A friend paid £2.5 to withdraw cash in London last month. The machine charging that fee was a freestanding unit in a newsagent’s. A free machine (a Nationwide branch) was forty steps away on the same street.
We went to Alicante (Spain) two months ago. The closest ATM, by BBVA, was charging €8.5! We didn’t take cash, and we had to transfer money to someone.
Most travellers assume all machines charge and get on with it. A few, after getting stung enough times, start looking for a better way. FreeATM.app is what we built after getting stung enough times.
How ATM fees actually work
Tourists can lose €5–15 per withdrawal to ATM fees, and most people only know about one of them. Three separate charges can stack up at the same machine.
- The first is the ATM operator fee — charged directly by whoever owns the machine, shown on screen before you confirm. Euronet ATMs in tourist areas charge €3–6 per withdrawal. In the UK, major bank ATMs are free for everyone; in Spain, most big banks charge foreign cards €2–5.50.
- The second is your bank’s foreign transaction fee — typically 1–3% of the withdrawal, not shown on the ATM screen but on your statement later. A no-fee travel card (Wise, Revolut, Monzo) eliminates this.
- The third — and sneakiest — is Dynamic Currency Conversion (DCC): when the ATM offers to charge you in your home currency “for convenience”, it uses an exchange rate 5–8% worse than your bank’s. Always decline and pay in the local currency. Full breakdown at freeatm.app/how-atm-fees-work →
What FreeATM.app is
FreeATM.app is a crowdsourced map of surcharge-free cash machines. It currently has around 25,000 surcharge-free ATMs across 31 countries, and every machine on it has been added by a traveller who found it, used it, and confirmed it charged nothing. There’s no sign-up required, no app to download, and no charge to use it — it runs in any browser.
The idea is simple: if one person discovers a free ATM outside a Tesco in Edinburgh, or a no-fee machine in a hotel lobby in Hanoi, they add it to the map. The next person arriving in that city doesn’t have to find it the hard way. It’s the same logic as a crowd-sourced speed camera app, applied to a problem every traveller has.
How to use it
Go to freeatm.app and search for your destination city. The map loads with pins for every confirmed free ATM in that area — click any pin for the address and any notes left by the person who added it. You can also browse by popular cities at freeatm.app/cities to see which cities are covered.
The city pages work well for trip planning before you leave. Search London, for example, and you’ll see clusters of free machines near major stations and supermarkets — useful to screenshot before you land and your data roaming kicks in.
How to add a machine
Tap the + button in the bottom right, then tap anywhere on the map to drop a pin — drag it to adjust the position. Optionally add a name and bank, then tap Submit.
The more machines get added, the more useful the map becomes. If you spot a free ATM that isn’t listed — a credit union branch, a supermarket cashback point, a bank that waives charges for foreign cards — take thirty seconds to add it. Someone on their next holiday will thank you for it.
Add the map to your own website
If you run a travel blog, city guide, or any site where visitors might need to find cash, you can embed a live FreeATM.app map directly into your pages. It’s free, needs no signup or API key, and stays up to date automatically as new machines are added.
Go to freeatm.app/embed-map, pick a city, and copy the iframe snippet. Paste it anywhere in your post or page — adjust the height and width to fit your layout. The data is sourced from OpenStreetMap, official bank locators, and traveller reports, reseeded regularly.
Country guides
We’ve put together dedicated guides for finding fee-free cash in specific countries, covering which banks charge, which networks are free, and the fastest routes to cash in the main cities:
- How to Avoid ATM Fees in the UK (2026) — LINK, HSBC, Nationwide, and where to find free machines in London
- How to Avoid ATM Fees in the USA — coming soon, covering the East Coast and fee-free bank networks
Go further: fee-free cards
FreeATM.app solves the problem of finding the right machine. If you want to eliminate the fee on your end too — regardless of which ATM you use — pair it with a no-fee travel card. We’ve covered the best options in detail in our guide to the best free cards for travel, but the short version:
- Wise — free withdrawals up to €200/month, real mid-market exchange rate
- Revolut — free withdrawals up to €200/month on the free plan, widely accepted
- Monzo — no foreign transaction fees, good for UK travellers heading to Europe
Combine the two approaches — a no-fee card and a confirmed-free machine — and you withdraw exactly what you asked for, at the real exchange rate, with nothing lost to fees at either end.
Get FreeATM.app on your phone
No account needed — open freeatm.app in any browser and it works immediately. To add it to your home screen:
- Android: Open freeatm.app in Chrome — you will see an install icon in the address bar or a prompt at the bottom of the screen. Tap it and it installs directly to your home screen.
- iPhone / iPad: Open freeatm.app in Safari → tap the Share button (the box with an arrow) → Add to Home Screen
Frequently asked questions
Is FreeATM.app free to use?
Yes, completely. No sign-up, no subscription, no app required. Open it in any browser, search your city, and the map loads immediately.
How do I know the machines listed are actually free?
Every machine is added by a real person who has used it. The crowdsourced model means entries reflect real-world experience rather than data scraped from bank websites, which is often out of date. If a machine starts charging, anyone can flag it.
Which countries does FreeATM.app cover?
Currently [FILL IN: list countries or regions]. Coverage is growing as more people contribute. If your destination isn’t listed yet, you can still use the site to add machines you discover when you’re there.
What’s the difference between a bank fee and an ATM operator surcharge?
Two separate charges can apply at an ATM. Your bank may charge a foreign transaction fee — typically 1–3% — for using a machine abroad; this doesn’t appear on the ATM screen but shows up on your statement. The ATM operator surcharge is set by whoever owns the machine and is shown on screen before you confirm. FreeATM.app only lists machines with no operator surcharge. A no-fee travel card handles the bank side.
Can I use FreeATM.app offline?
Offline currently means: the app opens and the map tiles load (if you’ve panned that area before, the browser may have cached some tiles), but no ATM pins will show. Download functionality is being worked on — once available, you’ll be able to save a city’s ATMs for use without a connection. For now, the quickest workaround is to screenshot the map before you travel.