ATMs in central Amsterdam

Without troubling you with the reason why; the three largest Dutch banks who together operate around 99% of the bankowned ATM’s have joined forces. They started a joint venture called Geldmaat which now operates all of their ATM’s. Due to legal reasons these ATM’s can’t be housed inside or outside a bank (again please forgive me for not going into too much details).

The important thing to know is that the ATM’s operated by Dutch banks are bright yellow ATM’s with the name Geldmaat on it.
If you want to withdraw money from these ATM’s from a non-Euro bank account, you either pay a fixed fee of €4 OR you agree to Dynamic Currency Conversion.
The location of all the Geldmaat ATM’s can be found on the website of Geldmaat; https://www.geldmaat.nl/information-english

No luck needed. Both MasterCard and Visa have ATM locaters on their websites.

Geldmaats in all Albert Heijn grocery stores.

I will be traveling to Amsterdam next week. I read where Pott Change paid the best exchange rate. Looks like they have one location near Dam Square.

Can anyone verify this?

you either pay a fixed fee of €4 OR you agree to Dynamic Currency Conversion

the Schwab card reimburses that 4 euro.

Depending on how much money you are withdrawing (and a hotel bill would probably require a large withdrawal), paying the fee might be cheaper than accepting DCC; it depends also, of course, on what exchange rate the DCC calculation is based on.

CapitalOne also promises to reimburse ATM fees (not DCC losses); I haven't had to depend on that benefit, so I can't say how it would handle the situation you're encountering.

Is the hotel's cash-payment discount enough to make up for whatever you're going to lose at the ATM?

Thank you everyone, for the helpful info. Much appreciated.

I did end up getting cash from Geldmaat, which the ING branch sent me to, but if there was an option between €4 fee and dynamic currency, it wasn't obvious, since I ended up paying the additional 5% fee on the exchange rate. The current Euro to USD (on Google) is $1.11 and I paid $1.17, which I did not want to do. I only withdrew what I needed to pay the hotel. I will look more closely next time for that differentiator, if I get more cash here. So few places take cash that little is needed so I may not need to go back to the ATM in Amsterdam.

Yes, Schwab reimburses the ATM fee. The hotel offered a 20% discount by paying cash, so it was still worth it to withdraw the money but not the savings I had hoped for.

Wow. A 20% discount is huge. Inquiring minds want to know why the hotel would do that.

“ Inquiring minds want to know why the hotel would do that.”
The only reason I can think of why they would give a huge discount of 20% for paying cash is because they want to evade tax by keeping this transaction out of the books.

I will be traveling to Amsterdam next week. I read where Pott Change paid the best exchange rate. Looks like they have one location near Dam Square.

If you are just looking to withdraw cash from an ATM, you needn't worry about exchange rate, ATMs do not have an exchange rate, unless they are offering DCC. As others mentioned, the Geldmaat machines do charge a 4 euro fee, but that is about as good as you will get. If the machine offers you a rate, ie: tells you what the transaction will cost in total, then that is DCC, Decline. If they offer to do the transaction in Dollars, decline, that is DCC. Accept the 4 euro fee, do the transaction in euros, and get your cash. Of course your bank may also add charges.

I would suggest just using a contactless capable credit card, tap for even small amounts.

Regarding Schwab reimbursing the Geldmaat fees, is it automatic or have people had to submit the ATM receipts?

A 20 percent discount for cash is huge. It smells wrong. Has to be a tax dodge. Were they good and honest otherwise?

Fidelity Brokerage account holders also get the transaction fee waived. I see it on my statement, first as a debit from the overseas bank, & then as an immediate reimbursement.
@Paul, Thanks for the details about exactly how to withdraw funds with the least amount of hassle! When buying Euros with a dollar-denominated card, it's been quite a good FX rate, much better than I would get using cash to buy Euros.

For those who asked, I did NOT ask the apartment hotel if they were avoiding paying tax, so I don't know the answer. They were great and the location suited us well.

Using Schwab, I do get reimbursed the €4-5 ATM charge (at month end), but there was still a 5% added charge on the Gildmaat machines. These ATMs were throughout The Netherlands. I didn't withdraw any more cash until I got to Austria, which only charged the €4-5 fee and not an added 5%. So maybe something we missed in our two attempts to withdraw after learning from those on this thread. Thanks everyone and happy travels!

I've been able to avoid ATMs charging fees except once in Ukraine, but I've seen quite a lot of "We're going to hit you with a fee" warnings before I walked away. A few of those fees (not in the Netherlands because I haven't been there in ages) looked like a combination of a flat fee plus a percentage of the amount withdrawn, but I don't think the fee was expressed as two separate amounts. I remember some amount in euros, which the machine also equated to an oddball percentage like 5.85% (I'm making that figure up).

“ For those who asked, I did NOT ask the apartment hotel if they were avoiding paying tax, so I don't know the answer.”

I do know a little (well, actually very much) about how these things work in the Netherlands and I can assure you that the only reason an apartment would offer a 20% discount for cash payment, is because they want to keep the revenue of your stay out of the books.