International Payment Gateway Options
Best for Developers and Global E-Commerce: Stripe
Stripe settles in over 45 countries and accepts payments in more than 135 currencies. The published UK rate for online card payments is 1.5% + 20p on domestic cards; a non-UK card adds a 1.5% cross-border fee, and currency conversion adds 1% on top. So if a European customer pays you by card, you are typically looking at around 3% + 20p once those fees stack, not the 1.5% you see quoted for domestic sales.
Stripe supports more than 50 local payment methods, including iDEAL (Netherlands), SEPA Direct Debit (EU), Klarna (UK and EU), Bancontact (Belgium), and giropay (Germany). You enable each one from the Stripe Dashboard, with no separate acquirer contract for most. Its global routing also picks the acquiring path most likely to be approved in each market, which lifts authorisation rates without you tuning anything.
We rate Stripe the default first choice at most volume levels for one practical reason: if you are building e-commerce from scratch, you can switch on a new market’s preferred payment method the same afternoon. That speed, and the quality of the documentation your developers will actually live in, usually matters more than shaving a few basis points off the headline rate.
Best for Enterprise Cross-Border Volume: Adyen
Adyen processes payments for some of the world’s largest retailers and runs its own acquiring infrastructure in the EU, UK, US, Australia, and other key markets. Because it does not lean on third-party acquirers, it can offer interchange-plus pricing that gets genuinely competitive at scale: its processing fee starts from 0.60% per transaction on top of interchange, set by your monthly card volume and agreed in a commercial contract. It supports over 180 currencies and more than 250 local payment methods.
Its RevenueAccelerate product uses machine learning to optimise routing and retry logic for higher authorisation rates, and its network tokens replace raw card numbers with scheme tokens so returning customers get approved more often. These are not marketing extras; at high volume, a one-point lift in authorisation rate is real revenue you were otherwise losing at the checkout.
There is no self-serve sign-up, and pricing only comes through a commercial agreement. We would only point you to Adyen once you are processing roughly £5 million a year or more. Below that, the optimisation tooling and direct acquiring relationships rarely save you enough to justify the integration cost.
Best for Authorisation Rate Optimisation: Checkout.com
Checkout.com is a UK-based platform with direct acquiring licences in the UK, EU, and other major markets, and it competes head-on with Adyen for enterprise optimisation work. Smart routing and real-time analytics are built to push authorisation rates up market by market, and it supports over 150 currencies across more than 20 primary markets.
Where it earns its place is in markets that card processors often struggle with: the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Latin America. If a meaningful share of your sales come from those regions, this is the provider we would shortlist alongside Adyen and Nuvei rather than assuming a developer-first gateway will get the same cards approved.
Pricing is negotiated, and Checkout.com does not publish standard rates, so you will need a quote before you can compare it on cost.
Best for Established UK Businesses Expanding Internationally: Worldpay
Worldpay (now part of FIS) is one of the UK’s largest acquirers and has processed international card payments for decades. If you already run domestic payments through Worldpay and want to extend to overseas customers, doing it through the existing relationship is the path of least resistance: one contract, one settlement account, the reporting your finance team already knows.
Worldpay accepts payments in over 120 currencies, and cross-border fees for non-UK cards typically run 1.5% to 2% on top of the standard transaction rate. Local payment methods are covered in major markets, but the breadth is narrower than Adyen or Nuvei, so check your specific countries before you commit.
The honest trade-off is reliability over innovation. We would not put a fast-growing e-commerce startup here, because you would feel the slower product cadence. For a mid-market business that values a known name, established support, and a contract it does not have to renegotiate, Worldpay is a credible call.
Best for Broad Local Payment Method Coverage: Nuvei
Nuvei is a Canadian-listed platform with over 600 local payment method integrations across more than 200 markets. If your customers expect to pay by Pix (Brazil), Alipay (China), UPI (India), or another local method, and you want all of them behind a single integration, its breadth is genuinely hard to match.
Nuvei pairs that coverage with FX optimisation, flexible payouts, and an orchestration layer that routes payments across multiple acquiring connections. We see it chosen most often where payment-method diversity, not price, is the deciding factor: gaming, digital goods, and marketplaces where a missing local method directly loses you the sale. Pricing is bespoke.
Key Concepts for International Payments
Cross-Border Card Fees
When a card issued outside the UK pays a UK merchant, Visa and Mastercard charge a higher cross-border interchange fee than they do on a domestic card. Your gateway passes that straight through as a surcharge of roughly 1% to 2% on top of the standard rate. Since Brexit, this catches almost every EU consumer card you accept, not just cards from further afield, which is why your effective rate on European sales is higher than it was in 2019.
Currency Conversion and FX Mark-Ups
If you take a payment in EUR but settle in GBP, someone converts the currency, and providers apply a mark-up above the interbank rate of typically 1% to 2%. Stripe charges a flat 1%; Adyen and Checkout.com can beat that at volume, which is part of why we steer larger sellers toward them. The alternative is multi-currency settlement: you hold a balance in each currency and convert when you choose, which is worth it if you also have EUR costs to pay out of your EUR revenue.
Local Payment Methods
In several markets, a large share of online shoppers simply do not reach for a card. In the Netherlands, iDEAL (a bank-transfer method) carries over 60% of e-commerce transactions; in Germany, SEPA Direct Debit and Klarna are everyday choices; in Brazil, Pix dominates. A card-only checkout quietly loses you customers in exactly these places. Before you commit to a provider for a specific country, check which local methods it supports and how each one is priced.
3DS2 and Strong Customer Authentication
The EU mandates Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) for online card payments under PSD2, and UK rules require it too. Your gateway handles 3DS2, the technical implementation of SCA, automatically. The part that actually moves your conversion rate is the configuration: when to challenge a payment and when to claim a low-value exemption. Enterprise providers like Adyen and Checkout.com give you more control here than a self-serve gateway does, which matters once a percentage point of drop-off is meaningful money.
How to Choose an International Payment Gateway
Target markets. If you sell mainly into Europe, Stripe’s payment-method coverage (iDEAL, SEPA, Klarna, Bancontact) handles most of what you need. If your growth is in Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, or Latin America, Nuvei or Checkout.com’s regional depth will serve you better than a Europe-first toolkit.
Volume. Under £1 million a year, Stripe’s self-serve model and published rates are the easiest place to start. Over £5 million, enterprise providers (Adyen, Checkout.com) give you lower rates and optimisation tooling that more than offsets the added complexity. Where the call is genuinely close, between £1 and £5 million, we would get a Worldpay or Checkout.com quote and model it against Stripe’s blended rate before signing anything.
Technical resource. Stripe, Checkout.com, and Adyen all need developer integration. Stripe asks the least of your engineers; Adyen asks the most but hands back more flexibility once you are operating at scale.
Settlement currency. If a real chunk of your costs sit in non-GBP currencies, multi-currency settlement (available from Stripe, Adyen, and Checkout.com) cuts your FX exposure by letting revenue and costs net off in the same currency.
International Payment Gateway Fees and Costs to Watch
Stacked fees. A single international card payment can attract four charges at once: the standard card rate, a cross-border fee, a currency-conversion mark-up, and a 3DS2 authentication fee. Model the total cost of a typical overseas transaction yourself, because the headline rate is only the first of the four fees you actually pay.
Chargeback rates. Cross-border transactions are charged back more often than domestic ones, and a provider may flag your account if your international chargeback rate climbs past scheme thresholds, typically 0.5% to 1% of transactions. Enterprise providers give you better tools to keep that rate under control, which is part of what you are paying for at the top end.
Compliance costs. Selling into the EU can trigger VAT registration in certain markets (the EU OSS scheme), and some regulated product categories need local licences. Payment compliance and product compliance are separate problems. Do not assume your gateway relationship clears your regulatory obligations in a target market; it does not.
Our Verdict
For most UK businesses selling abroad, start with Stripe. It is the only provider on this list you can switch on this afternoon, its pricing is published rather than quoted, and its 50+ local payment methods cover the European markets where most UK exporters see their first overseas sales. Up to around £1 million a year, nothing here beats it on time-to-launch or transparency.
Past roughly £5 million a year, the maths changes. Adyen and Checkout.com earn their integration cost back through interchange-plus pricing and authorisation-rate optimisation, where a single percentage point of approved payments is real revenue. Choose Adyen for the deepest enterprise tooling and direct acquiring, Checkout.com when a meaningful share of sales come from the Middle East, Southeast Asia, or Latin America.
The two specialists are situational. Pick Worldpay if you already process with it and want one contract and one settlement account rather than a new integration. Pick Nuvei if payment-method breadth (Pix, Alipay, UPI and 600+ others behind one connection) is the thing that wins or loses you the sale. In the £1m–£5m middle ground, get a quote from Worldpay or Checkout.com and model it against Stripe’s blended rate before you commit.
Frequently Asked Questions
Not necessarily. Most major UK gateways already accept international card payments. But cross-border fees and thin local payment method support can drag down your conversion in some markets. If overseas sales are significant for you (say, more than 20% of revenue), it is worth checking whether your current provider’s international offering is genuinely competitive rather than assuming it is.
For most businesses we would start with Stripe: it is the cheapest self-serve option with transparent published pricing. At higher volumes, enterprise providers (Adyen, Checkout.com) offer interchange-plus pricing that can work out cheaper overall, even after the contract negotiation. The genuinely cheapest route for you depends on your card mix, your target markets, and your average transaction size, so model it on your own numbers.
Yes. Stripe, Adyen, Checkout.com, and Worldpay all support multi-currency pricing and checkout, so you can show prices and take payment in local currencies. You can settle in GBP (with the provider handling the FX conversion) or in the original currency if you hold multi-currency accounts. Multi-currency settlement is more work to manage, but it cuts your FX exposure if you also have costs in those same currencies.
Yes. Since the UK left the EU, cards issued in EU countries are treated as international by UK acquirers, so EU card transactions now carry the cross-border interchange surcharge, typically an extra 1% to 2% on top of your standard rate. This applies to most EU consumer cards. It does not change how EU commercial cards are treated, but the overall cost of accepting European card payments has risen for UK merchants since 2020, and you should price that in.
Methodology & Disclosure
How we reviewed these gateways. We assessed each provider on the factors that actually decide cost and conversion for a UK business selling overseas: currency and local-payment-method coverage, cross-border and FX pricing, authorisation-rate and routing tooling, integration effort, and contract terms. We checked figures against each provider’s published pricing and documentation in June 2026. Where a provider quotes bespoke rates only (Adyen, Checkout.com, Worldpay, and Nuvei all negotiate pricing), we say so rather than publishing a number you cannot rely on, and we recommend getting a written quote before you compare on cost. We do not test these platforms with live merchant funds; our assessment is a desk review of published terms, product capability, and how each provider fits a defined business situation.
Disclosure. BusinessExpert is reader-supported and editorially independent. The providers reviewed on this page (Stripe, Adyen, Checkout.com, Worldpay, and Nuvei) are not affiliate partners, and the links to them are standard outbound links that earn us nothing. We may earn a commission elsewhere on the site when you sign up to a partner through our links, but that never affects which providers we recommend or how we rank them. Our recommendations are based on verified pricing, contract terms, and product capability, not on commercial relationships.