2 years ago Sinopac Bank also asked for $100. Pretty much the two banks you mentioned are the ‘greedy’ ones, the rest don’t charge.
I’m actually surprised they didn’t fall into line and remove the fee since nobody else does it since they lose out on network fees when foreigners use a different bank to withdraw.
At least the remaining banks haven’t gone the other way like Thailand (I think it’s ~220 baht per transaction pretty much across the board, with just one exception I know of that charges “only” 150 baht). Hopefully Taiwanese banks don’t get the same idea of ripping off foreigners…
Thailand fees are ridiculous. And they set the withdrawal limit low so you need to pay again and again.
There was a workaround where you give them your visa card in branch and ask for a cash advance to avoid the fee but when I tried that they played dumb then finally said their card scanner didn’t work
Damn, I have always gotten charged here AND by my bank in canada haha. It is why I started transferring instead.
Yeah, it’s annoying. I used to use TransferWise when I lived here and had a bank account, but this time had no choice so just brought a fair bit of cash to change (which has now run out).
The ATM limits here aren’t terrible IMO (at least 20k baht with some higher, I think), but my UK cards limit me to ca. 8-12k baht per day, which means the fees add up.
I’ve also heard of this but never tried it myself. It always sounded like a pain and dependent on the bank/branch, like you said.
I have never paid fees anywhere - I made sure to always travel with a couple debit cards that don’t charge foreign transaction fee and currency conversion fee, and at least one that will also reimburse ATM fees if charged by the ATM providers. For those coming from the US, look into Capital One 360 Checking, Schwab High Yield Investor Checking, and Fidelity Cash Management accounts before leaving.
using foreign card?
I was able to get some NTD from a Mega bank ATM using a foreign VISA card about two years ago without incurring any fees.
You mean Mega International bank?
It still works - however some banks (as Dan says) will say they cannot and make you use the ATM.
And add ‘Standard Chartered’ to the no-fee ATM list here in Taiwan 
I used a Fubon ATM yesterday, and was not charged a fee. I also remember doing a withdrawal from a Bank of Taiwan ATM at the Taoyuan Airport last year, and was not charged. Maybe it’s your bank.
I can confirm that Bank of Kaohsiung does not charge ATM fees for foreign cards.
Here is my ATM experience a few days ago in Taoyuan.
I went to a Cathay United ATM in Daxi and withdrew NT$2000 from my US credit union ATM account. No ATM fee notice was presented during the ATM session.
It withdrew US$66.57 from my US account.
NT$2000/US$66.57 works out to 30.0436. Not bad
But then a 2nd transaction is listed on my US account history:
Int’l Transaction Fee Assessed by Visa, US$0.67
In comparison, I was in Singapore a few weeks ago.
All ATMs there notify and nick you 3.5% transaction fee in that country.
I was also assessed the same additional “international fee by visa”
On a S$500 withdraw:
US$467.40 debited my US account with an additional US$3.74 international fee by visa
Based on these two transactions, it appears the international visa fee was 1% on the Taiwan transaction and 0.8% on the Singapore transaction.
Cathay united seems to charged the minimum possible, it is my experience too.
That’s something set/determined by your home bank, right? Even if Visa is ultimately the one charging the fee and your bank is charging you, most of my banks cover this for overseas withdrawals. I guess that your bank is just passing this on to you?
Good question.
I asked my bank that question.
Their response was that the fee was levied by Visa International.
The bank has no information as to what VI will charge until the transaction is executed.
I think that’s probably right, technically (Visa obviously aren’t processing the conversion for free)…but it’s up to the bank whether they cover it, pass it on to the customer, or include it as part of their own fee.
Most of my UK banks (at least the ones I use regularly, and this is why) cover it completely, but one of my credit cards adds a separate international transaction fee, in part presumably to pay for this.
My Taiwanese bank also charges a fee for foreign purchases, which they also blamed on Visa when I called them up to query it - it was for a phone, so quite expensive, and I’ll be avoiding using that card for foreign stuff in future.
Which bank do you use? I’m sick of getting nickel-and-dimed to death by my bank on ATM withdrawals. They add two charges to every withdrawal I make, and if I’m forced by circumstance to use the ‘wrong’ ATM, there’s a third fee from the ATM’s owners.
+1 for Cathay. They don’t seem to charge any ATM fee on top of the bank’s foreign withdrawal fee. Almost everyone else does.
At one time, maybe years ago, VI never charged a fee.
They offset the exchange rate to cover their costs.
Now, at least the exchange rate seems to be pretty close to the wholesale rate which is pretty good. At least for the two transactions I reference above.
I think the fees for credit card and ATM use have made using them prohibited when in a foreign country. This is also true for traveler’s cheques, though those seem seldom used anymore. So outside the hotel and rental cars, I’ll stick to bring cash and converting it to local currency on arrival. I also did that for the trip and the forex fees were considerably less than using ATM cards to obtain local cash. This is almost a necessity anyway when visiting countries that limit daily transaction amounts of credit cards and ATMs.
Mostly Starling, plus I have Monzo and Revolut as backups. All charge the MasterCard/Interbank rate with no markup, but Starling isn’t limited to 200 GBP a month or whatever so that’s the one I mostly use. Definitely recommend. I’m surprised you don’t have it yet actually.
Chase is free for foreign ATM withdrawals too, I think (my dad has them and mentioned it when we were in Thailand).
I also only really use Cathay when withdrawing from my UK cards, but I thought the majority of banks here didn’t charge for foreign withdrawals.