Credit card forex markup in India, bank by bank

In this guide 6 sections

1. Every bank’s markup
2. What the markup actually costs you
3. The IDFC catch: zero markup, and from 26 October, zero points abroad
4. What else a 0% card can still charge you
5. Which one to carry
6. Sources

3 words below are dotted: tap one for its meaning in the glossary.

Most Indian banks charge 3.5% + GST on a foreign-currency swipe — ₹4,130 on every ₹1 lakh you spend abroad — and only a handful of their cards pay less. HDFC drops to 2% on four cards, SBI Card to 1.99% on four, ICICI to 0.99% on MakeMyTrip. IDFC FIRST is the outlier: 0% on every card it issues, since 9 September 2026. AU sets its standard at 3.49%, Union Bank at 3%.

That is the whole market in one paragraph. The table below is the same thing bank by bank, counted over the personal cards banks issue today, on application or by invitation, whose fee document prints a markup — 414 of them today. Every rate is read from the issuer’s own Most Important Terms and Conditions (MITC) or key fact statement, not from a marketing page. If you only want the cheapest card to carry abroad, the forex ranking answers that directly. This page answers the other question people type: what does my bank charge?

Every bank’s markup

Bank	Standard markup	Cards that pay less
HDFC Bank	3.5% (20 of 24 cards)	2% on Infinia, Diners Club Black, Regalia Gold, Tata Neu Infinity HDFC
SBI Card	3.5% (25 of 31)	1.99% on ELITE, MILES ELITE, AURUM, Tata Neu Infinity SBI; 2.5% on MILES PRIME; 3% on MILES
ICICI Bank	3.5% (19 of 25)	0% on 1838 Reserve; 0.99% on MakeMyTrip ICICI; 1.49% on Times Black; 1.99% on Amazon Pay ICICI; 2% on Emeralde and Emeralde Private Metal
Axis Bank	3.5% (35 of 43)	0% on Scapia (Axis), Burgundy Private, PRIMUS; 1.5% on Reserve; 1.8% on Olympus; 2% on Magnus and Magnus for Burgundy; 2.5% on IndiGo Axis Premium
IDFC FIRST Bank	0% (22 of 22)	every card, bank-wide since 9 September 2026 — but read the catch below
Kotak Mahindra	3.5% (9 of 16)	0% on Solitaire and Private; 2% on Air+, Air+ Prime, White Reserve, 811 Super Money, 811 Dream Different
IndusInd Bank	3.5% (12 of 20)	0% on PIONEER Private, Pioneer Heritage, Indus Solitaire; 1.5% on Tiger; 1.8% on Legend, Indulge and Pioneer Legacy (3.5% when it is issued free); Avios pays 1.5% only at its preferred destinations, 3.5% elsewhere
YES Bank	3.5% (22 of 28)	0.5% on YES Private and Private Prime; 1% on Marquee; 2% on RESERV; 3% on ELITE+ and Essence
RBL Bank	3.5% (48 of 56)	0% on World Safari, its Lite and Plus tiers and Lumière; 1.5% on World Xclusive, Insignia, iGlobe; 2% on Nova
AU Small Finance Bank	3.49% (16 of 20)	0% on ixigo AU; 0.99% on Zenith+; 1.99% on AU CA and AU CS. Zenith moved up from 1.99% to 3.49% on 1 October 2026
BOBCARD	3.5% (10 of 24)	0% on Etihad Guest Premium and Uni GoldX; 1% on Etihad Guest; 2% on Eterna, Tiara and four profession cards (ICAI Exclusive, ICSI Diamond, CMA One, Varunah Premium); 2.5% on Varunah Plus; 3% on the forces cards YODDHA, SENTINEL, RAKSHAMAH and VIKRAM
HSBC	3.5% (5 of 8)	0% on Privé; 0.99% on Premier; 1.99% on Live+. RuPay Cashback runs a dated 0% promotion to 31 December 2026 on top of a 3.5% tariff
Standard Chartered	3.5% (8 of 10)	2% on Ultimate and Beyond
Federal Bank	3.5% (4 of 6)	0% on Scapia (Federal); 2% on Celesta
Union Bank of India	3% (12 of 12)	none — one rate across the book
IDBI Bank	3.5% (7 of 7)	none

The counts are personal (not business) cards that a bank still issues, with a markup printed in a fee document we read. Cards closed to new applications are left out, which is why HDFC shows 24 and not the far longer list on its bank page. Several of the cheapest rows — Infinia, Burgundy Private, PRIMUS, PIONEER Private, Privé, Solitaire, YES Private, 1838 Reserve — are issued by invitation or only to private-banking clients. The card is cheap abroad because you already hold a large relationship with the bank.

What the markup actually costs you

The markup is charged on the rupee value of the transaction, and GST at 18% is charged on the markup. So the rate on the MITC is never the rate you pay:

Printed markup	What ₹1 lakh abroad costs you in markup + GST
3.5%	₹4,130
3%	₹3,540
2%	₹2,360
1.5%	₹1,770
0.99%	₹1,168
0%	₹0

On a ₹3 lakh family holiday, the gap between a 3.5% card and a 0% card is ₹12,390. That is more than most mid-range cards return in a year of domestic spend. It is also why the reward rate abroad matters less than people think: a 2% reward on a 3.5% card leaves you about 2.1% down on every swipe.

The IDFC catch: zero markup, and from 26 October, zero points abroad

IDFC FIRST re-saved its retail MITC on 9 September 2026 with a single NIL row for foreign-currency transactions, covering every card. That is real and it is permanent until the document changes. The cost came in a separate cardholder notice: from 26 October 2026, international transactions stop earning reward points on every IDFC card except Ashva, Mayura, Gaj, FIRST Private, WOW, WOW Black and the IndiGo cards. The hardest hit are Select, Wealth, Millennia and Classic, whose 10X category used to include international spend. Ashva keeps earning abroad, but at 2 points per ₹150 instead of 5.

The trade still favours the reader. ₹1 lakh spent abroad on one of those four cards earns nothing in points now, but saves the ₹4,130 that a 3.5% card would have cost. Their international earn used to pay about 1.25%, so the points were never worth as much as the markup. The full timeline is on the devaluation tracker.

What else a 0% card can still charge you

• Dynamic currency conversion (DCC). When a foreign merchant or website bills you in rupees, many banks charge a separate DCC markup — even on a 0% card. Axis raised its DCC markup on several cards on 28 August 2026; YES charges a separate 1% DCC on Marquee, RESERV, ELITE+, Essence and its Private cards. Always choose to pay in the local currency.
• Cash withdrawals abroad. The markup row is for purchases. A cash advance carries its own fee and interest from day one, whatever the markup.
• A regional split. DBS Altitude prints 0% across Asia and 1% everywhere else; IndusInd Avios prints 1.5% only at its preferred destinations. The headline rate is the lower one; the table above uses the rate you pay on most trips.

Which one to carry

If you travel abroad more than once a year and hold none of the cards above, the cheapest fix is a lifetime-free 0% card: Scapia (Federal), Scapia (Axis), ixigo AU or IDFC FIRST WOW. Keep it for foreign spend only and leave your main card for India. If you already hold a 2% card like Infinia, Diners Club Black or Magnus, the points they earn abroad roughly cancel the 2,360-rupee markup per lakh, so a separate 0% card is a small win rather than a big one.

The live ranking of every card by what it costs you abroad, net of the rewards it earns, is the forex board. What your bank’s points are worth when you do earn them is on the valuations page.

Method: every rate above is the forex row of our MITC table, parsed by the same function that ranks the forex board, counted over personal cards still issued (on application or by invitation) on the day this page was built. A bank’s co-brands count as its own cards, as on its bank page: HDFC’s IRCTC card is HDFC’s, RBL’s TVS Credit, Patanjali and BookMyShow cards are RBL’s, and the LIC card IDBI issues is IDBI’s. Where an issuer prints a carve-out (“3.5% except …”), the card named in the carve-out gets the lower rate and the rest get the standard. The cost table applies 18% GST to the markup only. Each card page lists the document its markup was read from under “Sources”.

Sources

• HDFC Bank — personal credit card MITC and Infinia fees and charges
• SBI Card — MITC
• ICICI Bank — credit card MITC
• Axis Bank — credit card MITC and schedule of charges
• IDFC FIRST Bank — retail credit card MITC
• HSBC — RuPay Cashback MITC