The cheapest-looking option in Peru, with the answers missing where it counts

Updated October 2026

Licensed

Available in US

Fast payouts

18+ Only

The Tulkit card is a prepaid Mastercard that you load and spend from a balance rather than from a bank account, with a strong crypto angle: the account can be topped up with crypto, and up to 2% of each purchase is said to come back in Bitcoin. On paper the cost side looks unusually good, because there is no monthly fee and no annual fee, opening the account is free, and asking for both the virtual and the physical card is free. So far so good. But two things shape how I read everything else here. First, Peru is the only country the card’s own pages name, and the plastic is delivered inside Peru. Second, a long list of the numbers a reviewer normally wants simply are not published: the crypto conversion fee, the foreign exchange fee, the ATM terms, the minimum top-up, the network fees, the delivery time, the replacement cost. The card looks like a solid everyday spender for a resident of Peru who is comfortable topping up with Yape, Plin, a bank transfer or crypto. It does not look like a card I would recommend to someone outside Peru, or to someone who needs to know the exact cost of a foreign purchase before they make it.

The conditions described here are current as of October 28, 2026.

Verdict: 5.5 out of 10, and the middle of that number is generous in one direction and harsh in the other

The score is 5.5 out of 10. Let me show you where it comes from, because the shape of the number matters more than the number itself.

The 1 out of 10 on eligibility is the one that decides a lot for you. It is not a judgement about the card’s quality; it is arithmetic about reach. Every other line here is at least partly fixable by asking support a question. Being outside Peru is not.

The 8 out of 10 on cost is the highest mark on the card, and it is deserved for the monthly side. But notice what an 8 usually needs: a number. Here the exchange rate is described as “one of the best on the market” without a single digit, and the crypto conversion fee and the FX fee are not stated. So you get the absence of the fees that are easy to publish, and not the presence of the ones that are hard. A card that is free until you convert, and then charges you an undisclosed percentage, is free in the way a taxi meter is free.

The 5 out of 10 on top-ups is a fair score for a page that lists four useful methods and then stops. Yape and Plin are genuinely how a lot of money moves in Peru, and having all four at once is more than most cards in this category offer. The missing part is the part that bites: which coins, on which networks, what the minimum is, what the deposit fee is. Send USDT on the wrong chain and that is not a small mistake. Transfers on blockchains are irreversible, so a deposit to an unsupported network or a wrong address can be lost, or need manual recovery with no guarantee. There is a general lesson here about this whole category, not just this card, and I come back to it further down.

The two 7s are solid middling scores. On reliability, what I can actually verify is a real structure: Tulkit Pay S.A.C. handles the fiat and crypto conversion, and the e-money is issued by GMoney S.A., described as authorised and regulated by the SBS, the Peruvian supervisor. No licence number is published and I found no complaints on either side, official or third-party. Absence of complaints is weak evidence: a young product that nobody has written about looks identical to a good product. On everyday use, the Mastercard network and a free physical card in 12 designs is a real convenience, and the virtual card arrives immediately. Against that, whether you can add it to Apple Pay or Google Pay, and whether it works at ATM machines, are not stated at all, and those are not exotic features. They are the difference between a card you leave in your wallet and a card you have to fish out.

Who suits this card: residents of Peru who already move money with Yape or Plin, who want a second card for spending that they control the top-up of, and who are comfortable holding crypto in a custodial setup with cash rewards on the side. Who it does not suit: anyone outside Peru, anyone who plans to spend mainly in dollars or abroad, anyone for whom an undisclosed conversion fee is a dealbreaker, and anyone who needs 3-D Secure, ATM access or a written chargeback process stated up front.

Who will they give you the card to

Peru is the only country the card’s public pages name, and the physical card ships anywhere in Peru. The pages also refer to foreigners holding a valid Peruvian immigration card, which in practice means the card follows your Peruvian address and your Peruvian status rather than your nationality. That distinction matters if you hold two passports or if your family situation is mixed: what is being checked is presence and legal status in Peru, not citizenship.

Let me be blunt about what this section cannot tell you, because “who can get it” is exactly the question people ask and it is exactly where the public pages are thin. The identity verification the company describes “takes a few photos”. Beyond that: the list of accepted documents is not stated, proof of address is not mentioned, a minimum age is not stated, and the verification tiers are not stated. For a regulated e-money product in Peru, the real answer to “what documents do I need” almost certainly lives in the onboarding screens and in the compliance team’s discretion, not on the marketing pages.

What this means for you in practice: if you live in Peru with a valid immigration card and a traceable address, the door is open and the process is short. If you are a Peruvian abroad, or a foreigner working in Peru on a residence permit, the pages give you the one route they mention and no detail about the rest. You should check your eligibility before you plan around the card, not after.

How to get it

Registration is described as taking minutes, under two minutes, with no paperwork and no credit check. That last point is worth pausing on, because it is unusual and it is a genuine advantage for the person this card is for. No credit check means no hard inquiry against your credit file, which matters if the reason you are looking at a prepaid card is that a conventional bank application is not an option. Prepaid and debit cards in this category are generally available to adults aged 18 and over, and some issuers set higher limits, though the card’s own pages do not state an age floor.

The card itself is a Mastercard, available as a virtual card and as a physical card available in 12 designs. The virtual card is issued instantly. The physical card is shipped free of charge within Peru. Both of those are ordinary, good things; the part you should note is that the pages do not state the delivery time, and they do not state what a replacement card costs if you lose it or have it stolen. Those are real questions for a card you may well use every day.

One technical detail with a practical edge: prepaid cards settle only in soles. That is not the same as “you can only spend soles” — the pages say you can pay in soles, dollars or crypto, and the settlement rule is about how the transaction reaches the network. But it does mean the card is built for Peru, where the sol is the currency of the street.

So the honest picture of signup is: short, photo-based, no credit check, free, virtual card in minutes. What it is not is something I can hand you as a checklist, because the document list is not published. Plan on having your identity document and your Peruvian address to hand, and be prepared for the possibility that the compliance team asks for more than the pages promise.

Fees: what a Tulkit payment really costs

There is no monthly fee and no annual charge. The company’s own phrase is “Sin costo mensual, ni anualidad”. Opening an account is free, and requesting the physical card and the virtual card is free. The detailed schedule sits in a separate document the company calls the “Tarifario Tulkit Card” PDF. Sending and receiving soles through Yape, Plin and banks is free.

Here is the table of what is and is not published. I have left gaps as gaps, because filling them with an estimate would be the most misleading thing I could do in this review.

Now let me walk you through three ordinary days, because that is how you learn what a fee schedule really means.

Coffee and lunch in Lima. You scan a QR code or tap the card. If you are paying in soles from a soles balance, you are paying nothing beyond what the shop charges, and the daily QR ceiling of S/5,150 is far above a normal day’s spending. This is the card at its best and its cheapest: no monthly fee eating into a small balance, no per-payment charge for the payment itself.

A purchase in dollars from a Peruvian site. Here the undisclosed FX fee lands, if there is one. The pages say you can pay in dollars, but they publish no percentage and no exchange rate, so you are asked to trust the phrase “one of the best on the market”. If you travel or buy anything priced in another currency with this card, that phrase is your only information, and it is not information. The multicurrency FAQ answer on the site is missing as well.

A crypto-funded purchase. Here the other undisclosed fee lands. The card converts crypto into a spendable balance, and the conversion fee is not stated. Add on that a network fee charged by the blockchain rather than by the card company, which you pay on top-up and not on purchase, and a moment where a stablecoin is not quite a dollar. Stablecoins aim to hold a stable value against a fiat currency, and the caution is standard: despite the name, stablecoins are not necessarily stable. TerraUSD collapsed in May 2022, and USDC temporarily lost its peg in March 2023 during the US banking crisis. If your balance is crypto-funded, the “fee” you are paying is partly this risk wearing a fee’s clothes.

The honest summary of the fee position: Tulkit publishes its cheap fees clearly and its expensive ones not at all. For a soles-only spender that is a good card. For anyone converting or spending foreign currency, it is a card you should price at the counter before the first transaction, not after.

How to Top up the card

Top up 24/7, by four methods: Yape, Plin, bank transfer, or crypto. That is a genuinely good spread. Yape and Plin are how a lot of Peruvians move small and medium amounts daily and instantly, and having them as first-class top-up methods puts Tulkit closer to how people already handle money than most cards in this category do. It also means you do not have to hold a bank balance you are happy to leave sitting there.

Yape, Plin and bank transfers are free of charge when topping up in soles. Crypto top-up is the method where the details matter and are missing: the specific coins and networks are not listed, with starting data around BTC, ETH and USDT among them, and there is no published deposit fee, minimum amount, or network fee. My advice, and it is the same advice I would give for any card in this category: before your first crypto top-up, ask support exactly which networks are supported for the coin you hold, and treat any answer that is vague as a no. Transfers on blockchains are irreversible. If a deposit goes out on a network the provider does not support, or to an address belonging to a different network, it can be lost or need manual recovery with no guarantee. The cost of asking is one email. The cost of guessing is the balance.

On the crypto side there is one piece of good news: crypto stays available for withdrawal at any time, and transfers are described as instant, with no fees stated for that. What is not stated is what happens to the balance when you close the account. That is the question to put to [email protected] in writing before you ever need it, because “how do I get my money out at the end” is the question people forget until it is urgent.

Two further details belong with the funding picture. First, on-chain network fees for your deposit are charged by the blockchain, not by the card provider, so they are outside Tulkit’s control and outside its published prices. Second, the card is custodial, meaning the provider holds the credentials and most of the assets are said to be held offline. That is not a criticism, it is the design of this kind of card, but it means your balance sits with a company rather than in a wallet you control, and I will say more about what that means in the risks section.

Paying with it every day

The daily reality of this card is pleasant and simple. A Mastercard, virtual immediately, physical free, twelve designs to choose from if you care about such things. You top up, you spend, and the balance behaves like a prepaid balance rather than a bank account: in the pre-loaded model you convert or load a fiat balance first and the card spends only that balance, so it cannot overdraw. For someone who has been turned away by a conventional bank, that structural guarantee is the feature. There is no credit line to be refused later.

Rewards: up to 2% back in Bitcoin on each purchase. “Up to” is doing real work in that sentence, because the further conditions are not stated. I would treat it as a pleasant possibility rather than a number to plan around. Compare it with the alternatives below: UNi Card says up to 3% with spend-to-earn, Whop Cards says 5% cashback at select merchants. On the raw percentages Tulkit is not the leader, and with the conditions unpublished it is hard to compare honestly at all. What you can say is that receiving Bitcoin as a reward means receiving a crypto asset whose price moves, which is a different kind of payment than a fixed percentage back in soles.

The app is Tulkit Pay on iOS and Android. I did not check the store ratings, so I will not pretend to have an opinion on how people rate it. What the pages do describe, and what matters most for daily handling, is practical control: you can lock and unlock the card in the app, freeze it, and set card limits. For a card that is not attached to a bank account, having the ability to stop spending instantly from your phone is worth more than it would be on a conventional card.

What is missing from the everyday picture is the part that decides whether a card works or fights you. Wallets are not addressed: whether the virtual card can be added to Apple Pay or Google Pay is not stated. ATM terms are not stated. Disputes are not stated, meaning if a charge goes wrong there is no published process to point to. Merchant acceptance is a category-wide issue: some merchants decline prepaid or foreign-issued cards because the card lookup reveals the card type and the country of issue. Expect the occasional refusal, especially online, and do not read it as a personal failing.

One more everyday reality worth knowing: a declined authorisation can leave a hold on your funds for several days, typically up to seven. On a card with a small balance, a hold is a real event.

What can go wrong

No official incident surfaced when I looked, and no third-party complaints surfaced either. I read that as neutral-to-mildly-positive, not as a clean bill of health. For context on why: custodial platforms have a genuine history of failure, with Mt. Gox (about US$350 million reported stolen, 2011-2014), Coincheck (about US$400 million, 2018) and Ronin Network (US$625 million, 2022). Holding funds with a custodian carries counterparty and hack risk. A young card with no recorded incidents may simply be young.

The company structure is the thing to understand. Tulkit Pay S.A.C. handles the fiat and crypto conversion. The e-money is issued by GMoney S.A., described as authorised and regulated by the SBS in Peru. That separation is normal and it is the correct shape for this kind of product, because in most jurisdictions the entity that actually issues the card is the licensed one, while the crypto brand is often only a programme manager and front-end. No licence number is published, which is a small thing a reader would like and an absence nobody should over-read. Safeguarding of customer funds is not stated, and that is the more important silence: regulated e-money institutions are generally required to safeguard funds in dedicated accounts or insure them, and such funds are not the same as bank deposits and may not sit under a deposit guarantee scheme.

Security claims: “bank-level security”, encryption, and 90% of assets held offline. Offline custody is a genuine and meaningful control. What is not stated is how safeguarding is arranged, and there is a report-account-theft form. I would want to see the seed-phrase side of the picture understood clearly: with a custodial wallet the provider holds the credentials, so you must trust the provider completely; and a seed phrase, typically 12 to 24 words, is an unencrypted form of the private key that anyone who obtains it can use to restore the wallet and spend its funds. You do not hold that phrase here, which is a simpler security model, and it also means you have no self-custody fallback.

Support is thin in a way worth knowing about before you need it. There is [email protected] and, for GMoney, [email protected]. There is a complaints book, “Consultas y Reclamos”, which is the formal Peruvian route and the one to use in writing. There is no phone number, the WhatsApp link is a placeholder, and opening hours are not stated. If your money is stuck, email is the channel you actually have, so keep your correspondence there.

On disputes and reversals, nothing is stated. In general a chargeback is a refund ordered by the card issuer to settle a dispute, with reason codes such as fraud, duplicate billing or goods not received, and the protections people know from US consumer law come from specific rules that vary by product and country, with prepaid-card coverage varying and not something to assume. Tulkit publishes no chargeback process, so treat a disputed purchase as something you would have to pursue through the complaints book rather than something handled for you.

Two category-level risks to keep in mind even though they are not Tulkit-specific. Programmes can end: Visa terminated its global agreements with FTX on 13 November 2022 and the FTX US debit card was wound down, and WaveCrest, a card issuer that supplied crypto card brands, was suspended by Visa in Europe in 2018, closing all its programmes. Visa and Mastercard do not issue these cards themselves; they license issuers and can suspend a programme. And card programmes typically close in stages: a notice period, then loading and spending stop, then users are asked to withdraw remaining balances. That last step is the one to anticipate, and it is why the unstated closure balance belongs in this section and not only in the funding section.

I found no dated events, no announcements, and no Trustpilot page for the Tulkit Pay website.

What to take instead

If Peru is where you are and soles are what you spend, the alternatives below are worth a look mainly because they publish more of their fees. If you are outside Peru, the honest comparison is different: these three all score higher than Tulkit and none of them solves the Peru problem, because it is not the same problem.

Three observations from that table. The International Visa Card is the most transparent on the thing that matters most, publishing a literal 2% FX fee and three priced plans, and it is also the one with the sharpest country list and no physical card yet. The UNi Card is the most aggressive on claims, promising no annual fee, no foreign transaction fee and live OTC rates, though its top-up methods and eligibility are not stated. Whop Cards publishes neither fees nor top-up details, and its 31-state consumer list is the narrowest geographic reach of the four. Tulkit’s distinguishing feature is not transparency but reach: Yape and Plin are Peru-only top-up rails that none of the others have, and for a Peruvian user that matters more than a published percentage.

Worth knowing, since it explains the shape of this category generally: Visa and Mastercard do not issue crypto cards to consumers; they license issuers and can suspend a programme. A card itself is a payment service regulated separately, while markets-in-crypto regulation such as MiCA covers the crypto side of custody, exchange and transfer, so a card like this often rests on two licences. And MiCA is a reminder that jurisdictions differ: its rules on e-money tokens applied from 30 June 2024 and the remaining provisions from 30 December 2024, with a transitional period running until 1 July 2026 or until a provider gets or is refused authorisation, whichever comes first.

Who I would recommend it to

I would recommend this card to a resident of Peru who tops up with Yape or Plin, wants a prepaid Mastercard with no monthly or annual charge, and is comfortable with crypto rewards and custodial balances. That person gets the cleanest part of the offer: free account, free cards, free soles transfers, immediate virtual card, twelve physical designs delivered free at home.

I would not recommend it to you if any of these are true of your situation:

• You are not in Peru. One country is named and delivery is inside Peru. This is the whole reason for the 1 out of 10 on eligibility.
• You spend in dollars or travel much. The FX fee is not published and the rate has no figure.
• You convert crypto regularly. The conversion fee is not published, and network fees on top-ups are outside the card’s control.
• You need ATM, wallet, or dispute terms. None of the three are stated.
• You need a written, reproducible answer about your money at the end. What happens to your balance on closure is not stated, and the support record is email-only.

My own two questions, if I were about to sign up: what is the crypto conversion fee and the FX fee, in writing, and what happens to my balance if I close the account. Both should get answers in an email from [email protected] that you keep. Neither is unreasonable, and the fact that the marketing pages do not answer them is itself information about how much you will be relying on support later.

Frequently asked questions

What is the Tulkit card?

The Tulkit card is a prepaid Mastercard linked to a Tulkit Pay account rather than to a bank account. You load a balance and spend from it. You can top up with Yape, Plin, a bank transfer or crypto, hold crypto on the account for withdrawal at any time, and earn up to 2% back in Bitcoin on purchases. Because the balance is pre-loaded, the card cannot overdraw, and there is no credit check at signup.

Is Tulkit a bank?

No. It is a card programme from a fintech, not a deposit-taking bank. Tulkit Pay S.A.C. handles the fiat and crypto conversion, while the electronic money is issued by GMoney S.A., described as authorised and regulated by the SBS in Peru. The e-money is safeguarded differently from a bank deposit and may not be covered by a deposit guarantee scheme. If what you need is a bank, this is not one.

Who can get the Tulkit card?

Peru is the only country the card’s public pages name, and the physical card ships anywhere inside Peru. The pages also refer to foreigners holding a valid Peruvian immigration card. The accepted document list, whether proof of address is required, and the minimum age are not stated, so confirm your own documents before you plan around the card.

How do I get the Tulkit card?

Registration is described as taking under two minutes, with identity verification involving “a few photos”, no paperwork and no credit check. A virtual Mastercard is issued instantly, and the physical card is free and comes in 12 designs, shipped free within Peru. Delivery time and the cost of a replacement card are not published, so ask if either matters to you.

How much does the Tulkit card cost?

There is no monthly fee and no annual charge, opening the account is free, and requesting the physical or virtual card is free. Sending and receiving soles via Yape, Plin and banks is free. The exchange rate is described as “one of the best on the market” without a figure, and the crypto conversion fee and FX fee are not stated at all.

How do I top up the Tulkit card?

You can top up 24/7 with Yape, Plin, a bank transfer or crypto. Soles routes are free. For crypto, the specific coins and networks are not listed, and the deposit fee, minimum amount and network fees are not stated, so confirm the supported network for your coin in writing before your first transfer, because blockchain transfers are irreversible.

Can I use the Tulkit card in my country?

Only Peru is named as a country the card is available in, and the plastic ships inside Peru. Elsewhere a Tulkit card may or may not be accepted at a terminal, and no merchant-acceptance list is published. Merchant lookups can reveal that a card is prepaid or foreign-issued, which is one reason some shops refuse. Test it in low-value transactions before relying on it abroad.

Is the Tulkit card safe?

It uses a Mastercard network, claims bank-level security and encryption, and says 90% of assets are held offline, with card lock, freeze and limit controls in the app. But the balance is custodial: the provider holds the credentials and you cannot withdraw to your own wallet. A closed provider or a hack leaves you dependent on its complaint process, reached by email at [email protected] or [email protected].

How do I withdraw money from Tulkit?

Crypto stays available for withdrawal at any time, and transfers are described as instant, with no fees stated. For soles, the free routes named are Yape, Plin and bank transfer. What is not published is what happens to a remaining balance when you close the account, so ask support that question in writing early rather than at the end.

Is the Tulkit card worth it?

Worth it if you live in Peru, top up with Yape or Plin, and want a prepaid Mastercard with no monthly or annual fee and no credit check. Worth thinking twice about if you need foreign currency spending, regular crypto conversion, ATM access, mobile wallets or a published chargeback process, because the fees and terms you would rely on for those are not stated.

Content created by the «cryptocardcheck» team