One decision, done right.
Travel money is full of advice. NoDCC covers exactly one piece of it, the currency-choice moment at ATMs, terminals and checkouts, and tries to be the best thing on the internet for that single decision.
Why this exists
Dynamic currency conversion quietly inflates travel costs by single-digit percentages, transaction after transaction, packaged as convenience. The remedy is knowledge plus a two-word habit: local currency. Everything on this site, from the calculator, the refusal card and country intelligence to the guides, serves that habit.
Methodology & data
- Exchange rates. Calculations use European Central Bank reference rates. When you’re online, the calculator refreshes them from the open frankfurter.dev feed (ECB data, updated on business days around 16:00 CET); offline, it falls back to a bundled snapshot and labels which one you’re seeing, with the rate date, on every result.
- Markup assumptions. Estimate-mode defaults are starting assumptions, not measurements. The measured ranges behind them are kept separate rather than averaged: BEUC’s 30 October 2017 position paper, reporting Stiftung Warentest’s 2016 test (2.6% to 12% at ATMs, 2% to 5% in store); Stiftung Warentest’s 2019 test of 30 testers across 23 countries (usually more than 5%, peaking at 13.7%); and Měšec.cz’s April 2026 Czech ATM test (6.51% to 19.00% against the ECB rate). We found no field study measuring online DCC markups, so no range is published for that context. Every default is a starting point you can override, and “exact mode” bypasses assumptions entirely by using the total on your screen.
- Regulatory facts. The EU markup-disclosure duty was introduced by Regulation (EU) 2019/518, which is itself no longer in force: it was repealed on 18 August 2021 and the duty now sits in Article 4 of Regulation (EU) 2021/1230. It has applied to ATMs and card terminals since 19 April 2020, and reaches only payments denominated in an EU currency. Card-network statements are taken from the published Visa Core Rules and the Mastercard rulebooks rather than from either network's consumer-facing pages, because the rulebooks state duties the consumer pages only describe as good practice.
- Country intelligence. Compiled from operator fee disclosures, regulator publications and sustained traveller reporting; entries state exposure as High/Medium/Low with reasoning rather than pretending precision. Found something outdated? Tell us; corrections ship fast.
Privacy by architecture
No accounts, no cookies, no trackers, no ad-tech. The site is static files; the calculator runs entirely in your browser. Your inputs never leave your device; share links encode them in the URL only when you create one. The single optional network call is the exchange-rate refresh described above. Details in the privacy policy.
How the site sustains itself
NoDCC is free and will stay free. It carries four partner links, all inside guides and all labelled “Partner link” where they appear: a car-rental comparison and a travel eSIM in the refusal guide, and two real-rate card options in the ATM fee guide. If you buy, book or open an account through one we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.
Three rules keep that honest. Partner links never appear inside the calculator or the refusal card. The free advice always sits above them, because declining DCC costs nothing and works on any card in any country, while every product we link is optional and most are EU-only. And partners never influence verdicts: the calculator’s arithmetic and the advice to pay in local currency don’t change based on who pays us.
Contact
Corrections, country updates, partnership enquiries, or a DCC screen we haven’t catalogued (screenshots welcome, they improve the guides):