Withdrawing Cash at Chinese ATMs with a Foreign Bank Card: Fees and Tips

Who This Guide Is For

If you are currently in mainland China, or planning a trip there, I can share some firsthand experience about withdrawing cash from Chinese bank ATMs with a foreign bank card.

Which Chinese Banks Accept Foreign Cards?

China has a huge number of banks. The largest and strongest are the state-owned banks; alongside them there are private joint-stock banks, plus a layer of smaller regional banks. Not every one of them accepts foreign cards at the ATM:

State-owned banks such as Bank of China, ICBC, and Agricultural Bank of China: virtually all support foreign card withdrawals. Their branches and ATMs cover big cities, small towns, and everything in between — wherever you are in China, withdrawing with your home-country card is not a problem.
Private joint-stock banks: most support foreign cards.
Small regional banks: basically none of them do.

The rule of thumb is the card network logos on the machine. If the ATM displays Mastercard, Visa, or American Express logos, foreign cards work. Small regional banks such as Tianjin Bank or Zhangjiakou Bank only show the UnionPay logo, and accept only Chinese UnionPay cards.

China Citic Bank ATM welcome screen in both Chinese and English, showing Mastercard, Amex, and Visa logos at the bottom — A China Citic Bank ATM — the Visa, Mastercard, and Amex logos at the bottom tell you foreign cards are accepted, and the screen switches to English

Per-Transaction and Daily Limits

Chinese ATMs typically cap a single withdrawal at 3,000 yuan. On some machines I have seen — Minsheng Bank and Everbright Bank, for example — a foreign card could only withdraw 1,000–2,000 yuan per transaction.

As for how much you can withdraw per day or per month in total, that is decided by your issuing bank, not by the Chinese machine.

Step by Step: Using a Chinese ATM

Insert your card. The system offers a Chinese or English interface — take English.
Enter your PIN. Mainland Chinese cards use 6-digit PINs; most other countries use 4 digits. A 4-digit PIN works fine — just press Enter after typing it.
Enter the withdrawal amount, and after the mechanical whirring the cash is dispensed.
Important: the card is not returned yet. You must end the session and press the Exit button before the card comes out.

                        Watch out: Chinese ATMs dispense the cash first and return the card last — the opposite order of many other countries. Do not walk away and leave your card behind.
                    

Chinese ATM with freshly dispensed banknotes in the cash outlet, card still not returned — Cash comes out first — your card stays inside until you end the session

What It Costs: Fees Explained

Chinese bank ATMs themselves charge no extra fees. What you pay is determined entirely by your issuing bank’s rules. A withdrawal usually involves two components: a withdrawal fee and a currency conversion fee.

For work reasons I applied for a Velo digital bank card from East West Bank, a U.S. bank. Velo is one of those digital banks that has become popular in recent years — the whole account can be opened online. With this card, the first two ATM withdrawals per month in China are free of charge, and after that each withdrawal costs 1 US dollar. There is no additional currency conversion fee between US dollars and yuan. Very economical.

East West Bank Velo Visa debit card shown activated in a mobile banking app — The East West Bank Velo Visa debit card, activated in its mobile app

By comparison, some Hong Kong digital banks charge 50 HKD per cash withdrawal from mainland Chinese ATMs, plus a 2% currency conversion fee. Some UK digital banks charge only the 2% conversion fee with no withdrawal fee at all.

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Beware the DCC Trap

Recently, Agricultural Bank of China ATMs have started offering a “DCC (Dynamic Currency Conversion)” option for foreign card withdrawals. Decline it. If you accept, ABC charges an additional fee of up to 7.5% on top of the exchange rate when converting RMB into your card’s currency. You can withdraw normally without it — always refuse the DCC offer and avoid the unnecessary expense.

DCC sounds like a convenience and works like a tax: rejecting it costs you nothing but saves the spread.

Cards That Will Not Work at All

Debit cards and credit cards issued by traditional brick-and-mortar banks all work. But some cards issued by popular Neo Banks — fintech companies partnering with banks — are prepaid cards. Those can only be used for in-person retail purchases, not at ATMs.