Uber claims that it wants to help its customers… by charging them an extra 1.5% fee on most foreign rides. Fortunately, you can easily opt-out of this, as flagged by View from the Wing.
Uber makes preferred currency pricing the default
As of February 27, 2025, Uber will start automatically showing prices in your home currency when you travel to select countries. The company calls this “preferred currency pricing” (formerly “home currency pricing”), and as it’s described, it will “help make international travel smoother and more convenient,” as it’ll be “easier to know how much you’re paying while abroad.”
Shortly this concept is becoming the default, so unless you opt-out of it, you’ll automatically see pricing in your home currency. “Wow, how nice of Uber, I won’t have to manually convert currency in my head anymore.” Who wouldn’t want such a convenience?
Well, there’s a catch. Uber is adding a 1.5% “conversion fee” for the convenience of using this. Yes, international rides will be 1.5% more expensive, unless you opt-out of this.
Essentially Uber is using dynamic currency conversion, and that’s something you should just about always avoid when traveling abroad. It applies at ATMs, whenever you pay anything by credit card, etc. To be clear, this isn’t a new practice for Uber, but rather the change is that currently you need to opt-in to use this, while soon you’ll need to opt-out to avoid this.
So, is there any potential upside to this new preferred currency pricing?
- Some people might think “well great, now I can use Uber Cash that’s in USD for foreign rides,” but unfortunately that’s not the case — per the terms, this is “unavailable with Uber Cash”
- If you don’t have a card without foreign transaction fees, you might think that this allows you to save the 3%(ish) fees charged by the card — policies differ on this, though, because with many issuers, it’s not just about the currency you’re charged in, but also about the country in which the purchase is processed
How to avoid Uber’s preferred currency pricing
The good news is that it’s easy to opt-out of Uber’s new preferred currency pricing, so that you don’t pay an extra 1.5% fee on your rides. You just have to know to do so. Just log into your Uber account, and go to the “Wallet” section, and then click “Set preferred currency.”
Once there, you’ll see the option to select from various currencies, or you can select the “No preferred currency” option. By default, you should see your home country currency selected, with a note that a “1.5% conversion fee will be added to your trip fare.”
However, when you select “No preferred currency,” you’ll see that fee no longer applies.
Bottom line
Uber is trying to skim an extra 1.5% revenue off of international rides, by defaulting customers to preferred currency pricing. Essentially, you’ll pay a 1.5% fee for the privilege of having the ride cost listed in your home currency.
If you have a card with no foreign transaction fees (and in many cases, even if you don’t), you shouldn’t use this. Instead, update your account, to select “No preferred currency.”
What do you make of Uber defaulting to “preferred currency pricing?”
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