I was charged in my own currency without being asked. Can I get the money back?
What am I actually claiming: the whole charge or just the markup?
The two networks disagree, and nobody should average them.
Visa's route is Dispute Condition 12.3, Incorrect Currency, and its rulebook states that "The Dispute applies for the entire Transaction amount." If the case runs on to pre-arbitration, the amount is capped at the difference between what you were charged and what you should have been charged.
Mastercard starts where Visa ends. Under its Currency Errors condition the issuer must charge back only the difference between the transaction amount and the amount you say it should have been, excluding your own bank's conversion.
Either way, the money you are actually out is the markup. Put your own numbers in before you write to anyone: the calculator compares what you were charged against the European Central Bank reference rate for the same amount and date.
Should I go back to the merchant before my bank?
Try it, and do not let it eat your deadline. Chase's dispute guidance tells cardholders to contact the merchant first, and one email costs you nothing.
Only the bank side is documented. One UK issuer tells customers a chargeback can take up to three months, because of the number of steps involved and because the bank does not control the timings. No source we hold measures how long a merchant refund takes, so treat the counter as the cheaper first attempt rather than a faster one.
Ask for the specific thing Mastercard's merchant guide names. It states that refunds must be processed in the same currency used in the original transaction, and names "a credit with DCC applied at the exact exchange rate as the original transaction" as a permitted form. That guide describes Mastercard's standards rather than being them; the binding text is not published.
The wording matters, because a generic refund can still leave you short. One large acquirer's DCC terms treat a refund as a separate card transaction: the original day's rate applies only if the merchant supplies the stored rate ID, and otherwise the refund converts at whatever the DCC rate is when the refund is submitted. The same terms apply the original date's rate to a chargeback every time.
The network clock does not pause while you negotiate. Mastercard's 90 days run from the clearing date whether or not a hotel in another country is still reading your email. Give the merchant a fixed deadline of a week or two, then file with your bank regardless of the answer.
What is the dispute called, and how long do I have?
Name it correctly when you file. Front-line staff route claims by category, and "the exchange rate was bad" is a different category from "I did not consent to the conversion".
Visa calls it Dispute Condition 12.3, Incorrect Currency. Its DCC limb has two triggers: dynamic currency conversion happened and you did not expressly agree to it, or you were refused the choice of paying in local currency. At an ATM that covers both the currency you selected and the local currency of the country the ATM stands in. Condition 12.3 also covers a third case with nothing to do with consent: the transaction currency differing from the currency transmitted through VisaNet. The limit is 120 calendar days from the Transaction Processing Date, which Visa defines as the date it accepted the interchange data. That is the clearing date, not the day you paid. Condition 12.3 is not available for Straight Through Processing or Mobile Push Payment transactions.
Mastercard calls it message reason code 4834 under Point-of-Interaction Error, or 34 for Debit Mastercard on the Single Message System, using the Currency Errors condition.
| What | Visa | Mastercard |
|---|---|---|
| Dispute name | Condition 12.3, Incorrect Currency | Reason code 4834, or 34 on the Single Message System, Point-of-Interaction Error, Currency Errors |
| Amount claimable | The entire transaction amount at chargeback; capped at the difference if it reaches pre-arbitration | Only the difference |
| Deadline | 120 calendar days | 90 calendar days for non-ATM Dual Message System transactions; 120 for intra-European and inter-European ATM and Maestro. No limit for Single Message System code 34 appears in the source we hold, so ask your issuer. |
| Clock starts from | Transaction Processing Date, the clearing date | Central Site Business Date, which counts as day zero |
| ATM transactions | Covered, including the currency you selected and the local currency of the ATM's country | Chargeback only for a Europe-issued card at an ATM located in Europe. Every other ATM case is a compliance case, not a chargeback. |
Mastercard's own ATM statements do not line up, and you should know that before you file. Its chargeback guide gives the 120-day window for intra-European and inter-European ATM and Maestro transactions, and separately limits the ATM chargeback to a Europe-issued card used at an ATM located in Europe. We could not reconcile those two from the published text. Treat the narrower one as operative and ask your issuer which applies to your card.
Every ATM case falling outside the chargeback goes through a pre-compliance case and, if that is rejected, a compliance case. It must be filed before 120 calendar days from the Central Site Business Date or Settlement Date have passed, with 30 calendar days allowed for the acquirer to respond. Your issuer opens that case, or does not.
US clocks are different again, and narrower than they look. Chase's 60-day-from-statement figure is stated for an unauthorized charge, not for a wrong-currency one; its list of disputable items includes charges with an incorrect amount, and the page does not mention currency conversion at all. If you hold a US credit card, a Fair Credit Billing Act billing-error inquiry must be sent within 60 days of the first bill containing the error, and Regulation Z's list of billing errors does not expressly include being charged in the wrong currency or being denied a currency choice; its nearest category is a computational error made by the creditor. We have no source on the equivalent clock for a US debit card or ATM withdrawal, which is a different statute. The network dispute is the live route.
One rule of thumb covers all of it: anchor the clock to the day you paid, not the day the charge appeared. Visa runs 120 days from clearing, Mastercard 90 days from clearing, and the US billing-error window 60 days from the first bill. Clearing and statements both come after the transaction, so filing within 60 days of the transaction date keeps you inside every window above.
What evidence decides the case?
Less of it is yours than you would expect. On consent, the proof burden sits with the merchant's side.
To defend a Visa 12.3, the acquirer must produce either a receipt showing the transaction in local currency, or evidence that you expressly agreed to DCC together with a certification that the DCC selection is made electronically by the cardholder and cannot be made by the merchant. Visa's June 2024 merchant-facing guidelines put the merchant burden in plainer words: evidence that the cardholder actively chose DCC, plus a copy of the transaction receipt. Where that guide and the April 2026 Core Rules differ, the Core Rules govern.
Mastercard closes off the defence merchants most often reach for. Its chargeback guide states that "This second presentment is not available for POI currency conversion (DCC) disputes regarding the cardholder's agreement to the conversion", and that an acquirer cannot provide terminal logs or any other documentation as a valid second presentment. That is narrower than saying the merchant cannot respond at all, but on the consent question it removes the usual answer.
One limit runs the other way. Mastercard lists verbal agreements of transaction currency between a cardholder and a merchant among the situations this dispute does not cover. If all that happened was a spoken exchange at the counter, with no screen and no receipt, you may have no 4834 at all.
What you supply is small. Mastercard requires a cardholder letter, email, message or a completed Dispute Resolution Form for Point-of-Interaction Errors (Form 1240). For the "conversion performed incorrectly" version of the claim it additionally requires one of three documents: a billing statement, an issuer statement of the billing currency, or the transaction receipt. The no-consent version needs none of the three. On the Visa side the issuer files a certification that the cardholder did not agree to DCC and did not make an active choice.
Keep the receipt anyway. It is not a ground for the dispute on its own, since the grounds are consent and refused choice, but a receipt missing the markup line or the choice-of-currency statement is evidence that the screen you saw was non-compliant. Under Visa's rules a DCC receipt has to show the amount in both currencies with their symbols, the conversion rate, the commission, fees, markup or margin over a wholesale or government-mandated rate, an easily visible statement that you were offered a choice of currencies, and a statement that the conversion was carried out by the merchant, branch or ATM acquirer. Mastercard's receipt rule requires the rate but does not require the markup to be printed. If no currency is identified on the receipt at all, Mastercard deems the transaction to have taken place in the currency that is legal tender where you paid.
The EU markup rule is narrower than most pages claim
Article 4 of Regulation (EU) 2021/1230, which codified the duty introduced by Regulation (EU) 2019/518, requires total currency conversion charges to be expressed as a percentage markup over the latest available euro reference rates issued by the European Central Bank, disclosed to the payer before the payment is initiated. The clear-display half of that duty is written for the party providing conversion at an ATM or at the point of sale. It reaches only payments denominated in a Union currency, so a euro cardholder offered euros in New York, London, Istanbul, Zurich or Bangkok is outside it entirely. It is also a disclosure duty and nothing more: it creates no chargeback right and no refund mechanism, and a breach is a supervisory matter rather than an automatic dispute win.
What are my realistic odds?
We could not find a published figure for DCC dispute success rates, and this page will not invent one. What can be set out is what each side of the process actually promises.
The two sides describe the entitlement differently, and the gap matters. Mastercard's own DCC guide says that if a cardholder suffers a loss due to currency conversion, they have a chargeback right for the loss amount. The UK's Financial Ombudsman Service says a bank or lender does not have to raise a chargeback, that the schemes each have different chargeback rules, and that chargebacks can fail and it is not always reasonable to raise one. Both are true at once. The entitlement sits inside the scheme's rulebook, between your bank and the merchant's bank; it is not something you can compel your own bank to use.
Issuers word it to match. Revolut says that if you rejected the currency conversion at the time of payment and it was applied anyway, it can raise a dispute chargeback on your behalf. Monzo says it might be able to raise a chargeback where you were charged the wrong amount. Visa's consumer page stops at telling travellers to decline the conversion offer and report the incident to their card issuer. Your bank will ask for supporting evidence before it starts.
Now the part working for you. The conduct rules you are alleging were broken are strict. Visa requires the merchant, ATM or branch to inform you that DCC is optional, forbids pre-selecting it or using language or procedures that cause DCC by default, requires your express agreement, and forbids imposing any additional requirement on you for wanting the transaction processed in local currency. Where the card is present, it also requires you to agree by directly interfacing with a customer-facing screen or handheld acceptance device. A terminal turned away from you, or a clerk who tapped the choice on your behalf, is a rule breach on its face. Say it in those words when you file.
Mastercard's guide states that automatic DCC is not permitted by Mastercard Standards, that DCC must not be applied without the cardholder's consent or selected in the cardholder's absence, and that where the cardholder does not explicitly choose their billing currency the transaction must be processed in local currency.
How much is at stake depends heavily on where you were. The freshest measurement we hold is narrow: an April 2026 test of ten Prague ATM operators, benchmarked against the ECB reference rate on the transaction date, found markups from 6.51% to 19.00%, which on a 200 EUR withdrawal is roughly 13 to 38 EUR. That is one city, one visit per operator, and Czechia measures high. Older European testing across 23 non-euro countries put DCC usually above 5%, peaking at 13.7%. Work out your own figure before deciding whether to file. Country-by-country exposure is in the country guides.
What if my bank refuses to raise it?
You have less leverage here than most advice implies, so it helps to know where the decision sits.
A chargeback belongs to your issuer. It is raised under the card scheme's own rules, the schemes differ from each other, and whether yours gets raised is a matter of your bank's policy.
In the UK that refusal is itself complainable: the Financial Ombudsman Service covers chargeback complaints, and because a bank does not have to raise one, the question it examines is your bank's conduct rather than the merchant's. Outside the UK we have not verified an equivalent route, and this page will not name one it cannot stand behind. Ask your issuer in writing which external dispute body it is signed up to.
Two things are worth doing whatever your bank decides. Report the screen. Visa's advice to travellers is to decline the conversion offer and report the incident to your card issuer, and Visa may audit acquirers and their merchants for DCC compliance, with non-compliance assessments of up to USD 10,000, or USD 50,000 depending on the nature of the violation. That does not put money back in your account. It is why the email is worth sending anyway.
Second, do not ask your bank to block DCC on your card. Mastercard's guide states that issuers cannot control whether DCC is performed on a transaction. The exceptions are at product level only: acquirers are prohibited from offering DCC on prepaid travel cards and multi-currency debit cards, and Visa does not allow DCC on cards enabled with the Visa Multi-Currency Solution or on travel prepaid cards including Visa TravelMoney.
What to do about it
- Put the receipt in front of you. It is not a ground for the dispute on its own, but under Visa's rules a DCC receipt must show both amounts with their currency symbols, the rate, the markup and a visible statement that you were offered a choice of currencies. Whatever is missing is evidence the screen was non-compliant.
- Work out the actual loss. The calculator compares what you were charged against the ECB reference rate for the same amount, in estimate or exact mode.
- Ask the merchant, by name, for the right thing. Mastercard's merchant guide states refunds must be processed in the same currency as the original transaction and names a credit with DCC applied at the exact exchange rate as the original transaction. Ask for that, not for "a refund", and give them a week or two.
- Then file with your issuer, by name. Visa: Dispute Condition 12.3, Incorrect Currency. Mastercard: reason code 4834, Point-of-Interaction Error, Currency Errors. State in plain words that you did not agree to the conversion, and, if it applies, that you asked for local currency and were charged in yours anyway.
- Watch the clock, and count from the day you paid. Visa runs 120 days from clearing, Mastercard 90 days from clearing, and the US billing-error window 60 days from the first bill. Filing within 60 days of the transaction date keeps you inside all of them.
- Make it the last time. The screen-by-screen refusal playbook covers every wording you will meet, and the refusal card says the sentence in 40 languages. Short answers to the common questions are in the FAQ, and the four charges hiding inside a withdrawal are broken down in the ATM fee guide.
Declining the conversion costs nothing, works on any card in any country, and needs nobody's approval. Every remedy above is slower, less certain and only partly yours.
Sources
Every factual claim above is checked against a published source. Links go to the document itself, not to a summary of it.
- Visa Core Rules and Visa Product and Service Rules, 18 April 2026, s.11.9.2 Dispute Condition 12.3 Incorrect Currency (rules checked 22 August 2026). Entire transaction amount at chargeback, the third VisaNet-currency trigger, 120 days from the Transaction Processing Date, pre-arbitration cap, acquirer evidence, issuer certification, STP and Mobile Push Payment exclusions. The register holds this same section twice, as S-80 and S-9; the ATM wording (selected ATM currency and the local currency of the ATM's country) is quoted under S-9. Cited here once. usa.visa.com ↗
- Visa Core Rules and Visa Product and Service Rules, 18 April 2026, s.5.8.9.2 DCC Merchant, ATM and Branch Requirements (rules checked 22 August 2026). The conduct rules a 12.3 dispute alleges were broken: DCC optional, no pre-selection, express agreement, no extra requirement for local currency, and the card-present requirement to agree by directly interfacing with a customer-facing screen or handheld acceptance device. usa.visa.com ↗
- Visa Core Rules and Visa Product and Service Rules, 18 April 2026, s.5.9.2.3 and Table 5-34, DCC receipt content (rules checked 22 August 2026). What a compliant DCC receipt must show, including the markup line and the choice-of-currency statement. A receipt rule, not a dispute ground. usa.visa.com ↗
- Dispute Management Guidelines for Visa Merchants, June 2024, Condition 12.3 Incorrect Currency. Visa's plain-language statement of the merchant burden: evidence the cardholder actively chose DCC, plus the receipt. Older than the April 2026 Core Rules; where the two differ the Core Rules govern. usa.visa.com ↗
- Decoding Dynamic Currency Conversion, Visa Travel (as published 22 August 2026). Visa's consumer advice stops at declining and reporting to your issuer; it promises no refund. visa.com ↗
- Visa Core Rules and Visa Product and Service Rules, 18 April 2026, s.12.3.3.1 DCC Non-Compliance Assessments (rules checked 22 August 2026). Visa may audit acquirers and merchants; assessments up to USD 10,000, or USD 50,000 depending on the violation. usa.visa.com ↗
- Visa Core Rules and Visa Product and Service Rules, 18 April 2026, s.5.8.9.1 DCC Acquirer Requirements (rules checked 22 August 2026). DCC must not be offered on Visa Multi-Currency Solution cards or travel prepaid cards including Visa TravelMoney. usa.visa.com ↗
- Mastercard Chargeback Guide, Merchant Edition, 19 May 2026, Point-of-Interaction Error (reason codes 4834/34), Currency Errors (rules checked 22 August 2026). Difference only; 90 days from the Central Site Business Date for non-ATM Dual Message System transactions and 120 for intra-European and inter-European ATM and Maestro; evidence list including the three condition-2 documents; no second presentment on a consent dispute; verbal currency agreements excluded. Read via an archived copy of Mastercard's own URL, because the live host blocks non-browser clients. mastercard.com ↗
- Mastercard Chargeback Guide, Merchant Edition, 19 May 2026, Chapter 7, ATM Dynamic Currency Conversion and Currency Errors (rules checked 22 August 2026). The ATM chargeback is limited to a Europe-issued card at a Europe-located ATM; every other ATM case routes to pre-compliance and compliance, 120-day filing limit, 30 days for the acquirer to respond. This sits in tension with the 120-day inter-European window quoted under S-85; the page says so rather than reconciling it. mastercard.com ↗
- Dynamic Currency Conversion Performance Guide, Merchant Edition, Mastercard, 2025 edition, s.2.5 (registered twice, as S-19 and S-47; cited here once). Automatic DCC not permitted; no consent means local currency; the chargeback-right sentence for a cardholder who suffers a conversion loss; refunds in the original currency and the named permitted credit at the original rate; issuers cannot control whether DCC is performed; prepaid travel and multi-currency debit carve-outs. The guide describes Mastercard's standards rather than being them; the binding text is the non-public Transaction Processing Rules s.3.8. mastercard.com ↗
- Mastercard Transaction Processing Rules, 9 June 2026, s.3.8 POI Currency Conversion and s.3.13.1 receipt requirements (rules checked 22 August 2026). Current edition of the receipt rule: both amounts, both currency codes and the rate used, with no requirement to print the markup. The register also holds the 9 December 2025 edition as S-87, which carries the same receipt rule plus the ATM receipt section and the legal-tender default; the two editions do not differ on any claim used here. mastercard.com ↗
- Mastercard Transaction Processing Rules, 9 December 2025, s.3.8 and s.3.13.1 / 3.13.2 (rules checked 22 August 2026). The earlier edition of the same document, cited alongside S-18 for the receipt rule and for the rule that a receipt identifying no currency is deemed to be in the legal tender at the point of interaction. Read via an archived copy of Mastercard's own URL. mastercard.com ↗
- Dynamic Currency Conversion Terms of Service, Fiserv. Refund treated as a separate transaction and converted at the prevailing rate unless the merchant supplies the rate ID; chargebacks always use the original date's rate. Secondary-credible: read through a fetch tool, not raw bytes, and flagged in the register for re-verification. merchants.fiserv.com ↗
- What is Dynamic Currency Conversion (DCC)?, Revolut Help Centre (as published 22 August 2026). Issuer practice: it can raise a dispute chargeback where a rejected conversion was applied anyway. Permissive, not a guarantee, and it states no deadline. help.revolut.com ↗
- Being overcharged / items not arriving, Monzo Help (as published 22 August 2026). Chargeback may take up to three months; the bank does not control the timings; permissive 'might be able to' wording. The page is about being charged the wrong amount and does not mention DCC. monzo.com ↗
- How to Dispute a Credit Card Charge, Chase (as published 22 August 2026). Contact the merchant first; the 60-day statement clock stated for an unauthorized charge; the FCBA 60-day billing-error inquiry; 'charges with an incorrect amount' among disputable items. The page does not mention currency conversion. The contact-the-merchant instruction is recorded in the register's summary of the page rather than as a verbatim quote. chase.com ↗
- 12 CFR 1026.13, Billing error resolution (Regulation Z), Cornell Law School LII. The enumerated billing-error categories do not expressly cover wrong currency or a denied currency choice; the nearest is a computational error by the creditor. Governs open-end credit, not debit or ATM withdrawals. law.cornell.edu ↗
- Problems with goods and services: section 75 and chargeback, Financial Ombudsman Service (UK). A bank does not have to raise a chargeback, scheme rules differ, chargebacks can fail, evidence required. The page is about goods and services generally and does not mention DCC. financial-ombudsman.org.uk ↗
- Regulation (EU) 2021/1230 on cross-border payments in the Union (codification), Articles 1 and 4. The current text of the markup-disclosure duty, the ATM and point-of-sale display duty, and the scope limit to payments denominated in a Union currency. eur-lex.europa.eu ↗
- Regulation (EU) 2019/518 amending Regulation (EC) No 924/2009, Article 3a currency conversion charges. Origin of the percentage-markup-over-ECB duty, now codified in Article 4 of Regulation (EU) 2021/1230. A disclosure obligation only, creating no chargeback right. eur-lex.europa.eu ↗
- Turista u ceskeho bankomatu: Poplatek, spatny kurz, nebo oboji (TEST), Mesec.cz, April 2026 test published 4 May 2026. Field test of ten Prague ATM operators with a EUR-billed card against the ECB reference rate on the transaction date: 6.51% to 19.00%. Single city, single visit per operator. mesec.cz ↗
- Geldabheben im Ausland: Wie Sie Kostenfallen vermeiden, Finanztest 6/2019, Stiftung Warentest, 13 May 2019. 30 testers, 23 non-euro countries, 330 withdrawals and 132 card payments: accepting DCC would usually have cost more than 5%, peaking at 13.7%. test.de ↗