Chase UK Review 2026: Spending Abroad, 0% Card Fees and Why You Cannot Send Money Overseas

This is where Chase shines, so we looked at it first. For using your card overseas, the account is close to the best on the market.

The 0% card, the reason to hold it

When you spend on the Chase debit card in a foreign currency, there is no transaction fee and no added margin. You get the Mastercard wholesale rate, the same rate the card networks use between banks.

Better still, that 0% applies every day of the week. Some rivals quietly widen their rate at weekends, when the markets are shut. Chase does not, so a Saturday purchase abroad costs you no more than a Tuesday one.

Cash withdrawals abroad

You can take out cash overseas fee-free up to about £500 in a calendar month. Above that, a fee of roughly 1.5% applies to the extra, and there is a monthly ceiling near £1,500 on foreign cash.

A daily ATM limit of around £500 also applies, and the local machine's own operator fee is never something Chase can refund. For most trips this is generous, but heavy cash users should note the cap.

Spending £1,000 abroad on your card

These figures are illustrative, dated 2 July 2026. They compare Chase against a typical high-street debit card that charges a non-sterling fee of 2.75% to 2.99%.

On a two-week holiday, that gap adds up fast. This is the everyday case where Chase pays for itself, and it costs nothing to hold.

We need to be plain about this, because it is the question our readers care about most. The answer is no.

Chase UK does not make international transfers. There is no SWIFT payment, no euro SEPA option and no way to send pounds to an overseas account. The account moves money only within the UK, in pounds, by Faster Payments.

You also cannot receive money from abroad into a Chase account, so it is not a home for an overseas salary or a payment from family in another country.

What to use instead

Because Chase cannot send abroad, the usual route is to move your pounds to a specialist first. A service like Wise, which we cover in our Wise review, uses the mid-market rate with one clear fee, then sends the money on.

To show the difference, we priced £1,000 through a specialist on 2 July 2026, using mid-market rates of 1.1632 for euros and 126.11 for rupees. Rates move daily, so treat these as a guide, not a quote.

If you regularly send money on a route like sending money from the UK to Spain, a dedicated provider is what you need, and Chase becomes the account you spend from rather than send from.

Travellers and everyday spenders

If you want a card that costs nothing to use abroad and pays you to spend at home, Chase is excellent. The 0% foreign spending is the headline, and the savings and cashback round it out.

Cashback and savings seekers

Chase pays cashback on everyday spending, restructured in 2026 to 2% back capped at £20 a month, subject to making at least 15 payments and holding £1,000 in savings. Its linked saver and round-up account also pay competitive rates.

Anyone who also needs to send money

The honest fit is as a second account. You get first-rate spending and saving from Chase, and you pair it with a specialist for the transfers Chase cannot handle.

How Chase protects your money

We checked Chase against the FCA Register directly. Chase is a trading name of J.P. Morgan Europe Limited, authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority and regulated by the FCA and PRA under FRN 124579.

Because it is a UK bank, your deposits are protected by the FSCS. That limit rose to £120,000 per person on 1 December 2025, up from £85,000, and it applies to the money you hold in your Chase account.

Chase is the UK digital bank of JPMorgan Chase, one of the largest banks in the world, which sits behind the account.

Account security and fraud protection

The card is numberless, and you can freeze it, block overseas use or turn off contactless from the app in seconds. You log in with biometrics, payments use 3D Secure, and UK transfers are checked with Confirmation of Payee.

As a UK bank, Chase is covered by the mandatory reimbursement rules for authorised push payment fraud that took effect in late 2024. The known frustration is account freezes triggered by automated checks, which can lock funds while the bank reviews them.

An app-only bank. Everything happens in the Chase app, from opening the account to freezing the card. There are no branches, and you cannot pay in cash or cheques, which is the trade-off for the low costs.

Everyday features. Round-ups sweep spare change into a savings pot, spending is sorted into categories, and notifications land in real time as you pay.

Customer support. Help is by 24/7 in-app chat and a UK phone line. The common complaint you should plan around is slow resolution when an account is frozen for a security review, so keep another way to pay when you travel.

We read past the headline score, because the picture splits between everyday use and the moments things go wrong.

What people praise: a clean app, genuinely free spending abroad, the round-up saver and the cashback. For day-to-day money, customers rate it highly.

What goes wrong: sudden account freezes and closures from automated fraud and identity checks, slow help untangling them, and the plain fact that you cannot move money abroad from it.

For spending abroad, Chase is among the strongest UK options in our money transfer comparison. For sending abroad, it does not compete, because it offers no transfers at all.

The natural rivals are other app banks. Our Monzo review covers a bank that matches the 0% card spending and, unlike Chase, can send abroad through a Wise partnership.

Our Revolut review covers an app built around multi-currency accounts and in-app transfers, though it adds a weekend FX markup on the free plan. Other everyday-spending options land nearby, so our Monese, Currensea, Caxton and Wirex reviews are useful alongside it.

Rates move daily, and we refresh the live figures, so run a live comparison of today's rates and fees for the amount and currency you actually need to send before you choose a provider.

For spending, yes. Chase gives you fee-free card use abroad, a strong savings rate and cashback, all in a tidy app and with FSCS protection up to £120,000. As a travel and everyday account it is one of the best around.

For sending money abroad, it is not an option, because Chase does not do international transfers in either direction. That is why we rate it 3 out of 5. It is excellent at what it does, but useless for the job this site exists to help with.

Our advice is to treat Chase as the account you spend and save from, and pair it with a specialist for the transfers it cannot make.