BitPay card review: what happened and what to do with any leftover balance
Available in US
I went through what BitPay publishes, the news around the card’s shutdown, and what the broader crypto card landscape looks like in 2026. The short version: you cannot get this card. The programme was wound down in 2023, and the situation today is about what to do with any balance you might still be owed rather than how to spend with a BitPay card. That makes the usual “is it worth it?” question almost irrelevant, so this review spends its time on what actually happened, what former holders should check, and which cards are still available if you were relying on BitPay.
The score reflects that. A card that no longer exists cannot score well on availability, top-up options, everyday use or reliability. Where fees or limits are still quoted at all, they are historical and not confirmed by the card programme itself, since there is no live programme to confirm them.
The conditions described here are current as of October 28, 2026.
Verdict
The BitPay card earns 1.7 out of 10.
| Criterion | Mark | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Who can get it | 0 / 10 | The card is closed. Card support and ATM access ended on 15 June 2023 after the issuing bank left crypto. The card is no longer shown on BitPay’s site. |
| Cost | 3 / 10 | Unofficial, historical figures only: 3% foreign exchange fee, US$2.50 per domestic ATM withdrawal, US$5 monthly dormancy fee after 90 days of inactivity, US$10 to replace a card. The programme itself is closed and no longer publishes fees. |
| Top-up options | 3 / 10 | Not disclosed. The card is closed. The last day to load was 1 June 2023. |
| Reliability and complaints | 1 / 10 | The programme was shut down on 15 June 2023, with remaining balances mailed as cheques. BitPay’s company Trustpilot score is 1.2 out of 5 across 299 reviews. A replacement card, once promised, has not been confirmed as launched. |
| Everyday use | 2 / 10 | The card no longer exists, so virtual, physical, wallet and ATM conditions are not in effect. |
Total: 1.7 out of 10.
The audience for this page is narrow. If you are choosing a crypto card today, BitPay is not an option. If you held one before 2023 and have been chasing a remaining balance, a refund that never arrived, or a replacement that never showed up, you are exactly the reader this review is written for, and the sections that follow cover what is publicly known about that experience and what you can do about it.
What happened to the programme
The BitPay card was a prepaid Mastercard, and like other card programmes it was not issued by BitPay itself. A licensed bank held the programme and put its name on the regulatory paperwork, while BitPay acted as the brand and software layer in front. That structure is normal in this market, but it carries an obvious risk: if the bank decides to leave crypto, the card can disappear, and that is essentially what happened here.
The bank in question was Metropolitan Commercial Bank. In January 2023 the bank announced it was exiting crypto banking. BitPay cardholders received an email on 17 May 2023 saying the prepaid Mastercard programme was being wound down. From that point the timeline was tight:
- 1 June 2023 was the last day to load the card.
- 15 June 2023 was the last day the card could be used at ATMs or for spending.
- Around 30 June 2023, remaining balances were to be issued as cheques sent to the address on file with the card.
BitPay’s own site in 2026 shows no card. There are no ordering pages, no fees, no terms for a current card programme, and no virtual or physical card to apply for. The site still carries the usual download badges for the BitPay wallet app on the App Store, Google Play, Windows and Mac, but the badges carry no ratings, and I did not treat those badges as evidence that any card product is live.
Sources disagree on what came next. One third-party review states that a promised replacement card never launched. Another, CryptoCardHub, says new applications are paused and a waitlist is open, but it does not date that statement, so I am treating the waitlist claim as unconfirmed. The conservative read of the public record is that, as of the date this review is current, there is no live BitPay card programme to sign up for.
A few cardholder-relevant facts are not stated on BitPay’s pages at all, including who exactly was eligible for the card, what KYC was required, what the card’s cost and fee schedule looked like while it was active, which crypto wallets it connected to, whether there was a rewards programme, whether there were tiered products, which currencies it supported, how delivery worked, and what the verification flow was. Where I do have figures, they are from third-party reviews and labelled as unofficial and historical below, because the card is no longer around to confirm them.
BitPay, the company behind the wallet, is itself still active. The site says it is “licensed to engage in Virtual Currency Business Activity by the New York State Department of Financial Services.” That licence covers BitPay the company, not the card programme, and the card’s issuing bank is not stated officially. The wallet provider is named as BitPay Software, LLC.
The card’s shutdown in 2023 was not the first time a BitPay card programme collapsed. In 2018 a non-US prepaid Visa was shut down after Visa revoked Wave Crest’s licence. The lesson that came out of that earlier episode, and that came out again in 2023, is that crypto cards depend on a network and a bank that can both decide to walk away, sometimes with very little notice, and the cardholder is the one left holding the consequences.
If you already have the card
If you are reading this because you held a BitPay card before 2023 and still have a question, the practical items are what to do with any leftover balance, whether you can still reach support, and what the limits used to be.
The 2023 closure notice said remaining balances would be issued as a cheque mailed to the address on file within roughly 30 days of the 15 June cut-off. The public record I worked from does not state a minimum or maximum refund amount, and it does not state a claims process for balances that were not paid out, were paid to a wrong address, or were returned as undeliverable. If you did not receive a cheque, that is the gap to focus on, and I will come back to what to check in the next section.
Loading the card is no longer possible: the last day to load was 1 June 2023. Spending and ATM access ended on 15 June 2023. There is no public statement confirming that new cards can be issued to existing customers, and no replacement programme has been confirmed as launched, so do not expect a swap.
Support for the card programme has ceased. BitPay’s site still hosts a help library, and the wallet app still offers a path to support, but those channels are for the wallet and for the company, not for a card programme that no longer exists. Support hours and languages for the card are not stated. Disputes and chargeback rights for the card are also not stated, and the standard “Regulation E for debit, Regulation Z for credit” coverage that you would expect from a US-issued card should not be assumed for a closed prepaid programme.
The unofficial historical limits and fees from third-party reviews are worth knowing for your records, even if they cannot be enforced today:
- A US$10,000 daily purchase cap and a US$25,000 monthly ATM cap; these are unofficial figures from a CryptoSlate review and are not confirmed by the BitPay programme.
- US$2.50 per domestic ATM withdrawal.
- US$5 monthly dormancy fee after 90 days of inactivity.
- US$10 for a standard card replacement.
- A 3% foreign transaction fee.
These are unofficial figures from a closed programme, so I would not build a dispute or tax position on them, but they tell you roughly what the experience of using the card looked like when it was live.
If you are tracking down a balance, here is the order I would check things in:
- Look for the closure email BitPay sent on 17 May 2023, which contains the timeline and the address that would have been used for the cheque.
- Check whether a cheque was mailed, whether it was cashed, and whether it was returned as undeliverable. The bank the cheque was drawn on can sometimes trace a cheque that was never received.
- Check spam and old email folders for follow-ups from BitPay and from Metropolitan Commercial Bank.
- Contact BitPay support through the wallet app. Even though the card programme has ended, the company can sometimes confirm whether a refund was issued and to which address.
What can go wrong
The most important risk to understand with this card is that the programme was closed mid-2023 and has not been confirmed as reopened. That is not a one-off event you can dismiss as bad luck: it is the kind of risk that comes with how crypto cards are built, and it is worth holding in mind when you look at any card, not just this one.
A crypto card is usually a three-party arrangement. The card network (Visa or Mastercard) sets the rules and routes the messages, the issuer (a bank or e-money institution) holds the licence to issue cards under those rules, and the crypto brand acts as a programme manager, marketing the card and connecting it to a wallet or exchange. If any one of those three decides to leave, the card can be shut down. The 2023 BitPay closure was triggered when the issuing bank, Metropolitan Commercial Bank, announced it was leaving crypto. The 2018 closure of a non-US BitPay Visa card happened when Visa revoked Wave Crest’s licence. In both cases, the cardholder’s experience was the same: a short wind-down window, a cheque or refund of the remaining balance, and a card that no longer worked. Programmes that rely on a single bank-issuer sit on a single point of failure, and there is no contractual right for the cardholder to keep the card running if the issuer or the network steps back.
A second layer of risk is on the BitPay side itself. The BitPay company page on Trustpilot scores 1.2 out of 5 across 299 reviews, with 89% of those rated one star. I read the review feed in October 2026. The themes that came up repeatedly were: users who could not withdraw or send funds between roughly June and October 2026; KYC checks that were described as burdensome or that were declined, including a user asked for KYC in October 2026 in connection with a US$15 payment; a support function that users described as bot-only with no phone line; and a request to close an account that was reported as refused in December 2025. A small share of the reviews promoted recovery services for users who said they had been scammed; I would treat those as unverified and ignore them. BitPay does not reply publicly to negative reviews. The complaints described are about the BitPay wallet and exchange product rather than the card, and the card programme is closed in any case, but the pattern matters because it is a window onto how the company handles user issues day to day.
A third risk is regulatory drift. BitPay states it is licensed by the New York State Department of Financial Services for virtual currency business activity, with NMLS ID#1496848, but that licence covers the company, not the card. The card’s issuer is not stated officially, and that gap is part of the reason there is so little for a former cardholder to lean on when something goes wrong. In the EU, by contrast, the markets in crypto-assets regulation (MiCA) took legal effect in June 2023, and the rules on asset-referenced and e-money tokens applied from 30 June 2024, with the rest of the framework, including crypto-asset service provider authorisation, applying from 30 December 2024. Under MiCA, a card that involves a stablecoin balance generally sits on two licences: a payments or e-money licence for the card, and a MiCA authorisation (CASP) for the crypto side. The BitPay card did not sit inside that framework in any case, and a replacement card, if it launches, will need to navigate it. For a US user today, the practical risk is that the issuing bank is the regulator’s counterparty, and you are downstream of the bank’s appetite for the business.
A fourth risk is the custody model. With a custodial wallet the provider holds the credentials that control the funds, so the user has to trust the provider completely. Cryptocurrency transfers are typically irreversible: a stolen private key has no built-in recovery, and the network cannot freeze or return the funds. The history of custodial platforms is a long list of failures, from Mt. Gox (around US$350 million reported stolen between 2011 and 2014) and Coincheck (around US$400 million in 2018) to Ronin Network (US$625 million in 2022). The BitPay wallet is a custodial product, so the same counterparty and hack risks apply, on top of the card-specific risks above.
Finally, there are the smaller frictions that any prepaid card can run into. Merchant category codes classify a business by what it sells, and some categories, notably gambling (MCC 7995), are blocked by issuer policy on many cards. 3-D Secure adds an identity check to online payments, and Address Verification Service, which compares parts of the billing address with the issuer’s records, is mainly offered in the US, Canada and the UK and is generally unavailable for foreign-issued cards, which can cause declines. Some merchants decline prepaid or foreign-issued cards outright because the BIN lookup reveals the card type and issuer country. None of these are unique to BitPay, but they are the kinds of frictions that often come up in a crypto card’s first six months.
What to take instead
Because the BitPay card is closed, this section is not a “BitPay vs. X” comparison, since there is no BitPay to compare against. It is a list of cards that are still available and that cover the same use case, which is spending crypto or stablecoins at point of sale through a normal card network.
Three alternatives are available. The first is Young Card, which scores 5.7 out of 10 and pays cashback in YNG tokens at rates based on the user’s Club tier: 0.1% at Essential, 1.8% at Gold, and 3.6% at Platinum. The rates for Bronze and Silver are not stated, and the card’s own costs, fees, and eligibility rules are not officially disclosed.
The second is Cardex, which scores 5.6 out of 10 and is positioned as a debit crypto card accepted on VERVE, Visa, Mastercard and UnionPay. The App Store listing presents it as Naira-focused, with the card’s currency being Naira. The site says it converts at the moment of payment with an “AI-powered conversion rate” that scans global exchanges and picks the best one, although no fee percentage is given. Cardex advertises availability in “200+ countries,” but no exclusion list is published, and the funding list is USDT, USDC and BTC, with the networks not stated. If you are in a country that does not match its default currency, the conversion is a cost you should check explicitly before loading.
The third is International Visa Card, which scores 6.7 out of 10 and is the most clearly documented of the three. It is a US-issued Platinum Visa, currently virtual only (a physical card is “coming soon”), priced in dollars, and the rules are spelled out:
- The card or account is not available to residents or legal registrants of Belarus, mainland China, North Korea, Cuba, India, Iraq, Iran, Israel, Myanmar, Nepal, Nicaragua, Russia, Syria, Turkey, Ukraine, Venezuela or Vietnam. FATF grey-list countries are reviewed case by case.
- Card purchases are blocked in North Korea, Cuba, Iran, Russia, Syria, Ukraine and Venezuela. The rule is by residence or registration, not by citizenship.
- Virtual card issuance costs US$5 one-time, and there is no maintenance fee. There are three plans: Classic (free), Pro (US$9/month) and Max (US$19/month).
- Card use in USD is free on every plan. Foreign currency use pays the Visa exchange rate plus a 2% FX fee. Deposits of any kind are free.
- Funding is USDC or USDT into a USD account, free at 1:1, with USD, EUR, SEPA, SWIFT and FedNow deposits also supported. The networks on which the stablecoins are accepted are not stated.
If you are choosing between these three, the trade-offs are roughly as follows. Young Card is the one to look at if you care most about a tiered cashback programme and you are comfortable with the underlying YNG token. Cardex is the one to look at if you want a multi-network card and you are happy to convert into Naira or accept the conversion path. International Visa Card is the one to look at if you want a US-issued card with a clear fee schedule and you live outside the long list of excluded countries. None of these are a direct replacement for what BitPay offered, since BitPay’s appeal was its integration with the BitPay wallet and the merchant flow that came with it, but they are the cards I would start with.
Who I would recommend it to
I would not recommend the BitPay card to anyone in 2026. The programme is closed, the site has no card to apply for, and there is no confirmed replacement. If a new card does launch at some point, I would treat that as a new product and review it on its own terms rather than as a continuation of this one.
The narrow case where this page is still useful is for former cardholders. If you held a BitPay card before the 2023 shutdown, what you are dealing with is not a card choice but a balance question, and the practical steps are the ones in the holders section above: check the email from 17 May 2023, look for a cheque, and contact BitPay support through the wallet app if you did not receive one. If you were considering BitPay because you cannot get an ordinary bank card, the alternatives section above is the place to start, and the International Visa Card is the option with the most clearly stated rules among the three I looked at.
Frequently asked questions
What is the BitPay card?
The BitPay card was a prepaid Mastercard that let you spend a balance loaded from the BitPay wallet. The programme was closed in mid-2023, and BitPay’s site in 2026 shows no card to sign up for.
How does the BitPay card work?
When the programme was live, the card drew on a stored balance that you topped up from the wallet, similar to a prepaid card. Loading ended on 1 June 2023 and spending ended on 15 June 2023.
Is BitPay a bank?
No. BitPay is a virtual currency business licensed by the New York State Department of Financial Services. The card itself was issued by a partner bank, and that bank announced it was leaving crypto in January 2023.
Who owns BitPay?
BitPay is the company behind the BitPay wallet, with the wallet provider named as BitPay Software, LLC. The site does not give ownership details beyond that, and I did not find a published ownership statement in the materials I reviewed.
Is the BitPay card available in my country?
The card programme is closed regardless of country. Eligibility rules while it was active are not stated in the public materials I checked, and there is no current card to apply for.
How do I get a BitPay card?
You cannot get one in 2026. The programme is closed, and no replacement has been confirmed as launched.
Does the BitPay card require KYC?
While the programme was live, KYC rules were applied as part of the wallet and card onboarding. The card programme itself is now closed, so the question is moot unless a replacement launches.
How do I add the BitPay card to Apple Wallet?
You cannot, because the card is no longer active. The card programme was wound down in mid-2023, and Apple Wallet only stores cards that are still in good standing with their issuer.
Where can I use the BitPay card?
You cannot use it now. The card’s last day of spending was 15 June 2023, and any remaining balance was to be issued as a cheque around 30 June 2023.
How do I withdraw money from BitPay?
If you held a BitPay card before mid-2023, the planned route for any remaining balance was a cheque mailed to the address on file. If you did not receive a cheque, contact BitPay support through the wallet app and ask whether a refund was issued. For balances held in the BitPay wallet today, the wallet itself has its own withdrawal flow, separate from the closed card programme.
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