Can I use my card reader in another country?

Short answer: yes. Your reader works anywhere you take it — but it charges in your home currency, not the local one.

Say your Stripe account is in New Zealand and you're at a trade show in Australia. Your reader still charges in NZD. Australian cards tap and go through exactly as they should; the customer's bank converts at its own rate. Nothing's broken, and there's nothing you need to change.

This is a Stripe Terminal rule, not an app setting. Stripe's docs put it plainly: when processing an in-person transaction, Terminal requires local currency — and "local" means your Stripe account's country, not wherever you're standing. It applies to every reader (WisePad 3, WisePOS E, Stripe Reader S700/S710, M2) and to Tap to Pay, in every app built on Stripe Terminal, including Stripe's own.

If you switch the currency with a reader connected, you'll see something like:

The card_present source type with currency aud is not supported in NZ.

What if I need to bill in the local currency?

Enter the card manually. Card-not-present charges have no currency restriction — they'll go through in any currency your Stripe account supports.

1. Disconnect your card reader.
2. Open the menu, go to Settings, and choose Currency.
3. Pick the currency you want to charge in.
4. Enter the amount, then key in the card number.

Two things to know before you do. Stripe prices card-not-present payments differently from in-person ones, so check your rates in the Stripe Dashboard — our fee doesn't change either way, it's still one simple fee: 1.2%. And the customer won't tap or insert anything; you're typing their card details in, so you need the physical card in front of you.

Is there a way to keep using the reader abroad?

There is, and it's a bigger project than it sounds. You'd need a registered business and a bank account in that country, a second Stripe account, and a Terminal Location set up there — then you'd re-pair the reader to whichever account you're trading under each time you cross the border. That's worth doing if you genuinely operate in two countries. It's overkill for one trip.

Stripe's own write-ups, if you want the source: Terminal country and currency availability and Terminal use by connected accounts in different countries.