Good
- Free virtual Visa with no issuance or monthly fee
- Load fee capped at $2 a month (1% on the first $200)
- 0% fee on payments to merchants outside the US
- Works with Apple Pay and Google Pay
Watch out
- No cashback or rewards on any spending
- Virtual only, with no plastic card or ATM withdrawals
- $2,000 limit on each transaction
- 1% fee on the balance withdrawn when you delete the card
Airtm Virtual Card is a free virtual Visa in US dollars that spends the USDC balance in your Airtm wallet. It has no issuance or monthly fee, charges 1% on the first $200 you load each month and nothing after that, and pays no cashback.
Airtm is a dollar wallet built for freelancers and remote workers, many of them in Latin America, who get paid from platforms such as Upwork and Deel. The card is how that balance gets spent on subscriptions, ad accounts and online shops, or in stores through Apple Pay and Google Pay.
Airtm Virtual Card cashback
Airtm Virtual Card pays no cashback, and there are no points, tiers or token rewards attached to card spending.
Airtm runs a referral program and separate loyalty programs, but none of them pays a percentage back on card purchases. On $500 a month of spending, a card with 1% back would return $60 a year, so the reason to use the Airtm card is convenience for dollar payments.
Airtm Virtual Card fees
Airtm Virtual Card costs nothing to issue or keep, and its only regular charge is a 1% load fee on the first $200 you add each calendar month.
Because the fee stops at $200, the most you pay is 2 USDC a month, however much you spend. Someone loading $1,000 a month pays $2, which works out to 0.2%, and anyone loading more pays an even smaller share.
Payments to merchants outside the US carry a 0% international transaction fee under the cardholder agreement, so a purchase in euros or pesos costs only Visa's exchange rate. That makes the card a cheap way to pay foreign merchants from a USDC balance.
The cardholder agreement also lists a 1% fee on any balance withdrawn when you delete the card, and a $2,000 limit on each transaction. Adding money to the Airtm wallet itself works through crypto deposits, bank transfers or Airtm's peer-to-peer network, and those deposit routes sit outside the card's own fees.
Airtm Virtual Card ATM withdrawal fees
Airtm Virtual Card can't be used at ATMs, because it's a virtual card and its cardholder agreement rules out both cash withdrawals and ATM balance checks.
To turn your balance into cash, you withdraw from the Airtm wallet to a bank account or through Airtm's peer-to-peer network, where other users pay out in local currency. If regular ATM access matters to you, pick a card with a plastic version from the comparison further down.
Is Airtm Virtual Card safe?
Airtm Virtual Card is custodial: your USDC sits in an Airtm account, and the card itself is a Lead Bank prepaid Visa managed by Bridge.
Airtm Inc. is a Delaware company registered with FinCEN as a money services business, and it has operated since 2015. When you pay, Bridge sells enough USDC from your Airtm wallet to cover the purchase and Lead Bank settles it in dollars, while refunds come back to the wallet as stablecoins.
The cardholder agreement states that card funds aren't FDIC insured, so there is no government deposit protection behind the balance. Keeping only spending money in Airtm and the rest in a wallet you control limits what you could lose.
Who should get Airtm Virtual Card
Airtm Virtual Card suits freelancers and remote workers who already get paid into Airtm and need a dollar Visa for online payments.
It fits well for paying ad accounts, software subscriptions and app stores in US dollars from a USDC balance, with a load cost that never passes $2 a month and no fee on foreign merchants. Through Apple Pay or Google Pay it also works in shops.
It's a weak choice as a main card, though. There is no cashback, no plastic card and no cash access, so anyone who spends more than a few hundred dollars a month will get more from the cards compared below.
Where Airtm Virtual Card is available
Airtm Virtual Card is promoted in the United States, Latin America, the European Union, Kenya and South Asia, and you need a verified Airtm account to request it.
Airtm accounts work in 190 countries, but the card is a separate product with its own eligibility. The quickest way to check your country is to open the Cards section of your Airtm account, where activation takes from a few minutes to 2 business days.