A crypto card that keeps the self-custody pitch and charges for the privilege

Updated October 2026
Licensed
usAvailable in US
Fast payouts
18+ Only
A payment card next to a phone with a crypto wallet app open

The Tangem card is not one thing. There is the Tangem hardware wallet, a physical cold-storage device that has been around for years and is a genuinely different product, and there is Tangem Pay, the Visa card that spends from a stablecoin balance inside the Tangem phone app. This review is entirely about the second one, because that is what people searching for a Tangem card review almost always mean. If you want a review of the hardware wallet, this is the wrong page, and I would rather say so at the top than let you read two thousand words about plastic before finding out.

Tangem works as a payment card spent from a crypto balance

Tangem Pay is a decent card for one specific person: someone who already holds a hardware wallet, already thinks in stablecoins, and wants a plain Visa number they can put into Apple Pay or Google Pay without paying an annual fee. The Basic plan costs nothing, issues a virtual Visa Platinum in about a minute after a single identity check, and pays 1% cashback up to $100 a month. That is a real offer, and I do not see many cards that combine “no annual fee” with “spend directly from crypto you already own” without burying the catch somewhere else.

The catches exist. The Foreign Exchange markup is 1.5% on top of the Visa exchange rate, so every purchase outside the United States costs you noticeably more than the sticker price. Cash from an ATM costs 4% on Basic. Card balances are capped at $10,000 on the paid-cheaper tier and $50,000 on the expensive one. The identity check is run by a company called Paera LLC, not by Tangem, and Tangem’s own pages say plainly that it is not regulated as a financial services provider. And there is a genuine ambiguity about the card itself: Tangem’s public pages do not contain a country list. You find out whether you qualify by typing your country into the app and finding out.

My score is 7.5 out of 10. That is a card that does what it says, cheaply, for the audience it was built for, with real friction at the edges and an unresolved question about cash withdrawals that I want to raise rather than smooth over. Details and the conditions as of October 28, 2026 follow.

Score

Criterion Mark Why
Who can get it 7 / 10 Available in the US and selected countries across Latin America, APAC, the Middle East and Africa, but not every country and not every US state; eligibility turns on region of residence and is only confirmed inside the app
Cost 7 / 10 Basic plan is free and the first virtual card is free; FX is Visa Exchange Rate plus 1.5%, transaction fee is $0, ATM is 4%; Plus costs $29.99 a month
Top-up options 9 / 10 USDC and USDT on Polygon, Base, Arbitrum and BNB Smart Chain, plus ACH or Fedwire bank transfers, and other tokens through a swap
Reliability and complaints 7 / 10 Issued by Rain, a Visa Principal Member, with the programme run by Paera LLC; Tangem is not regulated as a financial services provider. Unofficial sources name Third National as issuer, and there are complaints about network outages and support
Everyday use 8 / 10 Basic issues a virtual card, Plus issues plastic, Apple Pay and Google Pay are supported, ATM is 4% on Basic and 2% on Plus — though one page still says cash withdrawals are not available yet
Total 7.5 / 10 A strong, cheap card for crypto-native users, held back by a 1.5% FX markup, balance caps and unresolved ATM messaging

The score is not a ranking against every card on the market. It is how well this card does the job its own pages promise, with the friction taken into account. The 9 for top-up options is real and deserves to be said plainly: four major networks, two major stablecoins, a swap for everything else, and a bank rail. Almost nothing else in this category is that flexible. The 7 for reliability is about structural unknowns — who actually issues the card, and whether the issuer’s own pages contradict each other on cash — not about a documented catastrophe. That distinction matters, and I will come back to it in the risk section.

Will they give you the card?

The first question is not whether you want the card but whether you can have it, and for Tangem the answer lives in a place you cannot read in advance.

Tangem states that Tangem Pay is available in the United States and in selected countries across Latin America, the Asia-Pacific region, the Middle East and Africa. It is explicit that this is not every country and not every US state. At the same time, the country list itself is not stated on the Tangem Pay page or in the tariff PDF. The PDF says instead that eligibility for some features is determined based on your country and region of residence, and that the answer is shown in the app.

That is an unusual way to publish this, and I would rather you hear it plainly than discover it after a rejected application. You are meant to find out by entering your country of residence during onboarding. There is no public checklist to pre-screen yourself against.

The eligibility rules I can tell you about are these:

What is *not* stated, and I want to be exact about it because people search for this: Tangem’s public pages do not publish the full country list, do not publish which US states are excluded, do not say which documents are required beyond the general identity check, do not state a proof-of-address requirement, and do not state the age rule beyond 18+. None of that is hidden — it is simply not on the pages, and you will get the real answer by starting the application.

One more thing worth knowing before you apply. Tangem rejects repeat applications with the same identity automatically, and it says it cannot see the reason for a rejection. That means a failed first attempt can be a dead end for that identity rather than something you can fix by trying again in a few minutes. Get your documents in order first.

How to get it

The signup runs through Paera LLC, and that is not a detail — it is the structural fact that explains almost every support question you will ever have about this card.

Paera LLC is the party described as responsible for onboarding, including performing KYC and AML verification. Tangem’s own wording is that identity verification and eligibility checks apply to the card account only. So when you sign up for Tangem Pay, you are opening an account with Paera, and Tangem is the brand in front of it. The card itself is issued by Rain, described as a Visa Principal Member.

The identity check itself is a single KYC flow run through Sumsub. What it collects:

A separate proof-of-address document is not stated as a requirement. The address is part of the flow; whether it needs a supporting document is something you will learn in the app.

On timing: the card is usually issued within 5 minutes, and in a minority of cases within 48 hours. If it has not arrived after 48 hours, Tangem directs you to [email protected]. Not Tangem support — Paera support. That email address is the difference between the two companies made concrete, and it is worth remembering.

There is also a virtual card path that is faster than plastic. An additional virtual card costs $5 and is issued in about 1 minute, rarely taking up to 48 hours.

The tier determines what you actually get:

Tier Card Card form Max cards Cost
Basic Visa Platinum Virtual 3 $0
Plus Visa Signature Plastic 5 $29.99 per month
Prestige Visa Infinite Virtual, plastic or metal (coming soon) 10 $999 per year (coming soon)

The card currency is USD. Non-USD transactions are converted. And there is a detail about which entity you email for what, because it saves time later:

What you need help with Who handles it
Card setup and features [email protected]
Account, KYC, disputes, declined payments, refunds, personal data [email protected]
Stuck in KYC or rejected Paera only — Tangem Support cannot see KYC status
In-app route The Get Help button in the app

Plastic delivery has real conditions. It ships only inside the country that was verified at KYC, so a verification address in one country and a mailing address in another is not something the system will quietly fix. The country list and estimated time are shown in the app when you order. Orders use Latin letters only, and an order cannot be cancelled once placed. The card arrives inactive.

Fees

Here is the whole cost picture in one table, because the headline numbers and the small ones tell different stories.

A receipt and a card on a café table
What a Tangem payment costs depends on the conversion and currency fees
Fee or limit Value
Basic plan fee $0
Plus plan fee $29.99 per month
Prestige plan fee $999 per year (coming soon)
First virtual card $0
Additional virtual card $5
Replacement card $1
Transaction fee $0
FX fee on non-USD transactions Visa Exchange Rate + 1.5%
On-chain withdrawal $0
Dispute fee $30 when a formal dispute opens
Bank top-up via ACH $1 (Basic), free on Plus
Bank top-up via Fedwire $11 (Basic), free on Plus
ATM fee 4% (Basic), 2% (Plus), 1% (Prestige, per the product page)
ATM per-transaction maximum $250, max 3 withdrawals per 24 hours
Daily spend per card $10,000 (Basic), $50,000 (Plus), $100,000 (Prestige)
Annual spend per card $10,000,000
Transaction count 100 per day, 1,000 per month
Maximum card balance $10,000 (Basic), $50,000 (Plus)

Two of those lines conflict with each other across official sources, and I will not hide it. The physical card delivery fee is given as $15.63–$63.45 on the Tangem Pay page, and as $14.53–$82.10 in the tariff PDF dated 25 Aug 2026. Both are official figures from the same company and they do not match. Plan for the upper end. Similarly, the replacement fee is $5 on one page and $1 in the tariff PDF. On Plus, the first plastic card is free and after that the same delivery fee applies.

Now let me run three ordinary payments through that table, because a fee list on its own does not tell you what a Tuesday costs.

A small purchase in your own country on Basic. Nothing applies. The transaction fee is $0, and a domestic purchase in your own currency does not trigger the conversion markup. If your card balance is denominated in USDC and the coffee is not in dollars, you are into the FX line — Visa’s rate plus 1.5%. That is the case that catches people: it is not the merchant’s country that matters, it is whether the transaction settles in USD. Paying in your home currency at a terminal that lets you choose local currency is the cheapest version of this, which is why Tangem’s help centre advises picking local currency.

A €30 subscription while travelling on Basic. Visa converts at the Visa exchange rate, and the tariff PDF adds 1.5% on top. On €30 that is roughly a euro and a half for the privilege of not converting it yourself in advance. Not catastrophic. Over a month of travel spending it is the number that decides whether you like the card. On Plus, bank transfers are free and the FX markup is the same 1.5%, so Plus buys you free bank rails rather than cheaper conversion.

$200 in cash from an ATM on Basic. The ATM fee is 4% of the withdrawal amount, so $8 on top of the $200, at a maximum of $250 per withdrawal and three withdrawals per 24 hours. On Plus the same withdrawal costs 2%, so $4. This is where the tier difference is most tangible and most painful, because ATM access also carries that unresolved caveat described below. No free allowance is stated on either tier.

Two costs you will not find in the table. There is no monthly account fee and no standard transaction fee, which is the headline claim and it holds. But the crypto conversion spread is not stated anywhere, and the swap fee when you convert a non-stablecoin token depends on the swap provider rather than on Tangem, so neither can be quoted as a fixed number. The network gas fee for a top-up is paid by the sender on the blockchain, not by the card.

One charge deserves a warning: the plan fee is charged every 30 days, and if your balance cannot cover it you get 30 days to top up before the Signature cards close and the plan drops to Basic. That is a genuinely fair grace period, and it is also a mechanism by which a dormant Plus account quietly becomes a Basic one. If you are paying $29.99 a month, set a reminder or keep a small buffer.

Top up

Top-up is the strongest part of this card, and it earned the 9 in the score table for a reason. Funding it is not a single clever mechanism but three separate ones that cover nearly every situation.

A phone showing a stablecoin transfer screen
Topping up Tangem starts with a transfer to the right network

From the Tangem Wallet, with a swap if needed. If you hold something other than USDC or USDT in your Tangem Wallet, the app swaps it on the way in. This is the path for someone whose whole balance sits in a hardware wallet.

From another wallet or exchange. You get a deposit address per network, and you send supported stablecoins to it. This is the path for people who hold crypto elsewhere and do not want to move it.

By bank transfer. ACH or Fedwire where available, with the amount converted to USDC.

The coins and networks, specifically:

Limits: a daily load of $100,000, 24 loads per day, 150 loads per month. The minimum top-up is not stated.

The bank rail has a fee that is deducted from the amount you send rather than billed on top, and the arithmetic is worth doing before you transfer. Send $1,001 by ACH to receive $1,000. Send $1,011 by Fedwire to receive $1,000. On Plus both are free.

Now, the sentence on this page that matters more than any other for a first-time user: the wrong token or the wrong network is permanently lost. Not reversed, not recovered with support, lost. That is the nature of blockchain transfers generally, and this card is no softer about it than anyone else. Match the network twice.

Taking money out works in both directions, with the same asymmetry. You can withdraw USDC and USDT to your Tangem Wallet at any time, and on-chain withdrawal is $0, with swap-provider fees if you withdraw a token other than the supported two. You can withdraw to US banks by ACH for $1 or Fedwire for $11, free on Plus, capped at $10,000 per transaction with no daily or monthly limit stated, and only to US banks.

Three withdrawal facts that will bite someone eventually:

Paying with it every day

The everyday picture is good, and the way it is good is worth describing before the caveats.

Tangem Pay lives inside the Tangem app on iOS and Android. It is not a separate application to download and remember. Apple Pay and Google Pay are both supported, with Apple Pay dependent on your country. In Apple and Google Wallet a frozen card shows as Suspended.

That mobile wallet support is what turns this from a curiosity into a usable card. Once the Visa number is in Apple Pay, most of your daily life stops thinking about Tangem at all. You tap, you go, and the self-custody architecture becomes invisible.

Rewards are simple: 1% cashback on Basic, 2% on Plus, 4% on Prestige, with monthly caps of $100, $300 and $1,000 respectively. The currency the cashback is paid in is not stated. An extra 5%, 10% and 15% on the first $500, and a welcome bonus of up to $75, are both marked coming soon — and since two things on this card are already described as coming soon, I would not plan around them.

On the Plus tier the extras get more tangible: Visa Signature protections including extended warranty, price protection, purchase protection, auto rental insurance and Airport Companion lounges. That is a real difference between the tiers, and for someone who travels it may be worth more than the cashback rate.

Where the card will not work is set by the issuer, Rain, and the restricted categories are gambling and online casinos, liquor stores and certain subscription services. This is ordinary issuer policy rather than anything specific to crypto, but it is worth knowing before you try to pay for something and get declined at the till.

Balances behave in one way that is helpful and one that is not. USDC and USDT are combined into a single balance, and spending draws from the highest balance first. Helpful if you hold several stablecoins, unhelpful if you were keeping them separate for a reason. The on-chain balance updates within 2 business days after a purchase, so the blockchain view of your money will lag the card view.

The wallets the card connects to are not stated, and neither is the full list of blocked merchant categories beyond the three above. The app store rating and number of ratings for the Tangem app were not found. None of that is a red flag on its own — I am listing it so you know what I could not verify.

One practical note on declines. Address Verification Service compares the numeric parts of a billing address with issuer records, and it is mainly offered in the US, Canada and the UK and generally unavailable for foreign-issued cards. A declined authorisation can also leave a hold on funds for several days, typically up to 7. Neither is Tangem’s doing, but both are what a foreign-issued prepaid-style card feels like at a shop that is not expecting it.

What can go wrong

Let me separate things by how much they should actually worry you, because a list of every theoretical risk is not a useful review.

The ATM question is genuinely unresolved. Tangem’s own pages say cash withdrawals are available, with a 4% fee on Basic and 2% on Plus, at contactless-enabled ATMs, up to $250 per withdrawal and three per 24 hours — but only on cards issued after 10 March 2026 that show Platinum or Signature in Apple or Google Pay. Older cards must be reissued. And another help article states that ATM cash withdrawals are not yet available. Both statements are on Tangem’s pages. If cash access matters to you, this is the thing to resolve before you rely on the card, and you can only resolve it by asking.

Who actually issues the card is not fully pinned down. Officially, the card is issued by Rain, a Visa Principal Member. Unofficially — from a January 2026 Coin Bureau review, not confirmed by Tangem — Tangem Pay is provided by Paera LLC and issued through Third National as a Visa-licensed partner, with Rain providing co-signing and compliance. That contradicts the official line about the issuer. The registration country of Paera and Rain is not stated, and no licences are stated either.

Tangem is not a regulated financial services provider. Its own footer says so. The programme runs through Paera and Rain. What that means practically is that Tangem’s brand is not the entity standing behind the money or the card.

Self-custody has a footnote. The architecture is genuinely better than a typical custodial card: card funds sit in separate Tangem Pay smart-contract accounts, and your main assets stay in the non-custodial Tangem Wallet where you hold the keys. You can freeze the card instantly in the app, set a 4-digit PIN, set a custom daily spending limit including $0, and link only one wallet per account. Insurance and deposit protection are not stated. And users dispute the self-custody claim on one ground: withdrawing USDC passes through a swap with fees, so the asset does not leave in the form you chose. Whether that breaks self-custody depends on what you thought the word meant.

Shipping is restricted in a fair number of countries. At the launch of physical cards, Tangem said shipping is restricted in about 20 countries including China, Russia, North Korea and Palestine, citing KYC, sanctions and banking rules. This is a compliance restriction rather than a choice, and it is not something to work around — but it does mean a Tangem card is not universally deliverable.

Complaints are thin but present. In the searches I ran, no Reddit threads or Trustpilot hits surfaced for the card specifically. Trustpilot shows Tangem at roughly 4.1 out of 5 across about 876 reviews, but that is the brand and the hardware wallet, not the card. What did surface: a one-star review of a card order shipped from Hong Kong with poor support, and reports of network outages and support difficulties. Official incidents are not stated.

If it goes wrong, complaining has a price. Disputes go through [email protected] under the standard Visa chargeback procedure, must be reported within 60 days of the transaction appearing on your statement, and cost $30 when a formal dispute opens. Extra documents may be requested. Merchant refunds credit the card balance only and cannot be withdrawn. US reversal rights come from Regulation E for debit and Regulation Z for credit, and prepaid-card coverage varies and should not be assumed. Note also that 3-D Secure can shift liability for a fraudulent online payment from the merchant toward you.

For context on why card programmes fail in general: Visa terminated its global agreements with FTX on 13 November 2022 and the FTX US debit card was wound down by its issuer. WaveCrest, a Visa issuer that supplied several crypto card brands, was suspended by Visa in Europe in 2018, closing every WaveCrest-issued Visa programme. Closures typically run through a notice period, then spending and loading stop, then you are asked to withdraw what remains. A programme closing is a normal lifecycle event in this category, not an exception.

And a note on where this card sits in the wider regulatory picture, without any advice attached. In the EU, MiCA took legal effect in June 2023, its stablecoin rules applied from 30 June 2024, and the remaining provisions including crypto-asset service provider rules applied from 30 December 2024. Under MiCA, e-money tokens may be issued only by a credit institution or an electronic money institution. The transitional period lets providers already operating under national law continue only until 1 July 2026 or until they receive or are refused authorisation, whichever comes first, and ESMA keeps an interim register you can check. A card itself is a payment service regulated separately from the crypto side, so a crypto card often depends on two licences. In the US, FinCEN guidance treats administrators and exchangers of convertible virtual currency as money transmitters while ordinary users spending are not. None of this tells you what to do; it tells you which registers exist if you want to look.

Tax is out of scope for a review and I will not advise on it. What is factual: the IRS treats digital assets as property, so exchanging them for goods, services or dollars generally produces a taxable gain or loss, measured in local fiat currency at fair market value on the transaction date. That means a card payment funded from crypto can be a separate disposal. Speak to a professional about your own position.

What to take instead

If Tangem is not your fit, three alternatives came up in my comparison, each solving a slightly different problem.

Tangem Pay TokenPocket MetaMask KAST
Score 7.5 / 10 5.8 / 10 7.1 / 10 6.1 / 10
Card network and tier Visa Platinum (Basic), Visa Signature (Plus), Visa Infinite (Prestige, coming soon) Mastercard/Visa debit Mastercard Visa Platinum, Visa Infinite metal, Visa Infinite gold
Where it is available US and selected LATAM, APAC, MEA and Africa countries; list not published Visa debit for a list of European countries and territories; Mastercard debit for Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, UK 45 listed countries and territories; other regions on a waitlist; US and UK sign-ups temporarily closed Residence-based list shown at KYC, not published
Cost Free Basic; $29.99/month Plus; $999/year Prestige coming soon Small portion of an NFT creation fee, amount not stated; “no additional fees” Virtual free, no annual or maintenance fee; Metal $199/year Standard 0, Premium 1,000/year, Private 10,000/year, billed annually upfront
FX fee Visa Exchange Rate + 1.5% Not stated None; Mastercard rate used 0.5%–1.75% by country; 0.10 USD on non-USD under 25 USD
Cashback 1% / 2% / 4% with monthly caps None; the 1% deposit fee refunded later via rewards 1% virtual; 3% headline on Metal, footnote limits to 3% on the first $10,000 spent then 1% 1.5% / 2% / 3% on the first 2,000 / 10,000 / 40,000 USD per month
Card form Virtual on Basic, plastic on Plus, metal coming soon Virtual Virtual instantly; metal pre-orderable Virtual and physical, up to 10 cards
Funding USDC/USDT on Polygon, Base, Arbitrum, BNB Smart Chain; ACH or Fedwire Crypto from the TokenPocket wallet; coins and networks not listed Spends from a connected wallet on Linea, Base, Monad, Solana USDT, USDC, PYUSD, RLUSD on Ethereum, Solana, Polygon, Arbitrum, Tron

MetaMask Card scores 7.1 and is the closest thing to a fair fight. It is Mastercard, the virtual card is free with no annual or maintenance fee, there is no foreign transaction fee, and cashback is 1% on virtual with a 3% headline on the $199 metal tier — though the footnote caps 3% to the first $10,000 spent and drops it to 1% after that. Sign-up is open in 45 listed countries and territories including Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, Germany, France, Spain and Uruguay, with other regions on a waitlist and US and UK sign-ups temporarily closed. Proof of residency is required, and ineligible regions limit sign-ups rather than spending. It spends from a connected wallet across Linea, Base, Monad and Solana, and one card per user. The catch: it is a “minimal fee for each transaction” whose amount is not stated on the pages I read, and Solana-only wallets cannot withdraw credit. Choose this if you already live in MetaMask’s supported list and want no FX markup.

KAST scores 6.1 and is the interesting one for heavy spenders, because it is the only alternative with a genuinely generous cashback structure: 1.5% on the first 2,000 USD a month, 2% on the first 10,000, and 3% on the first 40,000. But it costs 1,000 USD a year for Premium and 10,000 for Private, billed annually upfront with no monthly option, so the cashback only makes sense at volume. Its KYC is strict in a way worth reading before you try: if you live in a supported country but hold an ID from a restricted region you may still fail, dual citizens with an ID from a supported country may pass, only the account holder’s own ID is accepted, and a VPN does not bypass any of it. You can create an account in an unsupported country but KYC stays locked.

TokenPocket scores 5.8 and I would not lead anyone here. It charges 1% on crypto deposits, to be refunded later via rewards or reduced transaction fees, and no cashback is stated now. Its availability is split awkwardly between Visa for a list of European countries and Mastercard for a spread of Asia-Pacific ones. It is included because it is a comparison point, not a recommendation.

One thing all three alternatives share: KAST also refuses non-USD transactions under 25 USD only for a flat 0.10 USD rather than a percentage, which is a better structure than percentage markups for small purchases abroad. If your spending is small and foreign, that detail matters more than the headline rate.

Who I would recommend it to

I would recommend Tangem Pay to you if all four of these are true.

You already hold crypto and think in stablecoins. The card spends a balance you top up in USDC or USDT; it does not connect to a bank account, and if your money arrives from a salary into a current account, this is the wrong tool for ordinary spending.

You want no annual fee. Free Basic with a free first virtual card is genuinely rare, and if the 1% cashback up to $100 a month covers your coffee and groceries, the card pays for itself.

You live somewhere on the supported list, and you are willing to find out by starting the application rather than by reading a published country table. If the answer is no, KYC will reject you and Tangem will not be able to tell you why.

You accept the 1.5% FX markup as the price of not managing conversions yourself. This is the deal. If you spend mostly in dollars, it costs you nothing. If you spend mostly in another currency, it costs you real money every time, and a card with no foreign transaction fee may serve you better.

I would steer you away if any of these are true. You need cash regularly — the ATM messaging contradicts itself, so do not depend on it before you have tested it. You travel constantly and spend in foreign currency, because 1.5% compounds quickly. You want deposit protection or insurance, which is not stated. You are in a restricted shipping country. Or you want to hold a long balance on the card, because $10,000 on Basic and $50,000 on Plus is a low ceiling for anyone treating this as a spending account.

And one specific piece of advice that is not advice so much as a reading of the architecture: do not treat the Tangem card account and the Tangem Wallet account as the same thing. They are linked, they are administered by different companies, and deleting one can cost you access to the other. Read the withdrawal section again before you ever reset anything.

For everyone else, in order of what I would check: whether your country is on the list, what 1.5% costs you in your own currency and your own spending pattern, whether you need cash, and whether $10,000 is enough headroom. Those four questions resolve almost everything.

Frequently asked questions

What is Tangem card?

Tangem is best known as a hardware wallet brand, but Tangem Pay is its Visa card, and that is what this review covers. It lives inside the Tangem phone app and spends from a stablecoin balance rather than from a bank account. The free Basic plan issues a virtual Visa Platinum; the $29.99 a month Plus plan issues a Visa Signature in plastic. Card funds sit in separate Tangem Pay smart-contract accounts while your main crypto stays in the non-custodial Tangem Wallet, which you can freeze and unstick instantly in the app.

How does the Tangem card work?

You top the card up with USDC or USDT, or send fiat by bank transfer, and it holds the result as a USD balance you spend like a prepaid card. Purchases draw from the highest balance first when you hold both stablecoins. Non-USD purchases are converted by Visa at Visa’s exchange rate plus 1.5%. Cashback comes back at 1% on Basic or 2% on Plus, monthly caps of $100 and $300. The on-chain balance view updates within 2 business days after a purchase, so it lags the card.

Is Tangem a bank?

No, and this is worth being clear about. Tangem’s own footer states it is not regulated as a financial services provider. The card programme is operated by Paera LLC, which handles onboarding, KYC and AML, and the card is issued by Rain, described as a Visa Principal Member — though an unofficial January 2026 review from Coin Bureau names Third National as the issuer with Rain providing co-signing, which Tangem does not confirm. Registration country and licences for Paera and Rain are not stated on the public pages.

Who owns Tangem?

Tangem is the hardware wallet brand, the consumer-facing layer. Behind it sit two other companies. Paera LLC runs the card programme, does the identity checks, and is the address you email about accounts, KYC, disputes and refunds. Rain is the named issuer under Visa’s principal member programme. Tangem Support cannot see your KYC status at all, so questions about verification have to go to [email protected]. Three companies means three inboxes, and knowing which is which saves days.

Does Tangem card require KYC?

Yes, and it is a single identity check through Sumsub: phone and email codes, a government-issued ID, your residence address and biometrics, at 18 or over, with a Social Security number for US residents. A separate proof-of-address document is not stated as required. Eligibility is residence-based, so your country of address decides whether you can proceed, and if the region is unsupported the application is rejected during the check. Repeat applications with the same identity are auto-rejected and Tangem says it cannot see why.

Is Tangem card free?

The Basic plan is $0 with no monthly account fee and no standard transaction fee, and the first virtual card is $0. Extra virtual cards cost $5, replacement is listed as $5 on one page and $1 in the tariff PDF, and physical card delivery is given as $15.63–$63.45 on one official page and $14.53–$82.10 in the PDF dated 25 Aug 2026. Plus costs $29.99 a month and Prestige $999 a year but is coming soon. The free part is real; the delivery fee is not.

How do I top up the Tangem card?

Three ways. Straight from your Tangem Wallet, with a swap if you hold another token; from a separate wallet or exchange using a deposit address for the right network; or by ACH or Fedwire bank transfer where available, converted to USDC. Supported coins are USDC and USDT on Polygon, Base, Arbitrum and BNB Smart Chain, with daily load limits of $100,000, 24 loads a day and 150 a month. Bank fees are taken out of the amount sent: $1,001 by ACH arrives as $1,000, and Fedwire is $11 more, free on Plus.

Can I use the Tangem card in my country?

Maybe, and you cannot tell from the website. Tangem states availability in the US and selected LATAM, APAC, MEA and African countries, but the country list is not stated on the Tangem Pay page or in the tariff PDF — the PDF just says eligibility depends on your country and region of residence and is shown in the app. Not every US state is included. The way to find out is to enter your country during onboarding and let KYC answer, and note that a rejected application cannot simply be retried with the same identity.

Is Tangem card safe?

It is safer than a typical custodial card by design: your main crypto stays in a self-custodial wallet, you can freeze the card instantly in the app, set a 4-digit PIN and cap daily spending at anything including $0. What it is not is insured — insurance and deposit protection are not stated — and Tangem is not a regulated financial services provider. Some users dispute the self-custody claim because withdrawing USDC passes through a swap with fees. Physical shipping is restricted in about 20 countries including China, Russia, North Korea and Palestine.

Where can I use the Tangem card, and can I get cash?

Anywhere Visa is accepted, and you can add it to Apple Pay and Google Pay, with Apple Pay depending on your country. Rain restricts gambling and online casinos, liquor stores and certain subscription services. Cash is the uncertain part: Tangem states ATM withdrawals are available at 4% on Basic and 2% on Plus, up to $250 at a time and three per 24 hours, but only on cards issued after 10 March 2026 — yet another help article says ATM cash withdrawals are not yet available. Test it before you rely on it.

How do I withdraw money or delete my Tangem account?

Withdraw USDC or USDT to your Tangem Wallet at any time, with on-chain withdrawal at $0 and swap-provider fees if the token differs. Bank withdrawal to US banks costs $1 by ACH or $11 by Fedwire, free on Plus, capped at $10,000 per transaction. Merchant refunds land in the card balance and cannot be withdrawn. To close the account, withdraw the balance and email [email protected]. A factory reset or deleting your Tangem account loses access to Tangem Pay and its funds, with no relink available yet.

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