A virtual Visa that spends your crypto, with plenty of gaps in what the card actually publishes

Updated October 2026

Licensed

Available in US

Fast payouts

18+ Only

The Exa card is a virtual Visa Signature credit card that draws on crypto you already hold in the self-custody Exa app. If that sentence sounds like what you have been looking for — spend your balance in shops and online without converting everything to a bank account first — then this review is written for you. If instead you want a physical piece of plastic in your wallet, or you want a card that is completely free with no credit involved, Exa is the wrong shape of product and I will say so plainly below. My overall mark is 6.2 out of 10, and the single biggest reason it is not higher is that a lot of the numbers you would want to see before applying are simply not published on the card’s public pages.

Conditions are current as of October 28, 2026

The verdict

6.2 / 10. Exa is a well-targeted card with a real weakness in its physical form: it is virtual only. There is no plastic to post, nothing to lose in a coat pocket, and nothing to hand over when a shop asks for a card. In exchange you get Apple Pay and Google Wallet, a card currency fixed to the US dollar, and a stated acceptance footprint of over 150 million merchants in more than 150 countries. If you keep your own keys and want to spend against crypto collateral, that is a coherent product. If you need a physical card, you need to look elsewhere — and I mean that literally, because the card’s own help centre says there are no physical cards available at the moment.

The score table below breaks the total down the way I read it.

Who it suits: you already hold crypto, you are comfortable managing keys yourself, and you mostly pay by phone or online in US-dollar terms. Who it does not suit: anyone who wants a physical card, anyone who wants a card with a clearly published monthly fee, and anyone in one of the 18 excluded countries.

Will they give you the card

Yes in a lot of places, no in a specific list of others, and the rule turns on where you live rather than where you are from. The card is issued in 45 countries — among them Argentina, Brazil, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, Singapore, South Africa and the UAE, with Nigeria available conditionally — and in 31 US states. That is a wide map, and it includes several markets where an ordinary bank card is harder to get, which is exactly the reader I write this for.

But the exclusions matter just as much. Eighteen countries are ineligible, and among them are Belarus, China, India, Iran, Israel, Turkey, Ukraine, Vietnam and Russia. For Russia the card is explicit: residents cannot be issued a card, and spending in Russia is blocked too. Several other countries are blocked for spending even though they are not on the issuance list — Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, Syria, Ukraine and Venezuela are all blocked at the merchant level.

The pattern to notice is that country of residence decides issuance, and a separate list decides where the card can be spent. Being able to hold the card does not mean you can use it everywhere. Whether the card treats citizenship as well as residence is not stated, so if you live in an eligible country but hold citizenship of an excluded one, that is a question for the support team rather than something I can answer from the public pages.

How to get it

The route is an app, and it is short. You download the app, add funds, and a KYC check takes no more than 3 minutes. The card’s own wording for the validation when you request the card is “no more than 3 minutes,” which is the sort of promise I read as a best case rather than a schedule. What documents you need, what proof of address is required at sign-up, and what age rule applies are not stated.

Here is where the picture changes once you start spending. Above $10,000 in weekly purchases, an automated source-of-funds check kicks in: you fill in a form and supply supporting documents. If you want your limits raised, you have to show proof of address and proof of funds. There are stated tiers of checking (the single fast step, and the enhanced check above the threshold) but the exact tiers and the grounds for rejection are not spelled out.

The form of the card itself: it is a virtual Visa Signature Exa Credit Card, its currency is the US dollar, and there is no physical version. The acceptance claim is “over 150 million merchants in more than 150 countries.”

Fees and what you actually pay

This is the section where I have to be most careful, because the honest answer is that Exa’s public pages describe the shape of its fees but not the amounts. The card is marketed as free with no prices on the page. The fees you can confirm are these:

• A 1.5% foreign-exchange fee on every purchase made in a currency other than the US dollar, and that fee is built into the exchange rate rather than charged on top of it.
• A loan-origination fee may apply when you use the credit line, and it is included in the interest you pay on installments.

That is the short official list. The help centre has an article on associated fees and costs, and another on the non-USD conversion rate, but the figures inside them are not reproduced on the pages I could read. The monthly fee, the ATM fee, and the daily and monthly spending limits are not stated. Unofficial reporting (from CryptoCardHub, page updated August 2026, and not confirmed by the card) puts virtual card issuance and the annual fee at $0, and an ATM withdrawal at $1 plus 0.65%.

The costs table gives you the shape of it in one place:

Let me put three ordinary payments through this, because that is where the 1.5% stops being abstract.

A coffee in a country that does not use dollars. The 1.5% FX fee applies, and it is already inside the rate, so the price you see at the till is the price with that fee worked in. On a small purchase the fee is a small number of cents; on a large one it is not.

A laptop bought online from a US merchant. The price is in dollars, so the FX fee does not bite. What you still have is the risk that the merchant puts an authorisation hold on the card, and the final settled amount can come out higher than the quoted one.

A cash withdrawal from an ATM. Officially nothing is published; by the unofficial figures it is $1 plus 0.65% per withdrawal, capped at $250, four times a day, and it needs a contactless NFC machine and a PIN from the app. The ATM operator can add its own fee on top, which is the operator’s money, not Exa’s.

The one practical trap in this section is the weekly $10,000 purchase ceiling. Above that, the source-of-funds check starts, and it wants documents. That is the point at which a routine payment can turn into a paperwork exercise, so it is worth knowing before, not after.

Top up

You do not top up an Exa card the way you top up a travel card. You hold funds in your self-custody account in the Exa app, and the card spends against them — either as a Pay Now payment or in installments against your collateral, which functions like a credit line. The card’s own line is the plainest version of this: “You will need to have funds in your account to enable your Exa Card.”

What you can hold is stated in the documentation: USDC, ETH, wstETH, WBTC and OP as collateral in Exactly Protocol markets. Which networks those assets travel on is not named, and that omission matters more than it looks, because sending on the wrong network is one of the ways a deposit goes missing. The help articles do confirm that you must have funds in the account before the card works, but they do not state a deposit fee, a minimum top-up, or what fiat on-ramp options cost. Unofficial reporting (CryptoCardHub, August 2026) says crypto deposits carry no stated fee and that fiat on-ramp fees depend on the third-party route and the country.

Getting money back out is the other half of this. The site says funds can be sent to a bank account or a digital wallet, and that you can withdraw from ATMs. The fees, the limits and the timelines for those routes are not given, and what happens to a leftover balance if you close the account is not stated either. For a reader who plans to move real money through this, those three unknowns are the ones I would ask support about before I funded anything.

Paying with it every day

Because the card is virtual, your everyday payment is your phone. The help centre has walkthroughs for adding the card to Apple Pay and to Google Wallet, so both wallets work. Which merchant categories are restricted is not stated, and that is a question worth asking if you expect to use the card anywhere unusual.

The app itself is mobile, reached through a QR-code link on the site, with a web version at web.exactly.app, and the docs say it runs on iOS and Android. Official pages do not publish store ratings. Unofficial figures (CryptoCardHub, August 2026) put the Apple App Store at 5.0 from 4 ratings and Google Play at 2.7 from 58. Those two numbers are from very different sample sizes and it is fair to weigh them accordingly, but the gap itself is worth noticing.

On rewards, the honest summary is that there is no current cashback you can count on. The “Earn while you spend” line on the site refers to the yield on your assets, not to a rebate on your purchases. What the help centre does list are Visa Signature benefits, 20% off Airlo eSIMs, and a US activation reward where you spend $100 and receive $20 in XRP through Uphold. Unofficial sources say an earlier 1.5% USDC cashback was historical and is not currently confirmed.

Then there is the behaviour of a purchase itself, which trips people up. A payment is placed on hold at authorisation and usually settles one to three days later. The final amount can differ from what you expected — a tip added at a bar, a hotel hold, a shift in the exchange rate between the authorisation and the settlement. That is normal card behaviour, but on a card that settles a few days later and carries a 1.5% FX fee, it is worth building a little patience into your budgeting.

Disputes, refunds and chargebacks are not stated on the pages I could read. I would not assume any particular protection until you have seen it in writing.

What can go wrong

This is the section I would read twice, because a lot of what is known about this card comes from outside the card.

Start with the company behind it. Exa Labs SAS is the entity in the footer, and it does not issue payment instruments — the cards are issued by licensed third parties. The help centre says the card is issued in the United States, with a US legal address in San Juan, Puerto Rico provided by Rain. The issuer bank itself is not named. When you cannot name the bank behind your card, you are trusting a chain of parties, and that is worth being comfortable with.

On security, the good news is real: the account is self-custodial, secured with passkeys, can have a second account owner, and the borrowing and spending run on non-custodial smart contracts. What is not mentioned anywhere on the page is audits or insurance. An article called “What is the Account Health?” exists in the help centre but I did not read it, and that article may be where freeze controls and spending limits live — so do not take my silence as their absence.

Then the record. There is no Trustpilot page for exactly.app and no Reddit reviews I could find, so the loudest public voice is an aggregator, cryptocards.so, which gives the card 5.7 out of 10. Its specific complaints: KYC failures for users in African markets, Nigeria in particular; no documented support service levels; and an exclusion of 24 US states. The Google Play rating of 2.7 from 58 reviews points the same way. And the aggregator also records a $7.3 million exploit of the Exactly Protocol in August 2023 — the protocol your collateral sits in, not the card issuer, but the same ecosystem.

A few background points that make these risks concrete rather than abstract. Crypto transfers are typically irreversible: if a deposit goes to a network the provider does not support, or to an address belonging to another network, it can be lost or need manual recovery with no guarantee. Stablecoins are not censorship-proof either — Tether says it disables tokens in wallets on the OFAC sanctions list and has frozen funds tied to illicit activity. Self-custody means the protection is real but so is the exposure: a seed phrase is an unencrypted key, anyone who gets it can restore the wallet and spend it, and there is no recovery mechanism at the network level.

I want to be fair about one thing: the Exactly exploit is from 2023 and the card is live now. It belongs in your assessment of the protocol your collateral rides on, not in a claim that your funds are at risk today. Read it as a reminder of what the smart-contract layer can do, and go read the audit situation yourself — which the public pages do not summarise for you.

What to take instead

If Exa is not right for you, it is usually right for one of four reasons: you want plastic, you want clearer fees, you want a wider compliance net, or you want a rewards rate. Here is how the alternatives I looked at line up.

Two of these deserve a sentence each. Nexo is the closest match on score and the only one of the four that reliably issues a physical card, and its FX fee on a weekday in the EEA is 0.2% against Exa’s 1.5% — but its cashback only applies in Credit Mode with more than $5,000 held, and there is a documented history of a 2025-era Bulgarian police raid over alleged Russia-sanctions violations that the company did not publicly address, which is its own kind of risk. Pay3 is the most open on geography but the most expensive on fees, with up to 3% on currency conversion and cross-border, and its restricted locations are unpublished and can change. Cardex converts at the moment of payment with no published percentage and claims the widest country reach, but publishes the least.

Read the table as “each of these solves a different problem,” not as a ranking. A card that costs more in fees but works in your country beats a cheaper one you cannot open.

Who I would recommend it to

If you are reading this with a specific situation in mind, here is how I would think it through.

I would point Exa at you if you keep your own keys and are already holding stablecoins, you live in one of the 45 covered countries, you pay mostly by phone, and you are comfortable that the fine print — daily limits, monthly limits, ATM costs, dispute handling — is not published and you may have to ask for it.

I would point you elsewhere if any of these apply: you need a physical card; you want a monthly and annual fee stated in plain numbers before you commit; you want to see what happens to a disputed transaction; or you are in one of the 18 excluded countries or need to spend in one of the blocked markets. In that last case no alternative helps either, and the honest answer is that the card is not for you.

And the advice I would give anyone reading the 5 / 10 scores in the table above: the weak spots here are not dealbreakers, they are unanswered questions. The card works on paper. What it does not do yet is tell you, in public, what it costs you on an ordinary day. Ask, before you fund it.

Frequently asked questions

What is the Exa card?

The Exa card is a virtual Visa Signature credit card that spends against crypto you hold yourself. Your funds stay in a self-custody account in the Exa app, and you pay either directly (“Pay Now”) or in installments against that collateral, which works like a credit line. The card’s currency is the US dollar, and it is accepted at over 150 million merchants in more than 150 countries, according to the card’s own figures.

How does the Exa card work in practice?

You download the app, add funds, and pass a KYC check that the card says takes about three minutes. From then on the card lives in Apple Pay or Google Wallet rather than in your wallet, and every payment draws on your crypto balance. A purchase is authorised first and usually settles one to three days later, so the final amount can differ slightly from what you expected.

Is Exa a bank?

No. Exa Labs SAS operates the app and markets the card, but its own site says it does not issue payment instruments — the cards are issued by licensed third parties. The help centre says the card is issued in the United States, with an address in San Juan, Puerto Rico provided by Rain, but the issuer bank is not named anywhere on the public pages.

Who can get one, and who cannot?

The card is issued in 45 countries — including Argentina, Brazil, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, Singapore, South Africa and the UAE — and in 31 US states, with Nigeria conditional. Eighteen countries are excluded, among them Belarus, China, India, Iran, Israel, Turkey, Ukraine, Vietnam and Russia. The rule is based on where you live, not on citizenship.

Is the Exa card free?

Partly. The card is marketed as free and unofficial sources (CryptoCardHub, August 2026) put issuance and the annual fee at $0. What is officially stated is a 1.5% fee on purchases not in US dollars, included in the exchange rate, and a possible loan-origination fee folded into installment interest. The monthly fee, ATM costs and daily or monthly limits are not stated.

Can I use it in my country?

It depends on two separate lists. Issuance depends on your country of residence and there are 45 that qualify. Spending is blocked in Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, Syria, Ukraine and Venezuela regardless. If your country appears in either list, ask support before you rely on the card, because the answer is not the same for both questions.

Is there a physical Exa card?

No. The card’s own help centre says plainly that there are no physical cards available at the moment. What you get is a virtual card you add to Apple Pay or Google Wallet, which means there is nothing to lose in a pocket and nothing to hand over in a shop that insists on plastic. If a physical card is a requirement, Nexo is the one of these four that reliably issues one.

How do I add it to Apple Pay or Google Wallet?

Both are supported, and the help centre has a walkthrough for each. You add the virtual card through the wallet app on your phone, and from then on payments are made with the tokenised card number rather than the card number itself. Which merchant categories are restricted is not stated on the public pages, so if you expect to pay somewhere unusual, check with support first.

What are the limits?

The one limit the card publishes is a weekly purchase ceiling of $10,000 for credit card purchases. Above that, an automated source-of-funds check begins and asks for a form plus supporting documents, and raising limits requires proof of address and proof of funds. Daily limits, monthly limits and ATM limits are not stated on those pages.

Is the Exa card safe?

It depends on what you mean. The account is self-custody, secured with passkeys, and the borrowing and spending run on non-custodial smart contracts, so nobody holds your keys — but that also means a lost seed phrase or a bad address is your problem alone. Audits and insurance are not mentioned on the page. A third-party aggregator scores it 5.7 out of 10 and cites KYC failures for African users and no documented support levels.

How do I withdraw money from Exa, and how do I close the account?

The site says funds can be sent to a bank account or a digital wallet, and that you can withdraw from ATMs. The fees, limits and timelines for each route are not given, and what happens to any leftover balance when you close an account is not stated either. Before funding anything, I would ask support to confirm those three points in writing.

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