Yes, you can use a credit card at an ATM to withdraw cash, but the transaction is a cash advance — essentially a short-term loan against your credit line that carries a flat fee, a higher interest rate than purchases, and no grace period, so interest starts building the moment the cash leaves the machine.
What You Need at the Machine
Two things have to be in place before an ATM will give you cash on a credit card: a PIN and available room on your cash advance limit.
The PIN is a four-digit code that authorizes the withdrawal. Store purchases verify you through a chip, tap, or CVV, but ATM cash advances require the PIN every time. Some issuers assign one automatically and mail it separately from the card. Others ask you to create one during activation. If you never received a PIN or forgot it, call your issuer or log in to your online account to request one. A replacement typically arrives by mail within about two weeks, so this is not a same-day fix.
Your cash advance limit is separate from your overall credit limit and is almost always lower. If your credit limit is $15,000 and your issuer caps advances at 30 percent, your cash advance limit is $4,500. You can find the exact number on your monthly billing statement or in your online account. Federal law requires your issuer to disclose the cash advance APR, fees, and grace period terms before you open the account.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1637 – Open End Consumer Credit Plans
What It Costs
An ATM cash advance is one of the most expensive ways to borrow. Expect at least two charges, sometimes four, layered on top of the amount you withdraw.
The Cash Advance Fee
Your issuer charges a flat transaction fee on every advance, typically 3 to 5 percent of the withdrawal or $10, whichever is greater. On a $500 advance with a 5 percent fee, $25 is added to your balance the moment the transaction posts. That fee itself then starts accruing interest.
Interest With No Grace Period
The APR on cash advances is almost always higher than the purchase APR, commonly in the 24 to 30 percent range.2Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Data Spotlight – Credit Card Cash Advance Fees Spike After Legalization of Sports Gambling The bigger problem is the missing grace period. Regular purchases usually give you until the end of the billing cycle to pay without owing interest. Cash advances have no such window. Interest accrues from day one, calculated daily by dividing the APR by 365 and multiplying by your outstanding balance. Each day’s interest is added to the balance, so the next day’s charge is slightly larger. Your issuer must list the cash advance APR separately from your purchase APR on every monthly statement.3Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. 12 CFR 1026.7 – Periodic Statement
ATM and Foreign Transaction Fees
The ATM owner typically adds its own surcharge, especially at machines outside your bank’s network. These operator fees commonly run $2 to $5. Your own bank may add a separate out-of-network fee on top. Federal regulations require the ATM to make a receipt available and to disclose any transaction fee.4eCFR. 12 CFR 1005.9 – Receipts at Electronic Terminals and Periodic Statements
Using a credit card at an ATM outside the United States adds a foreign transaction fee of 1 to 3 percent, charged by the payment network, the issuer, or both. That comes on top of the cash advance fee, the ATM surcharge, and the higher APR.
How Much You Can Actually Withdraw
Even when your card shows plenty of available cash advance credit, several limits stack, and the lowest one wins.
- Your cash advance limit, set by your issuer as a portion of your credit line and typically much lower than your overall spending limit.5Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Can I Withdraw Money From My Credit Card at an ATM?
- The ATM’s own daily dispensing cap, set by the machine’s owner or network, commonly $300 to $1,000 per 24 hours.
- Fraud holds. Multiple large withdrawals in a short window can trigger your issuer’s fraud detection and freeze the account. Calling ahead to flag an unusual transaction can prevent this.
If your cash advance limit is $2,000 but the ATM caps withdrawals at $500 per day, you can only get $500 that day.
Step by Step at the ATM
- Insert your credit card.
- Enter your PIN. Too many wrong tries can lock you out temporarily.
- Select “cash advance” or “credit” to route the transaction through your credit line rather than a checking account. The label varies by machine.
- Enter the amount, keeping the ATM’s dispensing limit and your available cash advance credit in mind.
- Take your cash and your receipt. Hold onto the receipt until the transaction shows up on your statement.
The withdrawal, the cash advance fee, and any accrued interest will appear as separate line items on your billing statement.
One thing a credit card cannot do at a store register: give you “cash back” the way a debit card does. That feature pulls from a bank account. With a credit card, physical cash comes only from an ATM advance or a bank teller withdrawal, and both are treated as cash advances with the same fees and interest.
How Payments Get Applied
This matters because it decides how fast the expensive balance actually shrinks. Federal law requires your issuer to apply any payment above the minimum to the highest-rate balance first.6Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1666c – Prompt and Fair Crediting of Payments Since cash advances almost always carry the higher rate, anything you pay over the minimum goes to that balance.
The minimum payment itself is another story. Issuers can direct the minimum to whichever balance they choose, and many send it to the lower-rate purchase balance. Pay only the minimum, and your cash advance balance keeps compounding untouched. If you take an advance, pay well above the minimum and do it as soon as possible.
Cheaper Ways to Get Cash
Because the fees, elevated rate, and daily compounding stack up quickly, consider these before heading to an ATM with a credit card:
- A debit card withdrawal from your own checking account. You may pay an ATM operator fee, but no interest and no advance charge.
- A personal line of credit from a bank, which typically carries a lower rate than a credit card advance. Interest still accrues from the moment you draw, but the rate difference alone can save meaningful money over even a few weeks.
- Peer-to-peer apps like Venmo or Zelle when you need to send money rather than hold physical cash. Linked to a bank account, they move funds instantly at no cost.
- Credit card convenience checks. These are treated the same as cash advances — same elevated APR, no grace period, same percentage fee — but they let you access a larger amount than an ATM’s daily cap allows.7FDIC.gov. Credit Card Checks and Cash Advances
- A small personal installment loan from a bank or credit union for larger amounts you need more than a few days to repay. The rate will almost always beat a 24 to 30 percent cash advance APR.
If a cash advance really is the only option, take out only what you need and pay it down fast. There is no interest-free window to buy yourself time, and every day the balance sits, the compounding works against you.