Revolut Review: Experience of a Long-term User [2023]

With the boom in travel over the last five years, a number of companies have emerged offering more convenient credit cards for payments abroad ( see reviews of other financial companies here). Revolut is one of them and for many situations it is the best option.

I’ve been using Revolut since their inception and I’ve spent almost 500,000 crowns with it while travelling. Since I already know Revolut like the back of my hand and know its advantages and especially its disadvantages, I decided to describe the service in detail and add my experience.

The mobile bank that knows no boundaries

Revolut is a fintech company from the UK, which enables a multi-currency account (up to 29 currencies) linked to a payment card within its mobile app. Money can be freely exchanged within the account at interbank rates, card payments abroad are free of charge and are always in the local currency.

You don’t lose out on a disadvantageous exchange rate like with domestic banks. The money can be easily topped up from a Czech account (using the SWIFT method) or by credit card and the app offers a range of additional features depending on the chosen tariff, such as:

• Budgeting – setting a monthly limit per category
• Spending type recognition and categorisation
• Setting aside ”change”, rounding up what you pay and saving
• Instant notifications on your phone about payments made
• Cryptocurrency savings (BTC, LTC, ETH, XRP, BCH)
• Virtual payment card for online payments
• Travel health insurance
• Insurance of electronic equipment
• ATM withdrawals
• Stock and cryptocurrency trading
• Access to airport lounges.

Revolut is no newcomer, with more than 6.5 million users worldwide and a strong community in the Czech Republic. And I’m among them. I have been using the card since 2016.

How to get started with Revolut

Current promotion: get a free Revolut card. You’re not risking anything.

You don’t have to go anywhere to open an account. Just download the mobile app (iOS or Android) and fill in your registration details. What will Revolut require when I sign up?

• Name and place of residence
• Telephone number
• ID card or passport (required for anti-money laundering protection)
• Selfie with proof (you can take it directly in the app)

Registration is ready in a moment. Although the documents are verified manually at Revolut, it takes no more than a few minutes and you can immediately request a credit card to be sent to any address.

When ordering your card, you set your PIN directly. The virtual card, which you can use to pay online, is available almost immediately. You can then open and close individual currency accounts in the app as you wish, all without any fees.

Revolut login

You can only log in to Revolut via the mobile app.

How does Revolut work?

Revolut is a mobile wallet where you can open accounts in 29 currencies. You can pay in up to 130 different currencies. The Revolut payment card is a debit card, which means you have to top it up before using it – ideally with your own credit card.

The app and card allow you to spend money abroad at favorable interbank rates, saving you up to 5% on individual transactions. You can also use the app to send money to accounts in 140 countries and purchase five different cryptocurrencies that you can keep long-term.

What the Revolut app looks like

Revolut works only on mobile phones. The application is completely in Czech and is very clear. From the home page, you can conveniently switch between currencies or convert between them. For each currency, you can see a list of transactions and their categorization.

Payments abroad without fees (if you know how to do it)

Compared to its competitors, Revolut comes out as the best odds provider in the liquid currencies. Conversion to another currency is immediate and at interbank rates. It works best because it usually doesn’t charge fees.

Example: going to Morocco and want to pay by credit card? Simply load Czech crowns onto your Revolut card, open a MAD (Moroccan dollar) account within 10 seconds and immediately convert the crowns into MAD. Then you can safely tap your card anywhere in Morocco. The card will deduct payments from your MAD account.

Exchange fees in a non-standard situation

• It is worse if you decide to make the exchange outside the trading hours of the forex market (e.g. on a weekend). Depending on the currency in question, Revolut will charge 0.5% to 2% of the transaction as protection against the exchange rate difference that may occur when the markets reopen after the weekend. Revolut will issue the currency immediately, but will not buy it itself until Monday.
• You will also pay a 0.5% fee for each exchange that exceeds the monthly limit for currency conversions, which is CZK 120,000 without the premium plan.

Revolut card and currency accounts are free

Virtual card and currency accounts are always available free of charge. You can pay in domestic and foreign shops and e-shops without fear of exchange rate disadvantages. If you don’t have a sufficient balance in a given currency, Revolut can take funds from another currency and exchange them at the current interbank rate.

The physical payment card costs 99 CZK, but you can use my invitation for free.

Other Revolut features worth mentioning

• Vault Vault – You can turn on payment rounding and store the excess in a savings vault. You can also send money to the vault on a regular monthly basis and even convert excess change into cryptocurrency. Thanks to the banking license, the vault should soon offer interest-bearing deposits.
• Split Payments – The Split Invoice feature allows you to split costs between multiple Revolut users. You can split the cost with your friends on the road and there’s no need to keep track of who paid how much.
• Accepting payments via link – Anyone can send you money to Revolut via a generated link without needing to have their own Revolut account.
• Single-use virtual cards – Single-use payment cards are available in paid plans and are the safest option for payment at unverified e-shops.
• Purchase shares and even free of charge (first 100 trades) under the Metal tariff
• Turbo transfers in 35 currencies to any bank in the world (within 24 hours)
• Cashback up to 1% for payments made under the Metal tariff

Revolut Premium

The premium version, which costs CZK 175 per month, doubles the monthly limit for fee-free ATM withdrawals (from CZK 4,500 to CZK 9,000). In addition, it includes:

• Unlimited transfers between currencies without fee
• Health insurance
• Travel delay insurance
• One-time virtual cards
• Free Turbo Transfers
• Possibility to choose other colour variants of the carriage (silver grey, grey, pink)

Revolut Metal

If you don’t mind paying CZK 300 per month for the highest tariff, they will reward you with a metal payment card and cashback (money back from purchases) of up to 1% of each transaction. The limit for ATM withdrawals has also been increased again, up to CZK 16,500 per month.

Revolut Insurance

The health insurance offered in both paid plans has the same parameters. It can be used for a maximum of 40 days travel and covers emergency medical assistance, evacuation, repatriation, and emergency dental treatment abroad. At the same time, you are insured for baggage delays after just four hours, and the same applies to flight delays. Insurance limits:

• Emergency medical insurance: 15 000 000 GBP (415 million CZK), deductible 75 GBP
• Emergency dental treatment: 300 GBP
• Baggage delay: 320 GBP
• Travel delay: GBP 320 (GBP 80 for each full hour of delay up to GBP 320)
• Insurance provider White Horse Insurance Ireland Ltd.

I’ve pulled my insurance policy summary i terms and conditions .

Budgeting with the app

Thanks to Revolut, you can keep an eye on your budget at any time. The app allows you to set a daily and monthly budget and if you exceed it, the app will alert you. Each time you pay, the app reports how much you’ve spent that day and how much you can still afford. The app also works with budget categories for all sorts of things, from restaurants to groceries.

Revolut fees and limits

The card, app, currency accounts, transfers and wallet top-ups are free. Revolut has a number of fees, but you can almost avoid them in normal use.

• Currency transfers outside forex market hours cost 0.5% of the amount transferred
• Premium account costs CZK 174.99 per month or CZK 1,750 per year (you save 16%)
• Metal account costs 299,99 CZK per month or 3000 CZK per year (you save 16%)
• ATM withdrawal is free up to CZK 4,500, above the limit you pay 2% (for Premium the limit is CZK 9,000, for Metal CZK 15,000)
• You can buy, transfer and exchange money up to CZK 120,000 per month, then the service is charged at 2% (unlimited for Premium and Metal)
• Turbo transfers cost CZK 140 without paid tariff
• Annual cancellation fee for premium account – 2x monthly fee

For a complete list of fees (including less important ones), please visit Revolut website .

Security of Revolut payment cards

Both types of Revolut cards are very well secured. The app allows you to freeze the cards at will for any length of time. I use this feature with my virtual card, which is only for online payments. I always unblock my card only for the moment I am about to pay something and freeze it again after making the payment.

In addition, NFC (contactless payments), magnetic stripe, online payments and ATM withdrawals can be switched off at will. GPS security is also an excellent feature. If you have mobile data active on your phone, Revolut will check if you are physically in the store where the card is trying to pay in an instant. If you were elsewhere, the card will not allow payment. That way, the thief can’t buy anything with the stolen card.

What is not free with Revolut?

The app, currency accounts, virtual card and physical card are free. The need to pay comes when you want to use additional services or get rid of certain fees. In addition, the Premium and Metal plans offer:

• Currency conversion and ATM withdrawals at weekends at no extra charge
• ATM withdrawals above the basic monthly limit of CZK 4,500 without a fee
• Travel insurance
• Phone insurance
• Flight and baggage insurance
• Share purchases

Automatic shifts

Revolut allows automatic currency exchanges when the exchange rate you set is reached. You set a target value for the selected currency and Revolut will immediately exchange it at the current best possible exchange rate when the target is reached. However, as the exchange rate is constantly changing, the actual exchange rate used may differ slightly from your target, mainly due to the following factors:

• Low account balance at the time of the exchange
• Reaching the limit of 30 automatic shifts per day, the next one will automatically fail
• The maximum amount of cryptocurrency exchanges is set at EUR 10,000 per day
• If the exchange rate changes by more than 0.75% compared to the target value, the exchange will not take place
• If the cryptocurrency exchange rate changes by more than 50% compared to the target value, the exchange will not take place

Revolut Customer Support

If you have any problems, Revolut offers customer support directly in the app. Just click on the question mark in the bubble in the Control Panel tab and click on Chat with us. First the robot will try to talk to you. But if you want to switch to live support, it’s easy. Just ask the robot the same (and preferably nonsensical) question three times. After the third attempt, it gives up and offers to reconnect you to a real person. With this, everything is done in a few minutes. My experience with support has been excellent. I have dealt with several situations where an ATM has taken money from my account even though it did not dispense it. Support took over the case and then reports were sent on the status of the case.

Revolut is not always the most convenient

Revolut is not always the best choice. In our experience, the exchange rates for Thai baht, Ukrainian hryvnia and Georgian lari work out worse than those for regular banks. You can check the odds directly in the app at any time.

Trading in shares

Since September 2019, Revolutka has been offering share trading through the app. In the control panel, just click on the Trading tab, fill in a simple form and read the trading conditions.

Tax identification number

When Revolut asks you for your VAT ID (Tax Identification Number/TIN), fill in your birth number.

Although Revolut verifies trading account applications manually, confirmation usually arrives within a few minutes.

At Revolutka you trade shares without a fee

You can trade stocks completely free of charge and the number of free trades depends on your tariff:

• Basic account – 3 free trades per month
• Premium account – 8 free trades per month
• Metal account – unlimited trades per month

All purchases over the monthly limit are charged GBP 1.

The firm charges only 0.01% of your investment portfolio per year to manage your portfolio. Compared to other brokers, you pay nothing for buying and selling or for deposits and withdrawals.

Fractional share purchases

The second major advantage of trading on the stock exchange through Revolut is that you don’t have to buy entire shares. You can buy shares of Apple for a single US dollar.

With regular brokers, you have to buy the whole stock, which can be a problem with more expensive titles. If you’re new to trading, you’re hardly going to want to give $800 per Tesla share.

In fractional trading, you can even buy a tiny piece of stock and own a piece of your favorite company.

Dividend payments

Whether you buy whole shares or just parts of them, Revolut will pay you the relevant dividends at no charge. A dividend is a portion of the profit that a company pays out to its shareholders, usually at quarterly intervals.

What stocks you can trade

So far, about 300 different stocks from the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ are on offer, but stocks from European exchanges, including ETF instruments, are to be added.

As only US stocks are traded, you are limited to the opening hours of the US exchanges, which are open to us from 14:30 to 21:00. Orders placed outside the opening hours of the exchanges will be settled immediately after opening.

How to buy shares on Revolut

Buying shares on Revolutka is easy. First click on Trading in the dashboard and fill in and confirm everything. You should be able to access the exchanges in a few minutes.

Topping up your investment account

Before you can buy shares, you need to top up your investor account, which is different from your regular revolving account.

In the dashboard, under the Trading tab, click Show more.

Click on Fund and transfer US Dollars to the account. If you do not have any, you must first convert them from Czech crowns.

Purchase of shares

Let’s use the example of Apple shares to show you how to buy them in the app.

Click on Show more under the Trading tab and then click on Invest. Then search for Apple and click on the share detail. Then just click the Buy button, select how much and you’re done.

From now on, the share or part of it is yours and you can track its appreciation/depreciation in the app.

How to tax trading on Revolutka

U.S. dividend income is taxed at 30 percent unless you have a signed Form W-8 BEN, which reduces the tax to 15 percent. Fortunately for us, the form is written and signed automatically during the investment account application process. So you don’t have to worry about anything and the dividends will arrive in your account taxed at 15% (you’ll see a ”withholding tax” entry next to the dividend).

However, any capital gains (dividends or the sale of shares at a higher price than you bought them for) must be properly taxed in the Czech Republic once a year as part of your tax return.

Taxation is fairly simple and you can find great instructions on the E15 website .

Google Play

As of May 2019, it supports Revolut Google Pay . The Czech Republic is one of 16 European countries where Revolut is testing this feature. All you need is an Android mobile phone with NFC and HCE technologies.

Apple Pay

As of May 2019, it supports Revolut Apple Pay. Anyone with an iPhone with NFC (from version 6 onwards) can load the card onto their phone and pay conveniently with their mobile phone. You can even add your card to Apple Pay immediately after ordering a physical one and pay with it before it arrives at your home.

Donating to charities via Revolut

It is also possible to donate funds to charity through Revolut. Of course, there is no charge for donations. You can currently donate to three charities:

• Save the Children – Help the most vulnerable
• WWF – Protect the natural world
• ILGA-Europe – Push for real equality

Banking licence

In December 2018, the company acquired European banking license and thus became a full-fledged bank. Users’ money will thus be protected by the European Deposit Insurance Scheme (up to €100,000 in the event of a company collapse) and the app will also feature consumer credit offers and even loans to businesses. In addition, Europeans (and therefore us) will be able to have their entire paychecks sent to Revolut.

Q&A

In this section I will gradually add answers to the questions you have for me after reading the article.