With a Santander debit card you can withdraw up to £300 a day from cash machines, spread over no more than 5 withdrawals a day and 50 in a calendar month. Santander doesn’t charge for withdrawals from its own machines. If that allowance is more access to cash than you want, you can ask Santander to set it to £0 or £60 instead.
This page is part of our Santander UK guide. The figures come from Santander’s cash machine, Post Office and fee pages, read on 28 September 2026.
Santander’s cash machine limits
| What’s limited | Santander’s default |
|---|---|
| Cash withdrawn in a day | £300 |
| Number of withdrawals a day | 5 |
| Number of withdrawals in a calendar month | 50 |
| Minimum withdrawal | £10 (or £5, subject to availability at the machine) |
| Lower daily limit, on request | £0 or £60 |
| Cash paid in at Santander and Post Office machines | £3,000 a day, £10,000 in a rolling 12 months |
The withdrawal counts can stop you before the pound limit does. Small withdrawals use up the day’s count even when they add up to a fraction of £300: take out £20 at a time and after 5 withdrawals you’ve had £100, but the next attempt that day will be refused. If you use cash machines for small amounts most days, the monthly count of 50 is the one to watch.
Contactless payments have a separate limit: each one can be up to £100, and Santander lets you pick a smaller contactless limit, in multiples of £5, by asking in the chat in its app or Online Banking. A lower limit also applies to any additional cardholders and to your mobile payments.
Worked example: cash for a private car sale
Say you’ve agreed to pay £1,000 in cash for a used car. From cash machines alone, three days at the full £300 gets you £900, and you’d need a fourth day for the last £100. You have two quicker routes: ask Santander for the cash in one go (see below), or pay the seller by bank transfer, where a single payment in the app can be up to £25,000. Our Santander transfer limit page covers the payment limits and the checks Santander runs before a payment to someone new.
Asking Santander for a lower limit
If you hold a Santander debit or cash card, Santander will reduce the daily cash machine limit from £300 to £0 or £60. Santander describes this as a way to “reduce access to cash where your circumstances may need it”. You arrange it in a branch or by phone; the numbers are on our Santander customer service page.
Those two settings are the only changes to the cash machine limit that Santander’s cash machine page describes. It doesn’t describe a way to raise the limit in the app, so don’t plan on lifting it at a machine on the day.
How to get more cash than the daily limit
- Contact Santander first. Its Post Office page says that if you want to withdraw more than the cash machine limit, you should contact it. You can use the chat in Mobile or Online Banking, go into a branch or phone, and the customer service page lists the numbers.
- A Santander branch counter. Santander’s cash machine and Post Office pages don’t give a limit for withdrawals at a branch counter, so ring or ask the branch before you travel for a large sum. Its branch locator shows which branches and cash machines are near you.
- A Post Office counter. Santander current account customers, and savers with a cash card, can withdraw cash at the Post Office with their card and PIN. Santander says standard branch limits apply at the counter, “although some Post Offices won’t let you withdraw more than £1,000”. A cash machine at a Post Office is just a cash machine: the £300 limit still applies there.
- A banking hub. Where Santander takes part in a Cash Access UK banking hub, you can make cash transactions at the hub’s Post Office counter from Monday to Friday.
When a withdrawal fails or the machine keeps your card
A refused withdrawal is usually one of the limits in the table: you’ve taken out £300 today, you’ve used your 5 withdrawals for the day, or you’ve reached the monthly count. A card you’ve asked Santander to limit to £0 won’t give cash at all.
Two other things can go wrong at the machine itself:
- It keeps your card. At a Santander machine you may be able to collect the card from that branch. A card captured by another bank’s machine is destroyed, so you’ll need to report it lost and order a new one. Santander says its machines don’t keep your card for a wrong PIN; an expired or damaged card, or a fault with the machine, can.
- It gives you less than you asked for. If a Santander machine pays out short, Santander points you to its process for disputing a card transaction, so raise it with Santander rather than waiting for the account to correct itself.
If your card is lost or stolen, the Santander app lets you freeze it and report it at any time of day. To report fraud or a stolen card by phone, including from abroad, use the numbers on our Santander customer service page.
Taking cash out abroad
What a foreign cash withdrawal costs depends on your current account:
- Everyday Current Account: a 2.95% foreign currency conversion fee on cash withdrawals in a foreign currency. Taking out the equivalent of £200 costs £5.90 in Santander fees.
- Santander Edge, Edge Up and Edge Explorer: a 0% conversion fee. For up to the first 3 working days after you open or transfer to one of these accounts, the 2.95% fee still applies, and Santander says that fee isn’t refunded, so avoid using the card abroad in that window.
- Santander’s own machines abroad: withdrawals with a Santander debit card are free at Santander cash machines in Spain, Germany, Poland, Portugal, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Uruguay and the USA.
At other machines abroad, the local bank may add its own charge, so check the screen before you confirm. Santander advises choosing the local currency when a machine offers to charge you in pounds, because it converts at Mastercard’s rate, which it says is often better than the machine’s. If you’re travelling outside Europe, you can tell Santander before you go in Online Banking, under “Account Services” then “Use Card Abroad”.
The full list of Santander’s foreign transaction fees, including card payments abroad and sending money overseas, is on our Santander fees page.