Selling Internationally
- Already on Stripe, Shopify Payments, or PayPal? You can accept international cards today, nothing to set up. You'll just pay higher fees on cross-border.
- Cross-border adds roughly 1-2% all in. That's an international-card fee (PayPal charges 1.50%) plus a separate currency conversion fee. Local acquiring removes most of it, but you need a local entity and bank account.
- Showing prices in local currency lifts conversion. Set your processor to settle in USD, so you carry no FX exposure.
- Add local payment methods (iDEAL, Pix, Alipay) only when a country passes 10% of your revenue. Below that, cards handle most international orders.
If you're on Stripe, Shopify Payments, or PayPal, you can already accept international cards, and there's nothing to set up. You'll pay roughly $2 more on a $100 order. For your first few, that's the whole story.
5 min readWhat Happens When a Foreign Card Pays You
A customer in another country enters their card. Your processor handles the whole transaction. They pay in their currency or yours, the processor converts it, and you get USD. No new account, no international bank setup, no paperwork.
This is called cross-border processing. Your US processor talks to the card network, which talks to the customer's foreign bank. It works exactly like a domestic transaction. There's just a currency conversion in the middle, and slightly higher fees.
The customer's bank may charge them a foreign transaction fee, usually 1-3%. That's their bank's fee, not yours. You don't control it and you don't see it. Some premium cards waive it. That's why customers with travel cards buy more freely from US merchants.
What It Costs
International transactions cost more. Here's a typical breakdown on Stripe-like pricing:
| Fee Component | Domestic | Cross-Border | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Processing fee | ~2.9% + $0.30 | ~3.9% + $0.30 | +1.0% |
| Currency conversion | None | ~1% | +1.0% |
| Total per $100 sale | ~$3.20 | ~$5.20 | +$2.00 |
That extra 1-2% is the whole cost on aggregator pricing. It comes in two parts, and processors publish both. PayPal charges 1.50% on international commercial transactions. Stripe charges a separate international-card fee, then adds a conversion fee if it has to convert. Conversion is the part merchants forget, and it's often the bigger half.
Interchange-plus doesn't rescue you here. You pay a higher cross-border interchange rate, then the network adds its own cross-border assessment. Different line items, same landing spot.
On a $100 order you're paying roughly $2 more. On $5,000 a month in international sales, that's about $100.
For most small businesses, it's worth it. You're making sales you wouldn't otherwise have. Don't let the fee talk you out of the order.
Exact fees vary by processor. Check their international or cross-border pricing page for your rates. Some bundle the FX markup into one rate. Others break it out.
Do I Need to Show Local Prices?
It depends on your international volume.
Under $10K/month international: No. USD pricing is fine. International customers are used to USD, and their bank handles the conversion. Don't add complexity you don't need yet.
$10K-$50K/month from one country: Consider it. Customers convert better when they see their own currency. Your processor can usually do it automatically: Shopify Markets, Stripe multi-currency.
The size of the lift is worth a caveat. The 10-30% figures come from the companies selling multi-currency pricing. Nobody neutral has published a number. So treat it as a real effect of unknown size. A/B test it on your biggest country. Believe your own checkout data over anyone's case study.
Over $50K/month from one country: Show local prices. The conversion lift pays for the setup many times over.
DCC offers to charge the customer in their home currency at checkout, with a markup you control. It sounds helpful. It frustrates customers. The rate is typically 3-8% worse than their bank's. Customers who notice feel ripped off. Don't enable it.
What About Taxes and Duties?
Tax compliance for international sales is its own guide. Here's the high-level version:
- VAT (Value Added Tax) applies in the EU and UK. Sell digital goods to EU consumers and you likely owe it. Revenue level doesn't matter.
- GST (Goods and Services Tax) applies in Canada, Australia, and others. Thresholds exist. Canada's is $30,000 CAD.
- Customs duties apply to physical goods crossing borders. Your customer usually pays on delivery. Surprise duties cause complaints and chargebacks.
For small volumes: your platform may handle this. Shopify collects and remits taxes in many jurisdictions automatically. Check your platform's international tax settings first.
For real volumes: talk to an accountant who knows international e-commerce, or use a tax service like Avalara or TaxJar. Getting this wrong creates liability. Getting it right is a solved problem.
Country-Specific Gotchas
Top 5 countries US small businesses sell to, and what to watch for:
| Country | Cards work? | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|
| Canada | Yes, standard cards work fine | CAD pricing preferred for repeat customers; PAD rules apply if you do recurring billing |
| UK | Yes, standard cards work fine | SCA/3DS authentication may trigger on checkout; GBP pricing helps conversion |
| EU (Germany, France, etc.) | Cards work, but... | SCA/3DS is required by regulation; local methods like iDEAL (Netherlands) and Bancontact (Belgium) are preferred in some countries |
| Australia | Yes, standard cards work fine | GST considerations if you exceed the threshold; AUD pricing helps for repeat buyers |
| Mexico | Cards work, but... | Lower card penetration overall; OXXO (cash voucher) and SPEI (bank transfer) preferred for many local buyers |
Selling to Canada, the UK, and Australia? You won't notice much difference from domestic. EU countries run slightly lower authorization rates, because of 3DS. You'll see more "soft declines" that retry successfully.
Scale Callout
Under $10K/month international: Your processor handles everything. Accept the higher fees. Don't optimize yet.
$10K-$50K/month international: Show local currency pricing if most orders come from 1-2 countries. Check whether you owe VAT/GST.
$50K-$200K/month international: Consider adding local payment methods for your biggest market, like iDEAL for the Netherlands. Read Going Global for the full strategy.
Over $200K/month international: Time to look at local acquiring, meaning you process through a local entity to cut fees and lift auth rates. See the Launch New Country playbook.
Where This Breaks
At some point cross-border processing stops being good enough. Here's how you know you've outgrown it:
- Auth rates below 80% in one country. Domestic usually approves at 90%+. If a country sits below 80%, the issuers there are declining you harder.
- Customers asking for payment methods you don't offer. "Do you accept iDEAL?" "Can I pay with Boleto?" That's demand you're not capturing.
- FX costs eating your margin on one corridor. Say you're doing $100K/month to the UK at 1-2% in FX fees. That's $1,000-$2,000 a month. At that volume, local acquiring pays for itself.
- High chargeback rates from one country. Cross-border fraud runs higher than domestic. If one country throws off outsized chargebacks, you need country-specific fraud rules.
Hit any of these? Read Going Global, which covers local acquiring, multi-processor strategy, and regional payment methods.
Pull your last 30 days of transactions. Segment by country. Calculate the auth rate for each one and compare it to domestic. Any country more than 10 points below is worth a look. You may need 3DS tuning there, or local currency pricing.