The SORA card shut its doors on 30 January 2026 — here is who it hurt and what to pick instead

Updated October 2026

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If you are weighing whether the SORA card is worth getting into, there is a blunt answer that settles it before any fee comparison: the programme no longer issues new cards. SORA announced on 10 January 2026 that the card, the app functions tied to the card, and the card programme itself would stop after Friday 30 January 2026 at 18:00 GMT. That date has passed. There is nothing to sign up for, and if you are reading this trying to decide between SORA and something else, SORA is no longer one of the options.

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

So why does a closed card deserve a review at all? Two reasons, and they are the two groups this page is written for. First, if you already held the card, you are now in an unfamiliar position: your money may sit behind a support desk rather than in a wallet you control. What you should do, and what has already stopped being possible, is the subject of the second half of this page. Second, if you were the kind of person looking at SORA in the first place — someone who cannot easily get an ordinary bank card, or someone who wanted crypto to spend directly — then the closure is a lesson about which parts of the crypto-card setup actually protected you. That matters, because the alternatives below are still selling to exactly that person.

I am going to walk you through the score first, then the timeline of what closed and when, then the practical situation for anyone still holding a balance, then the ways this could go wrong, and finally what I would actually look at today instead. The card’s public pages do not state every detail I would like — some fees, limits and dates simply are not written down anywhere I could find — and where that is the case I will say so plainly rather than guess.

The score: 2.2 out of 10, and who it suits

SORA scores 2.2 out of 10. Let me be honest about that number: it is not a close call, and it is not mainly a verdict on how the card worked while it worked. It is a verdict on what a card is worth to you today, which for almost everyone is nothing, because it is closed. The one audience the card genuinely still “suits” is existing holders who are trying to withdraw a balance after the closure — they have a job to do with the product, even though the product itself is over.

Here is how the score breaks down, criterion by criterion, with the numbers exactly as the review of it worked them out.

Read the Cost row carefully, because it is the one place where the card looked respectable and still does not save anyone. On the pricing that was published, issuance was free and so was the monthly fee, with the first physical card at €0; the catch was a client membership of €39 per year, charged after the first year. Spending abroad cost €0.90 + 1.1% per transaction, and drawing cash from an ATM cost €1.20 + 3% in the domestic zone (EU, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway). In other words the free part was the entry, not the habit. A year of ordinary international use would have eaten well past the €39. None of this matters for a new applicant, because nobody can apply — I include it only so that the historical record is on the page and so that you can see the shape of the pricing model the alternatives are competing against.

The Top-up row deserves a second look too, because it was the card’s central weakness even while it was open. You funded the card by converting XOR into EUR or by a SEPA transfer. There was no way to load crypto directly onto the card. For most people the appeal of a crypto card is precisely that the crypto becomes spendable money; SORA inserted a conversion step in the middle, and the spread on that conversion was not stated on the pages I read.

What happened to the programme

This is the part of the story that decides everything else, so let me give you the dates in order.

SORA was open to residents of the European Economic Area who passed KYC — by residence, not by nationality, which is a distinction that will matter to some readers and not others. Residents of Russia, Iran and the DPRK were not eligible, with the full list published at a blacklist page on the site. KYC was required: a selfie, an ID document and proof of address. The public pages do not state any KYC levels or a processing time. What the card was, in physical terms, was a physical and a digital debit card; the card network it ran on is not stated on the pages I read, which is unusual and worth keeping in mind. The company behind the site and apps was SORA Biome, based in Bulgaria, and the card itself was issued by Unlimit EU Ltd in Cyprus, an e-money institution licensed by the Central Bank of Cyprus under licence 115.1.3.7. That split — a Bulgarian brand, a Cypriot e-money issuer — is normal for this category, but it decides who you talk to when something breaks, and we will come back to exactly that.

Then, on 10 January 2026, the notice came. The card, the app and the app’s card functions would all stop after Friday 30 January 2026 at 18:00 GMT. Anyone with crypto sitting in GateHub wallets had to empty them before that cutoff. SORA Wallet itself was to continue. Around the same period Unlimit, the issuer, had already suspended some accounts. The notice did not state a cause, and I am not going to invent one.

Two things about the fee schedule are worth freezing in your memory, because they describe what the card could once do. The dated pricing (17 September 2024) had domestic card payments free for the first 10 online and 10 point-of-sale transactions. International card payments were €0.90 + 1.1%. Crypto conversion went through an XOR/EUR partner, and the spread on that conversion was not stated. The card converted directly between XOR and EUR; withdrawals in a currency other than the card currency were charged as international, though the card currency itself is not named. On Apple Pay and Google Pay, the pages said they were promised for a “Phase 2” — that is, never delivered — and the list of blocked merchant categories is not stated. A physical card could be ordered and activated at €0 for the first card; the delivery time and the replacement cost are not stated. A client membership of €39 per year, charged after the first year, was the only paid level; there was one product, no tiers to climb. Rewards are not stated. So: there was a real card, with real fees, that worked for a while, and then in a single dated notice it stopped.

If you already have the card

If you are reading this holding a SORA card, the practical question is not what the card does — it is how you get your money back. Here is the situation as it stands, and I am going to be blunt about the parts that are uncomfortable.

After 30 January 2026 at 18:00 GMT, the app gives you no access to your balances. That is the single most important line in this section. The only route to a balance release is Unlimit’s support — [email protected]. If your account was one of the suspended ones, your balance may still display, but it stays inaccessible until Unlimit completes its review. And here is the detail that will decide how your week goes: SORA cannot submit release requests on your behalf. You are on your own with the issuer, not the brand. The app’s card functions and the physical/digital card are gone; what remains is a claim to a balance held by a Cypriot e-money institution.

The normal ways you would once have moved money are the ones that are now closed to you. Outgoing SEPA and SEPA Instant transfers were €0.50 each; that was how a balance left before. After the cutoff, that is no longer yours to use. The card’s ATM function — domestic €1.20 + 3% within the EU, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway, international €1.75 + 3%, with a free balance inquiry once per month — is history. The support pages are soracard.com/support and soracard.com/contact, with a [email protected] address, plus Discord, Telegram, X and Reddit; the site runs in English and Español, and support hours are not stated. Holders rely on English or Spanish correspondence with the issuer to get a balance released. Limits are not stated — the amounts are said to be at a fees page but were not present on the page — and closure fees and the replacement cost are not listed. Disputes are not stated on the pages I read.

What should you actually do, then? I will not pretend there is a trick. The action is narrow: if you have a balance, contact Unlimit’s support directly, from the address tied to your account, and ask for a balance release, keeping a record of what you send and when. Do not expect the SORA app to do it for you. If your account is one of the suspended ones, be prepared for a review process rather than an immediate payout, because the suspension is Unlimit’s to lift, not SORA’s. And treat any promise that your funds are “coming back soon” from a third party with suspicion. That is not cynicism; it is the ordinary caution the situation calls for.

What can go wrong

The honest way to frame the risks here is that most of them have already landed. The programme is closed, the issuer has suspended some accounts, and for a suspended account the balance may display but remain inaccessible until Unlimit’s review. Those three sentences are the risk, not a prediction. There is an official incident record of the termination notice dated 10 January 2026, and it states no cause — which means the closure itself explains nothing about who is accountable to you for the balance, and that gap is itself a risk you are carrying.

Then there are the structural risks that were always there and did not go away when the card closed. The crypto side of SORA was self-custodial — SORA Wallet, where you keep your own keys — and two-factor authentication and biometrics were mentioned. But the card side was custodial in the ordinary way: an e-money balance at an EMI. And Unlimit EU Ltd, as an e-money institution, is not covered by Cyprus Deposit Insurance. That is a category fact, not a slur: e-money funds are safeguarded but they are not the same as bank deposits, so there is no deposit-guarantee scheme behind your balance. If Unlimit were ever to fail, you would be an e-money creditor, not a depositor. The suspended accounts are a small-scale demonstration of exactly that kind of counterparty exposure.

There is a second, quieter risk worth naming: how you got here. If you are in the situation this card was aimed at, you may have arranged your money specifically around it — moved funds in, defaulted to it, given up an ordinary banking relationship you could not get — and a closure like this leaves you scrambling. That is not a fee risk; it is a dependency risk, and after a closure it is the one that hurts. Beyond that, the general category hazards apply to anything you move into a replacement: blockchain transfers are irreversible, so a deposit sent on a network the provider does not support can be lost; stablecoins can and have depegged; a declined payment can leave a hold on your funds for several days. I will not tell you none of this is risky in a replacement, because it isn’t.

One more thing to check for yourself if you were affected: on the pages I read there is a Trustpilot page for the brand, but I found no Reddit or Trustpilot reports of complaints specific to this closure (as of 20 October 2026). The absence of a complaint thread is not reassurance; with a closure this recent, the review ecosystem often lags the events. Judge the outcome by whether Unlimit actually releases the balance, not by the current mood of the forums.

What to take instead

If you are starting fresh, SORA is off the table and you are choosing among cards that still issue. Here are three that show up in this category, with their scores, so you can see how they compare and where each one is honest about its gaps. None of them is a promise of anything; they are simply the options still on the table.

The strongest of the three on paper is the BloFin Wallet Card, at 6.9, and the reason is visible in the table: the fees are $0.00 across activation, annual, issuance and dormancy, and cancellation is free. Its spend fee is “1% or lower” depending on VIP tier — VIP 0 at 1.00%, VIP 1 at 0.90%, VIP 2 at 0.80%, VIP 3 at 0.50%, VIP 4 at 0.20%, VIP 5 at 0.00% — charged at the payment, with no cashback or rebates (the trade is a lower spend rate instead, not waiting for cashback). Its top-up is USDT and USDC on Arbitrum and Base, which is a genuine stablecoin-native way to fund a card. Its gaps: the country list is not published on the card page (in the app you “select your country or region”; the starting data lists 35 countries including the US, Australia, Japan, the UAE, Brazil, Mexico, Malaysia and New Zealand), and whether the test is citizenship or residence is not stated. The FX fee is not stated, and virtual versus physical is not stated.

Decaf, at 6.2, has the cleanest FX story of the three: it adds no fee of its own, “the FX is the one Visa offers”. You can hold a virtual card for $5 or a physical card ($10 in the US, $90 in the rest of the world, with tracked delivery), and there is no annual or monthly fee. You can pay a Decaf payment link or account details by card, bank transfer or USDC; the app runs on Solana and Stellar. Its big asterisk is eligibility: it is not issued in a long restricted list that includes Belarus, China, the DPRK, India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Myanmar, Nepal, Russia, Syria, Turkey, Cuba, Ukraine, Venezuela, Vietnam, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico and Nigeria, and it restricts certain US states including Arizona, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana, Maryland, Montana, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington and Wisconsin. Russia and Belarus are both on the restricted list, and whether the rule runs on citizenship or residence is not stated — if you are in one of those countries, read that line twice. Crypto conversion fee is not stated.

SafePal, also 6.2, is the one with the most explicit custody language: “citizens of supported regions who live in supported areas”, with the regions page empty when I fetched it. It is a virtual Mastercard debit with spending limits given in EUR against a Swiss Fiat24 account, no account creation or management fees (card issuance fee not stated). Its fees: standard top-up 0%, a 1% FX fee on Mastercard non-USD settlement, a refund processing fee of 1 USD/EUR/CHF/7 CNH, and swaps that include an unquantified spread (its bank page elsewhere advertises crypto top-up “as low as 0.4%” on the top tier). You can fund it from 40+ blockchains, converted to USDC (default) or fiat, with transactions on Arbitrum. No cashback; it leans on referral commissions of up to 40% of referred top-up fees and tier privileges tied to deposits, referrals and SFP staking.

Comparing the three honestly: BloFin leads on cost and on genuinely crypto-native funding; Decaf leads on FX transparency and on a cheap physical card; SafePal leads on being explicit about the self-custody/eligibility model, at the price of a 1% FX fee and an empty regions page. All three leave real gaps — unstated country lists, unstated FX fees, unstated card currency. That is the norm in this category, not a defect of these particular cards, and it is why I would not sign you up for any of them on the strength of a table.

Before you pick, run through the checks that matter most for a crypto card, in this order. First, who issues the card and where — the e-money institution holding your balance, and whether deposit guarantee applies to it (as we saw with SORA, it usually does not). Second, whether the country and residence rules fit you, read on the card’s own pages, not a comparison article. Third, how you fund it: direct stablecoin on a supported network is one thing, a conversion through an exchange partner with an unstated spread is another. Fourth, the real cost at your own spending pattern — an international traveller’s fees are a different product from a local shopper’s. And fifth, for virtual cards, where the funds sit while they sit there. None of this is a how-to around identity checks or country rules; it is just the due diligence any regulated card asks of you, applied to you as the customer.

Who I would recommend it to

Let me put this plainly. I would not recommend the SORA card to anyone today, because there is nothing to recommend — it is closed, it takes no applications, and the only interaction left is a support request to an issuer for money you are already owed. The 2.2 out of 10 is not a nudge against; it is a closed door.

I would recommend reading this page in full if you are one of two people. If you held the card, then the “If you already have the card” section is your checklist: the app is not your route, Unlimit is, and you should open that conversation now rather than wait. If you are the person SORA was built for — someone who wants crypto to behave like spendable money, or who cannot get an ordinary bank card — then treat SORA as a case study in what to check before you commit. The lesson is not “avoid crypto cards”; it is that your money’s safety depends on two separate institutions (here, a Bulgarian brand and a Cypriot e-money issuer), on how your balance is denominated, and on whether the provider is still operating when you need it. Check those three things on any card in the table above before you load it.

And if you are choosing between the alternatives, my own shortlist would start with the one whose funding is the most natively crypto and whose fee schedule is the most transparent — that points, on the published numbers, to the BloFin Wallet Card at 6.9, with Decaf the pick if transparent FX and a cheap physical card matter more to you, and SafePal the pick if an explicit self-custody model is what you want to see in writing. Whichever you look at, verify the country list, the FX fee and the card currency on the provider’s own current pages before you commit, because as the Decaf and SafePal entries show, some of these details are simply not published.

Frequently asked questions

What is the SORA card?

The SORA card was a physical and digital debit card that spent a balance you funded by converting XOR into EUR or by a SEPA transfer. It was run by SORA Biome, a Bulgarian company, and issued by Unlimit EU Ltd, a Cypriot e-money institution. The card itself is no longer issued: the programme stopped after 30 January 2026 at 18:00 GMT.

Is SORA a bank?

No. SORA is not a bank. It is a crypto brand and card programme front-end; the card was issued by Unlimit EU Ltd, an e-money institution licensed by the Central Bank of Cyprus under licence 115.1.3.7. E-money balances are safeguarded but are not the same as bank deposits and are not covered by Cyprus Deposit Insurance.

Who owns SORA?

SORA Biome, based in Bulgaria, operates the website and the apps (an iOS “SORA” app and an Android app). The company that actually issues the card is Unlimit EU Ltd in Cyprus. So the brand and the issuer are separate parties — which is exactly who you deal with when a balance needs to be released after the closure.

Can I still get a SORA card or apply?

No. Issuance is closed. The card, the app and the app’s card functions all stopped after Friday 30 January 2026 at 18:00 GMT, and SORA cannot submit balance-release requests on behalf of users. If you want a crypto card that still issues, look at the alternatives above instead.

How do I get my money back if I held the card?

Contact Unlimit’s support at [email protected] and ask for a balance release, because after the cutoff the app no longer gives access to balances and SORA cannot submit the request for you. Accounts suspended by Unlimit may show a balance but stay inaccessible until Unlimit completes its review. Keep a record of everything you send.

How do I top up a SORA card, and can I load crypto directly?

Before the closure, you funded the card by converting XOR into EUR or by a SEPA transfer; there was no direct crypto load, and the conversion went through an XOR/EUR partner whose spread was not stated on the pages I read. The ledger load fee was €0 and the minimum was not stated. After 30 January 2026 at 18:00 GMT none of this is available.

Was the SORA card free to keep?

Partly. The dated pricing (17 September 2024) had card issuance, virtual and physical, and the first card at €0, and a €0 monthly fee — but a client membership of €39 per year was charged after the first year, and international payments cost €0.90 + 1.1% while ATM withdrawals cost €1.20 + 3% in the domestic zone. Rewards are not stated, and there were no other paid tiers.

Is SORA card safe, and can I add it to Apple Wallet?

On safety, separate the two halves: the SORA Wallet crypto side was self-custodial, with 2FA and biometrics mentioned, but the card balance sat with an e-money issuer that is not covered by deposit guarantee. On Apple Wallet — and Google Wallet — the pages said these were promised for a “Phase 2” and were not delivered, so there was nothing to add before the closure took the card away.

How much were the fees and limits?

International card payments were €0.90 + 1.1%; domestic spending was free for the first 10 online and 10 point-of-sale transactions; ATM withdrawals were €1.20 + 3% in the EU, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway and €1.75 + 3% internationally; outgoing SEPA and SEPA Instant transfers were €0.50 each. Spending limits are not stated — the amounts were said to be at a fees page but were not present — and closure fees and replacement cost were not listed.

Is SORA card worth it, and where can I use it?

Worth it was always a poor framing, because the card no longer exists to use. Where it could once be used was the card network and merchant terminals, with the network itself not stated on the pages I read, and domestic free spending limited to the first 10 online and 10 point-of-sale transactions. The score of 2.2 out of 10 is my overall verdict, and it reflects a closed programme — for a card you can actually apply for today, compare the alternatives above.

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