From Wallet to First Purchase: Setting Up MetaMask Card
Setting up a self-custody card involves a few steps that a bank card does not. None of them are hard, but doing them out of order wastes gas.
The order that works
- Apply and complete identity verification. Availability depends on your country, so confirm the card is offered where you live before anything else.
- Choose a funding network from the list the app offers you.
- Move the token you intend to spend onto that network — USDC, USDT or wETH.
- Leave a small amount of the network's gas token in the same wallet.
- Enable the token for the card and set a spending cap.
- Add the card to Apple Pay or Google Pay if you want contactless.
Steps four and five are where people come unstuck. Enabling a token is an on-chain transaction, so a wallet holding only stablecoins and no gas cannot complete it.
The two skipped steps
The first is gas. Arriving with a wallet full of USDC and nothing to pay fees with is the single most common way a setup stalls.
The second is the spending cap itself. Funding the wallet is not the same as authorising the card; until the cap is set and confirmed, the balance is visible but unspendable. Both things must be true before a payment will go through.
Before the first purchase
Try a small transaction first, ideally online where a decline is easy to read. Check that the cap covers the amount, that the token you enabled is the one with the balance, and that a little gas remains for the next change.
Once it works, it works — the setup is a one-time cost, not a recurring one.
Card details we track are on the MetaMask Card page.