reviews that the final two cards on our list have earned. It has the same APR and annual fee as the Scotiabank USD Visa, our top selection, but it doesn’t offer any options for purchase protection or extended warranty coverage.
Number Four: BMO US Dollar MasterCard
This card has a lower interest rate than the others on our list, bit it’s hard to ignore a pile of two-star ratings from actual cardholders. We can’t place a card very high on the list when it has such a low ranking among users.
Number Five: TD US Dollar Visa Card
This card’s user reviews are lackluster as well, and, with the same APR as our top pick but a higher annual fee ($39), it’s hard to recommend. This card has been around for a while, but we definitely suggest looking at the newer cards with better overall offerings.