Airwallex charges 1.30% + £0.20 on a UK online card, which is less than Stripe, and it will let you keep dollars as dollars instead of converting them. It spent years as a cross-border account provider and only became an acquirer in its own right recently, so the online side is mature and the counter side, launched here on 15 April 2026, is not.
What follows is about taking the payment: the card rates, the counter hardware, how long the money takes to arrive and what can hold it up. The account itself, the multi-currency wallets and the wider FX service are a separate question, and we deal with them in our Airwallex business account review.
The online rates are published and we checked every one of them against airwallex.com/uk/pricing and Airwallex’s licensing page in October 2026. The in-person rates and the hardware prices are not published anywhere we could find, so you will read “quoted on application” several times below. We would rather tell you that than dress up an estimate as a price.
Airwallex at a Glance
Verdict
Buy Airwallex if your sales cross a currency border, a channel border, or both. Online domestic cards cost 1.30% + £0.20, and you can hold takings in 20+ currencies rather than being converted into sterling on arrival. The catch sits on the counter side: the POS arrived in April and Airwallex quotes its price individually, so you are agreeing to one half of your costs sight unseen.
Online and counter takings land in one dashboard, so nobody spends Monday morning matching a web report against a till report to find the fifty pounds that will not tie up. That is the real prize here, and it only exists if you genuinely sell through both.
Best For
Airwallex makes most sense when accepting a payment also creates a currency or systems problem. That includes online sellers taking international cards, businesses adding a physical till, and SaaS platforms embedding payment acceptance into their own product.
Not Ideal For
A single-site, sterling-only shop that wants a reader on the counter this week is better served by Square, SumUp or Dojo, all of which publish a price. If you trade in a sector acquirers treat as high risk, read the complaints section below before you move your takings here: frozen funds during a compliance check are the most common complaint in Airwallex reviews.
Key Facts
Online card fees: 1.30% + £0.20 domestic, 2.40% + £0.20 European Economic Area (EEA) and Amex, 3.15% + £0.20 international. Chargeback fee: £15. Card settlement: T+3 for UK accounts. Onboarding: 1 to 3 business days for simple UK companies.
Funds sit with an FCA-authorised electronic money institution: Airwallex (UK) Limited, FRN 900876, holding PCI DSS Level 1. Trustpilot rating: 2.9 out of 5 from 2,500+ reviews, October 2026. In-person POS rates and hardware prices are quoted on application.
What Is Airwallex?
How Airwallex Payment Processing Works
When you take a card payment, Airwallex is the acquirer: it accepts the payment, runs it through the card networks, and settles the funds into your Airwallex wallet. Online, that happens through a hosted checkout, payment elements, or a direct API for developers.
You see one rate per transaction, blended by card origin, with the interchange and scheme fees folded in. So a domestic card shows 1.30% + £0.20, not a variable interchange breakdown. We confirmed this from airwallex.com/uk/pricing in October 2026.
How Airwallex POS Works
If you sell at the counter as well as online, the POS puts both on one platform. It launched in the UK on 15 April 2026 and runs in-store sales through the same backend as your checkout, so both report into a single dashboard.
You do not necessarily need a reader at all. A compatible Android phone will take contactless on its own, which is how a market stall or a pop-up gets trading without buying hardware, and there are certified terminals for a fixed counter. Which terminals, though, we could not find out: Airwallex names no makes or models on any page we read in October 2026.
What Payment Types Does Airwallex Support?
If you sell online to overseas shoppers, you can take Visa, Mastercard, American Express, UnionPay, Discover and Diners Club, plus Apple Pay and Google Pay and 160+ local methods such as Klarna, iDEAL, Bancontact and WeChat Pay.
At the counter you get a narrower set: Visa, Mastercard, American Express and UnionPay, with contactless, Chip and PIN, and wallet tap-to-pay via Apple Pay and Google Pay. That wide library of alternative methods is mostly an online feature, not a counter one.
How Much Does Airwallex Cost?
Transaction and Processing Fees
What you pay online turns on where your customer’s card was issued, from 1.30% on a UK card to 3.15% on an international one. We confirmed these rates from airwallex.com/uk/pricing in October 2026.
| Card type | Online rate |
|---|---|
| UK domestic (Visa, Mastercard) | 1.30% + £0.20 |
| EEA cards and American Express | 2.40% + £0.20 |
| International / UnionPay | 3.15% + £0.20 |
| Airwallex UK online processing fees, verified from airwallex.com/uk/pricing, October 2026. | |
The 1.30% domestic rate undercuts Stripe’s standard 1.50% + £0.20. There is no separate gateway fee for standard merchants beyond the £0.20 per transaction.
POS Hardware and Terminal Costs
There is no published price for anything to do with the counter. As of October 2026 the in-person transaction rate, the cost to buy or rent a terminal, any fee for taking payments on a phone, and any monthly POS charge are every one of them quoted on application. Square, SumUp and Dojo all print theirs.
POS activation goes through an account manager rather than a self-service form. That gives Airwallex room to price a more complicated setup individually, but it also prevents you from comparing its counter costs with Square or SumUp before entering the sales process.
Monthly, Setup and Other Fees
You need an Airwallex account to process, and the entry Explore plan is £19 a month. That fee is waived if you deposit or hold £10,000 a month. There’s no account setup fee and no separate PCI compliance fee.
Two charges sit outside the headline rate. A disputed transaction costs you £15 whether you win it or lose it. And if you bill subscriptions through the API, a further 0.40% to 0.50% goes on top of the card rate (0.50% for businesses verified from 1 December 2025), so a subscription business is paying twice on the same money. Converting currency, when you choose to, runs at 0.50% above interbank on the major ones.
See Airwallex pricing
Airwallex POS Hardware and Deployment
Airwallex-Certified Terminals
A fixed counter can run certified card machines wired into the Airwallex backend. Airwallex describes them as secure and customisable, which tells you nothing you would not assume of any terminal sold in Britain. What you are actually buying is one set of books: the till takings and the website takings arrive in the same place, already matched.
That matters if you are fitting out a shop and need a device of a particular size, or one that will sit in an existing dock. Competitors name their readers; Airwallex publishes no make or model numbers at all, so the specification only exists inside the sales conversation.
SoftPOS and Tap to Pay on Android
Staff with compatible Android phones or tablets can take contactless payments without a separate card reader. Airwallex SoftPOS uses the device’s built-in NFC, so it suits mobile teams and temporary counters better than a fixed till that needs dedicated hardware.
A tap taken on a phone reports into the same dashboard as the website, so a stall at a weekend market is not a separate set of figures to type up afterwards. It needs no hardware beyond a handset your staff already carry.
Embedded and API Deployment
There is a third way in, and it is for software companies rather than shops. Airwallex publishes APIs and an embeddable option, so if you sell a restaurant or retail management system, your own customers can take card payments inside your product with Airwallex doing the acquiring underneath.
The cost is that somebody has to build it and then keep it working, which is a permanent line on a development budget rather than a one-off setup. For a software platform that is the business model. For a shop taking its own payments it is an engineering project in place of a box you plug in.
How Quickly Does Airwallex Pay Out?
What Are Airwallex’s Settlement Times?
Card payments taken on a UK account settle into your Airwallex wallet three business days after capture (T+3). Other payment methods run to their own timetables, and underwriting can change what applies to you.
When a US customer pays you in dollars, like-for-like settlement avoids an automatic conversion: Airwallex can settle those dollars into your USD balance rather than forcing a conversion to sterling. That avoids the 1% to 3% conversion margin a traditional acquirer would take.
Can Airwallex Hold, Delay or Reserve Funds?
Yes. Airwallex carries the risk on every transaction it accepts, so it can hold back a slice of each day’s takings as a rolling reserve, something like 10% kept for 30 days. What sets the figure is your industry, your volume, your chargeback record and how often you refund, and none of that is settled until underwriting has looked at you.
A reserve bites hardest in the middle of a month, when the held money is sitting with Airwallex and payroll is due on Friday regardless. Airwallex can also delay settlement outright, and for a higher-risk account it can do both at once. Work out what you could survive losing for 30 days, then ask what reserve you would be given, before you move your takings across.
What Payment and POS Features Does Airwallex Offer?
In-Person, Online and Omnichannel Acceptance
Airwallex’s 2026 POS launch removes a reconciliation job for businesses selling both online and at a counter. Both channels process through the same platform and report into the same dashboard, rather than leaving your finance team to match two separate sets of takings.
This is the reason to choose Airwallex over a cheaper domestic acquirer, and it only pays off if you really do sell through both. If all your money comes in one way, you are paying for a join you will never use.
What Integrations and Business Tools Are Included?
If you want clean books, the bank-feed integrations into Xero, QuickBooks and NetSuite do the heavy lifting: they separate revenue from processing fees, FX and reserve holds, so you avoid the manual reconciliation of unpicking a lumped-together payout at month-end.
If you have developers, you get documented APIs and Software Development Kits (SDKs) covering both online and counter acceptance, and that is where most of Airwallex’s depth lives. Without them you are paying up to £19 a month for the dashboard and the card rates alone, which several cheaper providers will also sell you.
How Does Airwallex Handle Chargebacks, Disputes and Security?
How Are Chargebacks and Disputes Managed?
When you receive a dispute notice, Airwallex flags it in the dashboard and deducts the amount from your balance while the case runs. You upload evidence, such as proof of delivery or correspondence, to contest it.
Each dispute carries a £15 fee, and you pay it whether you win or lose. Stripe charges £20 for each dispute it receives, so this is not a reason to rule Airwallex out. It is a reason to count your disputes: at ten a month the fees alone are £150 before a penny of disputed value.
Is Airwallex Secure and Compliant?
Money sits with an FCA-authorised electronic money institution: Airwallex (UK) Limited, firm reference number 900876, which Airwallex’s licensing page confirmed in October 2026. Customer funds are safeguarded under e-money rules, not covered by FSCS.
On data security you get PCI DSS Level 1, the highest processor tier, with TLS 1.2 in transit and Advanced Encryption Standard (AES)-256 at rest, and SOC 1 and SOC 2 attestation. Its SoftPOS acceptance relies on certified software-based security on the device.
What Is Airwallex Like to Use Day to Day?
How Easy Is Airwallex to Set Up?
If you are a straightforward UK company, you can be approved in 1 to 3 business days through online onboarding, with automated know-your-business and anti-money-laundering checks. Complex or higher-risk businesses face longer underwriting and document requests.
Activating in-person POS is a separate step that runs through an account manager rather than self-serve, which adds lead time if you need a counter live by a deadline.
What Is the Dashboard or App Like?
The web dashboard is where the work happens, and it is the part of Airwallex that reviewers single out most often for praise. It separates settlements, fees, conversion costs and anything held in reserve, rather than showing you one net figure and leaving you to work out what came off it, and it now shows counter sales beside online ones.
There is an iOS and Android app too, for watching payments arrive, approving transfers and keeping an eye on card spend away from a desk. It is built for whoever runs the money rather than whoever is on the till, so expect to do anything substantial on a computer.
What Do Customers Say About Airwallex?
What Do Positive Reviews Mention?
We read Trustpilot in October 2026 and found Airwallex on 2.9 out of 5 from more than 2,500 reviews, which is a low score for a provider this size and worth understanding before the praise below. The warm reviews are almost all about the same thing: money these businesses used to lose to their bank’s exchange rate and now keep.
If you have the technical capacity to use them, the dashboard and the robustness of the payment APIs draw repeated positive mentions, and larger clients single out responsive account managers for complex international routing.
What Complaints Come Up Most Often?
The complaint that dominates is the sudden freeze. A spike in volume or a single transaction that trips a compliance alert can see your funds held while Airwallex investigates, and there is no published limit on how long that takes. It is your own money, already taken from your own customers, and you cannot reach it. If you run with little headroom, this is the thing on the page that should worry you.
And the help available while it happens depends on your size. Smaller merchants, who get no dedicated account manager, describe slow and templated email replies during exactly the week they need a human being on a telephone.
Who Is Airwallex Best For?
Which Businesses Is Airwallex Best Suited To?
Airwallex suits you if accepting a payment creates a second problem. If you sell online and collect in dollars or euros, the second problem is conversion, and like-for-like settlement solves it. If you are opening a shop alongside a website, the second problem is two sets of takings to reconcile, and one platform solves that. If you sell software other businesses trade through, the second problem is payments you have to build yourself, and the embedded route solves that. A business with none of those problems is paying for the answer to a question it has not asked.
When Should You Consider an Alternative?
If you run one UK site in pounds and want a reader working this week at a price you can read before you buy, Square, SumUp and Dojo all publish theirs and Airwallex does not. And if you trade in a sector acquirers treat as high risk, the freezes described above are what you are most likely to meet, which is an expensive way to find out you were the wrong fit.
What Are the Best Alternatives to Airwallex?
Airwallex vs Stripe
For mostly UK domestic sales, Stripe’s 1.50% + £0.20 costs more than Airwallex’s 1.30% and adds 2% on conversion. Both cater to developers through APIs, but Stripe supplies an established terminal system while Airwallex lets you keep foreign takings in the currency received.
Full comparison: our Stripe vs Airwallex guide.
Airwallex vs Square
Square is the better choice for a local high-street shop: a flat 1.75% in person, a £19 reader, transparent hardware and free POS software, all of which we checked on Square’s pricing page. Airwallex pulls ahead once you sell internationally or online and move into physical space.
Airwallex vs Adyen
Adyen is the closest thing to Airwallex at the top of the market: the same web-and-counter reach, a far larger range of terminals, and pricing that passes the card networks’ own costs through to you rather than blending them. It also sets a minimum volume most mid-market businesses will not clear, which is what leaves Airwallex as the accessible version of the same idea.
Airwallex vs SumUp and Dojo
SumUp suits micro-merchants with a £25 (excluding VAT) Solo Lite reader and a simple 1.69% in-person rate. Dojo targets UK hospitality with a 1.2% blended rate under £100,000 a year of card takings, next-day settlement and sleek terminals. Neither matches Airwallex on cross-border tools, but both deploy far faster for one site.
For one till in one country, being live by Friday is worth more than anything on Airwallex’s cross-border list.
Final Verdict: Is Airwallex Worth It?
If your sales cross a currency or a channel, we put Airwallex ahead. Its 1.30% on a UK online card is lower than Stripe’s 1.50%, and settling dollars as dollars keeps the 1% to 3% a traditional acquirer would take for converting them. The April 2026 POS launch means the counter no longer has to be somebody else’s system.
Set against that, the counter pricing is quoted individually, so you cannot do the sum that tells you whether Airwallex or Square is cheaper on your own volumes until you are inside a sales process. And the freezes that run through its reviews can leave a month’s takings out of reach with payroll still due. Neither is a reason to rule it out. Both are reasons to ask about the reserve and the in-person rate in the same conversation, before you move anything.
For a business selling in several currencies, Airwallex is the strongest fit in this comparison. For a corner shop, every feature that makes it good is one you will not use, and you could be paying up to £19 a month and an unpublished counter rate for the privilege.
Visit AirwallexFrequently Asked Questions
How Much Does Airwallex Charge to Process Card Payments?
Online, Airwallex charges 1.30% + £0.20 for UK domestic cards, 2.40% + £0.20 for EEA cards and American Express, and 3.15% + £0.20 for international cards. We confirmed these from airwallex.com/uk/pricing in October 2026. In-person POS rates are quoted on application.
How Much Does Airwallex POS Cost?
Airwallex does not publish in-person POS pricing. As of October 2026, the transaction rate, terminal hardware prices and any SoftPOS fee are quoted on application through an account manager. If a fixed, published in-person rate matters to you, Square, SumUp or Dojo publish theirs.
Is Airwallex POS Available in the UK?
Yes. Airwallex launched POS Payments in the UK on 15 April 2026. It is also live across Europe, Hong Kong and Singapore, with the US and Australia on the roadmap.
How Long Does Airwallex Take to Pay Out?
Card payments taken on a UK account settle into your Airwallex wallet three business days after capture (T+3). Higher-risk accounts may face a rolling reserve or delayed settlement.
Is Airwallex Safe and Regulated?
Airwallex (UK) Limited is authorised by the FCA as an electronic money institution, firm reference number 900876, and holds PCI DSS Level 1 for payment security. Funds are safeguarded under e-money rules rather than covered by FSCS deposit protection.
How we reviewed Airwallex payment processing
What we assessed. We compared Airwallex’s online and counter card fees, hardware options, deployment routes, settlement, dispute handling and security with the alternatives available to UK merchants.
Data sources. Airwallex’s UK pricing page and POS product pages, and its licensing page naming FCA firm reference number 900876, were checked directly in October 2026. Trustpilot was checked for the current rating. Where Airwallex does not publish a figure, we say so rather than estimate.
Update cadence. We re-verify this page when Airwallex changes pricing, terms or product availability, and at least quarterly. The verification date reflects the most recent full review. Some links on this page are affiliate links; see our editorial policy.