Revolut Card and App: Complete Review – All You Need to Know!

Revolut is a great payment card not only for traveling. We have been using it for several years and it has saved us a lot of money. We have prepared for you a complete review of the Revolut card and app. Let’s have a look at all the important information you need to know.

What is Revolut card and app?

Revolut is a mobile app that is associated with a debit card. This app allows you to have accounts in many world currencies including cryptocurrencies free of charge. The Revolut app is easiest to charge using your classic payment card. You can then simply convert your charged money to any other supported currency in a few seconds.

Revolut is not a credit card, but a debit card. This means that you must first transfer money to your account before you can use it. Your account is not linked to any other account or PayPal, so you don’t have to worry about overdraft.

Why is Revolut advantageous?

Let’s summarize the biggest benefits of the Revolut card:

1) Better exchange rates

Many people pay by their card abroad and do not care about the exchange rates at all. You are maybe thinking – the difference is really small and it’s not worth to care about? It’s not small. Banks (especially the largest ones) often have very unfavorable rates for converting into foreign currency. You can easily lose hundreds of dollars during just a week-long holiday.

Revolut, however, offers very advantageous rates, which are in most cases more advantageous than all the rates you get when paying with a card from your regular bank.

2) Managing accounts in many world currencies

Revolut currently allows you to maintain accounts in 29 different world currencies. In addition to the most important – USD, EUR and GBP, it also allows AED, AUD, BGD, CAD, CHF, CZK, DKK, HKD, HRK, HUF, ILS, JPY, MAD, MXN, NOK, NZD, PLN, QAR, RON, RUB, SAR, SEK, SGD, THB, TRY, ZAR, and more…

In each destination, you will pay directly in the local currency, which is clearly the best option. In addition, Revolut gradually adds support for more and more currencies (a year ago they supported about half of what they support today).

3) ATM withdrawals without a fee

Most banks charge fees (often quite high) for ATM withdrawals abroad. Revolut card allows you to withdraw up to $300 per month from ATMs worldwide for a free tariff. If you withdraw more than $300, you will pay a 2% fee. You will pay the fee also if you withdraw more than 5 times in a single month.

You still need to pay the fee to the bank that operates the ATM (you would pay two fees when you pay with your classic card, but only one when you pay with a Revolut card).

4) Automatic waiting for a favorable exchange rate

This is one of the less known Revolut features that can save you a lot of money. Currency exchange rates fluctuate a lot and waiting for a favorable rate takes a lot of time. In the mobile app, you have the option to set a specific rate for which you would like to exchange a certain amount of money. If the rate gets to that level at any time, the app will automatically exchange your money.

And how to set a reasonable exchange rate? Just look at the evolution of the rate in recent days in the app and you can easily estimate a reasonable level.

4) Safety

The big advantage of the Revolut is that you can only deposit a small amount of money into your account, and in case of misuse, you will only lose as much as you have uploaded. Recharging is easy and very fast, so you can have little money on your Revolut account, and if you need to pay a larger amount, you can easily recharge it just before you make payment.

Additional security benefits:

• Possibility to freeze your card in the app (prohibit any operations).
• If the CVV code is entered incorrectly 3 times, the card will freeze itself automatically.
• Payments can also be secured using the location of your phone. If someone tries to pay from a different location other than your phone, the transaction will be rejected.
• Possibility to prohibit withdrawals from ATMs, on-line transactions, or contactless and magnetic tape payments.
• Possibility to set a monthly limit.

5) Virtual payment card

Another big advantage is the possibility of using a virtual payment card. You will not have this card physically, but only virtually in the app, and will be able to pay with it over the Internet (on suspicious websites, for example). The Virtual Revolut Card may also be useful if the physical card is blocked and you are waiting for a new card to arrive.

6) Google Pay and Apple Pay Support

Revolut Card supports Google Pay and Apple Pay, which provide access to an easy, secure, and private payment method in stores, apps, and online payments via Android and Apple devices respectively.

7) Excellent mobile app

The mobile application is high-quality, user-friendly, fast, and stable. You will have a hard time finding a better banking application on the market. We haven’t encountered any errors in the application, during several years of use

8) Budget and spending statistics

In Revolut App, you have statistics of all transactions and have a good overview of your overall spending. The app also lets you set your monthly budget for each category (food, transportation, entertainment, and others).

Disadvantages of the Revolut

Revolut has also some disadvantages. Let’s look at them together:

1) Limit for ATM withdrawals

With the Revolut card, you can withdraw only $300 per month from ATMs ($600 or $900 for paid tariffs, respectively). Above this limit, you will pay a fee of 2% of the amount withdrawn. You will pay the fee also if you withdraw more than 5 times in a single month. However, even with this fee, it’s often still better than a regular bank card. Fortunately, you can pay directly by card and don’t have to withdraw too much cash in most countries nowadays. You can find state of your limits in the app – Dashboard – Settings (cogwheel icon) – Price Plan.

2) Exchange rates are not the best for all currencies.

Unfortunately, exchange rates for Thai Bahts, Georgian Lari, and Ukrainian Hryvnias are usually worse than exchange rates of regular banks. It’s a good idea to always check the rates before your payment.

3) Beware of weekend exchange rates

At the weekend (UK UTC time), Revolut charges a 1% surcharge on all currency exchanges. This is in order to protect itself against any exchange rate depreciation over the weekend. However, you can simply avoid this surcharge by exchanging money in advance outside the weekend.

4) Revolut card does not yet support 3D Secure

Revolut does not yet support 3D secure, which is increasingly required by merchants, so you may not be able to pay with your Revolut card somewhere.

However, Revolut has recently increased its priority and support for 3D Secure should be available soon.

5) Monthly and annual transaction limits

Revolut has a monthly limit of $5000 on all transactions for a free account. In normal use, you will not simply exceed this limit, but it may happen when you buy family tickets, for example.

The annual limit for outgoing payments is $14,000.

However, don’t take this information as granted because it is missing from the official documentation, and its just a user experience. Moreover, Revolut quite often changes the limits.

5) No internet banking

Revolut does not have classic internet banking, it is a purely mobile application. They recently launched at least a basic web version, but it doesn’t allow any payments yet, you only see a statement of your accounts. If you want to take care of your money via a computer, you are unfortunately out of luck, you have to make do with a mobile phone.

6) Unsupported countries for bank transfer

Please note that bank transfers to and from Revolut do not work in all countries. However, you can still pay by card and withdraw from ATMs in these countries normally. It is not possible to send or receive a payment from Revolut to a bank account held in one of the following countries:

• Afghanistan, Algeria, Angola, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Burundi, Burkina Faso, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, Iraq, Iran, Yemen, South Sudan, Cambodia, Congo (Brazzaville), Congo (Kinshasa) ), Cuba, Laos, Lebanon, Liberia, Libya, Mozambique, Myanmar, Nigeria, Panama, Palestine, Pakistan, Ivory Coast, North Korea, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Serbia, Central African Republic, Sudan, Swaziland, Syria, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan , Tanzania, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Uganda, Ukraine, Vanuatu, Venezuela, East Timor, Zimbabwe.

Money can be transfered from an account in the following countries, but money cannot be transferred to it:

• Belarus, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Trinidad and Tobago

Revolut tariffs

Revolut offers 3 different tariffs to choose from. Standard is free and Premium and Metal are paid. The biggest advantages of the paid tariffs include:

1. Higher limits for ATM withdrawals (see table below).
2. Free travel insurance – unfortunately only for a maximum of 40 days, so it’s good only for people traveling on shorter trips.
3. Equipment insurance – for example, telephone or camera – it’s available in the Standard tariff too, but it’s more favorable for paid tariffs.
4. Access to airport lounges – useful if you have a long transfer and need silence, high-quality wifi and free food and drinks included in the lounge price. The lounge costs $15-30 per person and with the Metal tariff, you have one entry per year for free. These are usually higher-quality lounges, where you can’t buy entrance normally.
5. Airport Lounge in case of delayed flight – if you register your flight in the app and the flight is delayed more than 1 hour, you will get free access to the airport lounge.

Tariffs comparison:

	Standard	Premium	Metal
Monthly price	Free	$9.99	$14.99
Card shipping	$5 (free via this link)	Free	Free
Monthly transactions limit	$5000	No limit	No limit
ATM withdrawal monthly limit (without 2% fee)	$300	$600	$1000
Maximum ATM withdrawals (without 2% fee)	5	No limit	No limit
Express payments	$6	Free	Free
CashBack	×	×	0,1 % Europe, 1 % Rest of the World
Travel Insurance (max 40 days)	$1 / day	Free	Free
Customer service	General	Priority	Priority
Crypto currencies	×	✓	✓
Card design	Set	Optional	Special Metallic
General virtual card	Free	Free	Free
One-time virtual card	×	✓	✓
Express delivery	$20	Free	Free
Airport lounges	×	✓ ($15-30 per person)	✓ (1× free entrance per year)

Revolut Fees

Service	Standard	Premium	Metal
Monthly fee	$0	$9.99	$14.99
Top-up with EU debit or credit card	$0	$0	$0
Top-up with non-EU debit or credit card	$1-2	$1-2	$1-2
Top-up with business card	$1-2	$1-2	$1-2
Debit card	$0	$0	$0
Second card	not possible	$0	$0
ATM withdrawal	$0 (max $300), then 2 %	$0 (max $600), then 2 %	$0 (max $1000), then 2 %
Maximum ATM withdrawals (without 2% fee)	5	No limit	No limit
Incoming payment	$0	$0	$0
Outgoing payment in EUR (* SEPA)	$0	$0	$0
Outgoing payment in EUR (no SEPA)	$0	$0	$0
Outgoing payment in USD	$4	$4	$4
Outgoing payment in other currency	$7	1. payment $0, next payments $7	1. payment $0, next payments $7
Payments between Revolut users	$0	$0	$0

* SEPA zone: all European Union states, Island, Liechtenstein, Monaco, Switzerland, Great Britain

How to order Revolut?

Revolut card costs $6 for regular orders. However, you can use this link to register, you will receive your card for free. You need to install the Revolut mobile app and fill in your personal information. It is also necessary to verify your identity – upload a photo of either ID or passport. You also need to upload a selfie so that Revolut can compare your image with the photo on the submitted ID.

The card should arrive within 9 working days at the latest. Express delivery within 3 business days costs $20 for the Standard plan and is free for paid plans.

To fully activate your account, you must “preload” Revolut with at least $10.

How to transfer money to Revolut?

You have 3 options on how to send money to your Revolut account:

• Using another payment card – clearly the simplest and most advantageous option. You can charge directly your own currency your usual payment card. You can save your card to the app and then just enter how much you want to send. You can also set up an automatic charge when your balance falls below a certain amount.
• By bank transfer – the least advantageous option, because it is an international SWIFT payment and you pay the fee to your bank.
• Using Google Pay or Apple Pay – these services have been implemented just this last year, if you already use them, it may be the best option for you.

After that, you can simply exchange money from your currency to another currency you need to pay with. Watch a short video that shows sending money and exchanging to another currency:

How do foreign currency payments work?

One of the biggest advantages of the Revolut card is that you can pay directly in a foreign currency. Even in a currency that you don’t have in your account. There are two ways to make a payment (provided, of course, that you have sufficient balance in your account in at least one currency):

1) You have sufficient balance in the currency you pay with

In this case, this is easy and just this one certain currency will be deducted.

2) You don’t have sufficient balance in the currency you pay with

If you don’t have enough balance in the currency you pay with, you will be deducted in one of the base currencies:

• EUR for residents of the European Union
• GBP for UK residents
• USD for all others

However, if you do not have sufficient balance in this currency, Revolut will continue to search for other currencies until it finds one with sufficient balance. Unfortunately, you cannot combine amounts into one currency. For example, half the amount in USD and another half in EUR cannot be paid.

Other useful Revolut features

1) Payment via URL link

Very useful function. If you want to pay someone or someone to pay you, you don’t have to give them your payment information directly. Simply generate and send them a link from which that person can easily receive or pay that amount. The other person doesn’t even need to be a Revolut user. This is a great way to pay without a risk.

2) Vault

If you are saving on vacation or anything else, a vault can be great for you. In Revolut, you can set the amount you will automatically send to the vault regularly.

Alternatively, you can set up rounding payments up and the surplus will always be sent to the vault.

3) Split expenses

It often happens that you go to a restaurant or travel with a group of friends and you have a common bill that needs to be divided. This is exactly what this feature allows you to do – split your account among multiple people. The downside is that everyone must be a Revolut user. This feature is most useful when traveling abroad, where conversions between different currencies are difficult to calculate.

4) Trading stocks and investing in commodities

Have you always wanted to try stock trading and it seemed unavailable to you? Now you can trade directly in the Revolut mobile app. Just add money to an investment account and you can buy and sell stocks immediately. In the app, you have clear graphs of price evolution. You can trade cryptocurrencies too.

If you want to protect your money against inflation, you can invest in commodities. Revolut currently offers investments in gold and silver.

What to be aware of while using Revolut?

1) Withdrawals from ATMs in your home country

The Revolut card is issued in the UK and therefore some ATMs in other countries charge quite high fees. You can easily pay with the Revolut card at home, but we do not recommend withdrawing money from ATMs.

2) Exchange rates on weekends

At the weekend (UK UTC time), Revolut charges a 1% surcharge on all currency exchanges. This is in order to protect itself against any exchange rate depreciation over the weekend. However, you can simply avoid this surcharge by exchanging money in advance outside the weekend.

3) Limit for ATM withdrawals and monthly and yearly limits

With the Revolut card, you can withdraw for free only $300 per month from ATMs ($600 or $900 for paid tariffs, respectively). Above this limit, you will pay a fee of 2% of the amount withdrawn. You will pay the fee also if you withdraw more than 5 times in a single month. However, even with this fee, it’s often still better than a regular bank card. 

Revolut has a monthly limit of $5000 on all transactions for a free account. The annual limit for outgoing payments is $14,000.

4) Do not rely solely on Revolut

It’s always a good idea to have multiple cards while traveling. For example, MasterCard does not work and Visa works in some countries, and vice versa. Therefore, we recommend that you carry at least one other payment card in addition to your Revolut card.

Review summary: Revolut is just worth it!

We have been using the Revolut for several years and can only warmly recommend it. Revolut will save you a lot of money if you keep an eye on all the limits and exchange money to the right currency on time. It’s just a great travel money card.

Watch this video with complete Revolut review:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Z0rhfYM00s

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