Cash Advance Fees Decoded: Per-$100 Fees, Card Fees, ATM Fees, and How They Become APR

By Greg HalloranJuly 29, 2026What it costs

A cash advance fee is the flat charge you pay to borrow cash for a short time. The problem is that nobody quotes it in the same units. A storefront says "$15 per $100." A credit card says "5% or $10, whichever is greater, plus 29.99% APR." An ATM adds "$4.86." An app says "$3.99 express fee" and preselects a tip. On a $300 advance held for 14 days, those four range from $3.99 to $90, and the only way to see which is cheaper is to convert each one into dollars and an APR. This guide does that, with the formula shown so you can redo it on your own offers.

Four fee types, one scale

Every cash advance fee falls into one of four shapes. The shape tells you who set the price and where to find it.

• Payday-style flat fee. Dollars per $100 borrowed, due with the principal on your next payday. Your state statute sets the ceiling.
• Credit card cash advance fee. A percentage of the advance with a dollar floor, plus a separate cash advance interest rate that starts the day you take the money. The issuer sets both and must print them in the card's pricing table.
• ATM surcharge. A per-withdrawal charge from the ATM operator plus, often, one from your own bank. Set by whoever owns the machine.
• App fees. A monthly subscription, an optional express fee for same-day delivery, and a tip that is technically voluntary. Set by the app and, since December 2025, not disclosed as an APR at all.

The dollar amounts look small next to each other. They stop looking small once they're on the same 14-day, $300 footing, which is what the conversion table further down does.

Payday fees: dollars per $100, set by your state

State maximums, in the CFPB's description, run "$10 to $30 for every $100 borrowed," and $15 per $100 on a two-week loan is "almost 400 percent" APR. The FTC's own example uses a $500 loan with a $75 fee for two weeks, which is the same $15 per $100 and comes to 391%. Federal law requires the lender to show you both the finance charge in dollars and that APR before you sign.

What the fee actually is depends on where you live. A few verified caps:

• California: 15% of the check's face amount, so $45 on a $300 check, and the borrower receives $255 (Cal. Fin. Code 23036). A returned-check fee is capped at $15.
• Florida: 10% of the amount provided plus a verification fee; the installment version charges 8% of the outstanding balance every two weeks (Fla. Stat. 560.404).
• Washington: 15% on the first $500 and 10% on anything above it (RCW 31.45.073).
• Minnesota: a 36% APR cap, with a tier up to 50% allowed under underwriting conditions (Minn. Stat. 47.60).
• Texas: no state cap on the fees a credit access business charges, so the per-$100 figure is whatever the contract says.

Around 20 states plus the District of Columbia cap the total cost near 36% APR, which on $300 for 14 days is $300 x 0.36 x 14 / 365 = $4.14. Your state page on this site has the exact rule and the statute behind it. All this guide can tell you is that the state, not the lender's website, decides the number.

Credit card cash advance fees: a percent, a floor, and a rate from day one

The CFPB's December 2024 spotlight found the most common credit card cash advance fee is "the greater of $10 or 5%," and the most common cash advance rate is 30%. Cardholders paid $717 million in cash advance fees on $3.6 billion of advances in 2022. Issuer education pages describe the same structure in softer words: one says 3% to 5% or a flat minimum, whichever is greater; another calls 5% typical.

Three details make this fee costlier than the percentage suggests.

First, the floor. On a $100 advance, 5% would be $5, but the $10 minimum applies, so the fee is 10% of the money. Second, no grace period. The CFPB's 2025 card market report says cash advances "typically begin accruing interest immediately, even for transacting accounts that are otherwise under a grace period." Third, minimum interest charges of $0.50 to over $2 that the CFPB says compound the cost of small advances.

The CFPB's own worked example: $400 at 30% for one month is $10 of interest ($400 x 0.30 / 12) plus a $20 fee, $30 total. Converted, that's $30 / $400 = 0.075, times 365 / 30, or 91% for the month. Compare it to the Federal Reserve's G.19 average of 22.15% on card accounts assessed interest (May 2026): the 30% cash advance rate is already well above the typical purchase rate before the fee lands.

Regulation Z makes issuers disclose both pieces. The cash advance APR and "any fee imposed for an extension of credit in the form of cash or its equivalent" must appear in the application and solicitation table (12 CFR 1026.60). It's in your cardholder agreement, usually in the first box.

ATM fees stack on top

Taking the advance at a machine adds a third charge that neither the card issuer nor the state law controls. Bankrate's September 2025 survey of 245 institutions in 25 markets put the average total out-of-network ATM fee at a record $4.86: a $3.22 operator surcharge plus a $1.64 fee from your own bank. Atlanta ($5.37) was the most expensive metro and Boston ($4.37) the least. Both issuer pages cited above confirm the surcharge is charged in addition to the cash advance fee. On a $300 advance, $4.86 is another 1.6% of the money before you've paid a cent of the issuer's fee or interest.

App fees: subscription, express, tip

Cash advance apps rarely charge a fee they call a fee. The CFPB's July 2024 spotlight on employer-partnered paycheck advances found the average charge, when one was charged, was $3.18; 82% of transactions carried one; the average advance was $106; and a typical worker paid $68.88 a year across 27 transactions. The CFPB's illustrative APR on the average transaction is 109.5%.

Across the broader app market, NerdWallet's May 2026 survey lists subscriptions from $0 to $15.99 a month and express fees from $0.49 to $37.49, often 1.5% to 3% of the advance, with tips optional. Two FTC actions describe how those pieces behave in practice. In a November 2024 case against one app, the FTC alleged an express fee of $3 to $25 that wasn't disclosed until after the user linked a bank account, a tip preset at 15%, a $1 monthly membership, and $149 million collected in tips between 2022 and mid-2024. In a March 2025 case against another, a $3.99 express fee bought "today" delivery that often arrived the next day.

You won't see an APR on any of this. The CFPB's advisory opinion effective December 23, 2025 (90 FR 60069) says voluntary tips and expedite fees on covered earned wage access products are generally not finance charges, so no Truth in Lending disclosure applies. That's a legal conclusion about what the fee is called. It doesn't change what the fee costs, which is what the next section measures.

How a fee becomes an APR

The Truth in Lending method for a single-payment loan is four steps, and it works on any fee no matter what it's called: fee divided by the amount you received, times 365, divided by the number of days until repayment, times 100. For $15 on $100 over 14 days: 15 / 100 = 0.15; 0.15 x 365 = 54.75; 54.75 / 14 = 3.91; 391%.

Run everything above through it on the same $300 advance repaid in 14 days and you get one column of numbers you can actually compare.

The card row: 5% of $300 is $15. Interest for 14 days at 30% is $300 x 0.30 x 14 / 365 = $3.45. Total $18.45. $18.45 / $300 = 0.0615; 0.0615 x 365 = 22.45; 22.45 / 14 = 1.60, or 160%. Add the $4.86 ATM fee and the total is $23.31: 23.31 / 300 x 365 / 14 = 2.03, or 203%. Hold the card advance 30 days instead and the interest grows to $7.40, but the fixed $15 spreads over more days, so the all-in rate falls to 91%.

Now the app rows: $3.99 / $300 = 0.0133; 0.0133 x 365 = 4.85; 4.85 / 14 = 0.35, or 35%. Add a 15% tip on $300 ($45) and the fees total $48.99: 48.99 / 300 = 0.1633; 0.1633 x 365 = 59.60; 59.60 / 14 = 4.26, or 426%. A preset tip turns the cheapest row in the table into one of the most expensive. That's the arithmetic behind a complaint the FTC quoted in its records: "The interface is set up to trick you into giving the tip."

California at 31 days: $45 / $255 = 0.1765; 0.1765 x 365 = 64.41; 64.41 / 31 = 2.08, or 208%. Same fee, longer term, lower rate, and the $45 doesn't move.

How to compare two offers in 60 seconds

1. Write down the cash you'll actually receive. For a California check loan that's $255, not $300; for a card advance it's the full amount, with the fee added to your balance.
2. Add up every charge for the period: the flat fee, interest for the days you'll carry it, the ATM surcharge, the express fee, and the tip if you'd pay it.
3. Divide charges by cash received, multiply by 365, divide by days.
4. Pick the lower dollar total first, then use the APR to check whether the price per day is reasonable for a longer hold.

The cash advance calculator on this site does the division for you, and the cash advance APR guide covers why the disclosed card rate excludes the fee and how to build an all-in figure for longer payoffs.

This site is a loan-request service, not a lender. Any fee on a loan you request through it is set by the lender and appears in the loan agreement before you sign, which is where the numbers in this guide should be checked. Whichever row you land on, the fee column is what comes out of the next paycheck.

Sources

• CFPB, Regulation Z (12 CFR 1026), Truth in Lending
• CFPB, Payday loans
• Federal Reserve, G.19 Consumer Credit release

State caps, maximum terms and the regulator for your state are cited on the state pages.

Frequently Asked Questions

Not a lender. Cost figures use the federal APR formula and the state rule named next to them; the state pages cite each statute. Full disclosures.