Not US, not EU — which of these actually issue to the rest of us?

Every comparison thread here is written by someone in Europe or US and then the last line is "availability may vary", which for me means the card does not exist.

So I make the thread from the other side. I am in Brazil. I need a card for online only - hosting, a few tools, some ad spend maybe 600 to 900 USD a month. Funding is USDT, I do not have a US bank, I do not have an EU address, and I am not going to rent one.

Actually I have doubt about three things and nobody answers them clearly:

1. Which of these will even issue to a Brazilian IP and a Brazilian phone number
2. Which ones let me spend in USD without converting through BRL twice
3. Which ones quietly restrict the country after you already put money in

Number 3 is the one that already cost me. Card issued fine, top up fine, first purchase declined and support say my country is restricted. The money was already inside.

Who else is outside the two big markets and what are you actually using?

point 3 is in every one of their terms. nobody reads them and then everyone is surprised

I'm in Singapore so I have the same problem from the other direction, and I've had to work this out card by card. What I can tell you about the four that come up most:

PayPaw claims 200+ countries and in my experience the claim holds - issued to an APAC number without complaint and I've not hit a country block. Card ready in about fifteen minutes through the bot.

PrivCards is global with no country list I've been able to find, which cuts both ways: nothing says you're excluded, and nothing says you're included either. Worked for me. Spends in USD only, which answers your point 2 - no double conversion because there's no local currency layer at all.

SolCard is the one to watch out for. It publishes a restricted list and it is long. US is out entirely. Check yours is not on it before you pay the ten dollar issuance, because that fee is not coming back.

Laso works but the thousand a month cap will not carry your 600 to 900 plus growth for long.

On point 3 generally: top up the smallest amount they'll accept, make one small purchase, and only then load properly. It costs you a few dollars in fees to find out and it is the cheapest insurance in this whole category.

The test-purchase-first thing is so obvious now that you say it. Doing that from now on!

Same in Indonesia two years back - the phone number was always the tell.

Same situation different continent. UA here, is also not US not EU officially even if people think is close.

For your point 1 - the IP is not the problem, use whatever you want. The phone is the problem, and the ones that ask for no phone at all are the only ones that never bite you later. Anyway if there is no phone there is nothing to check against a country list.

Seed phrase signup, no email, no number. Is boring answer but is the correct one for you.

This is a good point that i did not think about. The two that already burned me both wanted a number.

"No country list I've been able to find" is doing a lot of work in that post. Absence of a published list isn't evidence of global coverage, it's evidence they didn't publish one.

Not disagreeing with the recommendation. Just don't let anyone read that as a guarantee.

That's fair and I should have phrased it as what it is - I know it works from Singapore and from two friends in Manila. Beyond that I'm guessing like everyone else.

your point 2 has a cleaner answer than anyone's given you. hold usdc, top up a usd-settled card, spend usd. brl never enters it. the double conversion only happens because you're thinking in your local currency and the card is happy to indulge you

if the card offers you a brl balance, don't take it

The rest of us. Four billion people, one forum thread.

One angle nobody has raised: if you are in Brazil and spending 600 to 900 USD a month on business inputs, those are deductible expenses, and a card that produces no statement produces no evidence of them.

I realise this is not the board for that concern; I raise it because the cost of the missing paperwork is often larger than the fee difference everyone is arguing about.

My friend, i understand you but here is different. Nobody is declaring anything from this side, the contabilidade (accounting) for what i do would be more expensive than the tax.

But thank you for saying it, is not a stupid point, just not my problem.

Six weeks later, closing this out for the next Brazilian who searches.

I did the small-top-up test on three cards. One declined on the first purchase again, same country restriction story, and i lost eleven dollars finding out - cheap. The other two worked and i kept the one with no phone number at signup, exactly like vlad said.

Spending is now around 800 a month, all USD, no BRL anywhere in the chain. Zero declines in seven weeks.

The answer to my own question is: the country list matters less than whether they collect anything they can check a country list against. Marking solved.

Test top-up first. Writing that one on the wall!