Best EMV Credit Cards

There are no new credit card chip laws, because the government isn’t regulating the U.S. switch to EMV, chip-enabled cards. Nobody will get arrested or fined for using a credit or debit card without a chip in it, nor will merchants face legal consequences for not updating to EMV-compliant payment terminals.

Consequences for Merchants Who Aren’t EMV-Compliant

The EMV transition in the U.S. is a push by the credit card industry to stop costly fraudulent charges, because research shows that EMV is a more secure and fraud-resistant payment method. There may not be legal consequences for merchants who don’t adopt chip-and-pin payment processing, but there are financial consequences. Since October 1, 2015, merchants operating without chip-enabled payment systems have been on the hook for fraudulent charges, rather than credit card companies.

Because of those changes, chipped credit cards are becoming commonplace. In 2021-2022, almost 85% of card-present purchases in the U.S. were made using EMV-enabled cards on EMV-compliant payment systems, according to, according to EMVCo.

Significant Drop in Lost Fraud Dollars

The transition seems to be achieving its intended effect, too. Merchants with EMV-enabled payment systems have seen an 87% drop in lost fraud dollars in March 2019, compared to September 2015, according to a 2019 Visa study.

The chip in a credit card is a microprocessor, or tiny computer, that makes a credit card transaction more secure. These chips, also called EMV chips, generate a unique code each time you “dip” your card into a payment terminal or tap to pay. Once used, the code - also called a “token” - cannot be used for a future transaction. So if a fraudster attempted to intercept your chip transaction, they wouldn’t get anything...

Chip cards are safer and more secure than traditional credit cards that only have magnetic stripes because they are difficult to clone, due to their sophisticated encryption technology. This technology is a major security upgrade from magnetic stripes.

The term “chip card” refers to a credit card that has a computer chip embedded inside it. The chip is the small, metallic square on the front of any recently-issued credit or debit card. When you dip...

Yes, Chip credit cards can be “hacked,” in the sense that a thief who inserts a “skimming” device into a credit card terminal can copy data from your credit card and later make a copy of the card. However, skimmers can only copy data from your card’s magnetic stripe, not its chip, which is much more encrypted. Therefore, any copy of your card will only have a magnetic stripe. That means criminals can’t use it any merchant...

Chip cards can be skimmed because of the magnetic strip that still exists on these cards. Skimming is a common scam in which fraudsters attach a tiny device (or a “skimmer”) to a card reader. They tend to target places like ATMs and gas stations.

When you use your card at one of these readers, the device intercepts and copies sensitive card information from the magnetic stripe. Thieves can then retrieve the stolen data...

A chip card is more secure than a standard magnetic stripe card because the chip is harder for fraudsters to copy. But chip cards are not all equally secure. Chip-and-PIN credit cards are more secure than chip-and-signature credit cards because it’s harder for someone to guess your PIN than to forge a signature.

Still, chip cards are not completely secure. Chip credit cards still have a magnetic stripe, so the info from the magnetic stripe can...

Yes, contactless credit cards are secure because they use the same security standards for transactions as EMV chip credit cards. Whether you’re using a contactless credit card and tapping to pay or inserting your EMV chip card into a card reader, the sensitive information sent to the card reader is encrypted.  

Both contactless and EMV chip credit cards create a unique, one-time-use code for the transaction instead of sending your name, billing address, CVV code, or...