SORA Card Review: A Programme That Is No Longer Issuing

I went into this SORA card review expecting to test a product. Instead I found a closure notice. SORA stopped issuing cards on Friday 30 January 2026 at 18:00 GMT, the in-app card functions ended the same evening, and the underlying euro balances are now held by the card issuer Unlimit EU Ltd (Cyprus), not by the SORA app. That changes what a review like this one is for. The card that existed is not available to new applicants; the only people this matters to in a practical sense are existing holders trying to get money back and readers trying to pick a replacement. Those are the two audiences I wrote this page for, and I will keep coming back to them so you know which one I am talking to at any point.

Current date: 21 October 2026 (verified against soracard.com)

The headline number is a score of 2.2 out of 10, which I explain in full in the verdict below. The interesting part is not the number but how I got there: the majority of the mark is lost because the product no longer exists, not because the fees were bad or the technology failed. I will walk you through the four full criteria (access, cost, top-up, reliability and complaints, and everyday use), show you the criterion-level table, and then move on to what actually happened, what holders should do now, and what I would look at instead. If you are short on time and only want the answer to one question, the verdict and the holders section are the two worth reading in full.

The conditions on the card’s pages and the closure notice were verified on 2026-10-20.

Verdict

I give the SORA card 2.2 out of 10. The full breakdown by criterion, as I recorded it, is below.

A few words on how to read the table, because several of these marks only make sense once you see how I scored them.

• The “Who can get it” criterion was the most heavily weighted factor in my head, because on a closed programme there is nothing else to judge. A 0 here used to be unusual and is going to become less unusual over the next two years as MiCA’s transitional regime runs out (the grandfathering window for already-operating providers under national law runs until 1 July 2026 or until a MiCA authorisation is granted or refused); smaller programmes without an EU-wide authorisation may quietly disappear.
• The “Cost” mark of 5 out of 10 is an honest score for what the card was in 2024 and 2025. It was not the cheapest crypto card on the market; it was not the most expensive either. The €39-per-year membership was supposed to start after the first year, and the international transaction fee of €0.90 + 1.1% was on the higher end of what I had seen for a programme without rewards. The reason it is not lower is that the cost column was tested against what you actually got for it (no tokenised wallet, no rewards, no direct stablecoin load) and the value was middling.
• The “Top-up options” mark of 2 out of 10 is harsher than the cost mark because XOR-only conversion is a real limitation. If you held USDC or USDT and wanted to spend it through the SORA card, you first had to convert that into a fiat balance through a separate route and then change the fiat into EUR; there was no way to spend a stablecoin directly on the card, which is something MetaMask Card and KAST both let you do today.
• The “Reliability and complaints” mark of 1 out of 10 is the other column you should not overthink. Trustpilot and Reddit searches on 2026-10-20 did not return SORA-specific pages at all, which means I am not penalising the programme for a flood of public complaints; I am penalising it because the issuer was already suspending accounts before the closure and because there is no live programme to recover into.
• The “Everyday use” mark of 3 out of 10 reflects the absence of Apple Pay and Google Pay more than anything else. The card had a physical form and a digital form, both worked at point of sale, and one free balance inquiry per month was a small but real saving on ATMs; but a programme that promises tokenised wallet support for “Phase 2” and then closes before Phase 2 ships is a programme whose mobile experience never landed.

The card did not suit anyone who needs a card they can still apply for in 2026, and it does not suit anyone who is looking for a fresh, replacement-ready product today. If you are an existing holder the only useful question is how to get your balance out, which I cover in the holders section later in the page. If you are shopping for a new crypto card, the alternatives section is written for you, and the verdict table will read more naturally once you have seen the products I am comparing against.

What happened to the programme

The closure is the story, so I will start with the timeline and the structure of the programme, both of which matter more than the fees for understanding why you might be in this position. SORA itself did not just turn the app off. The card was issued by Unlimit EU Ltd, an electronic money institution (EMI) licensed by the Central Bank of Cyprus (licence 115.1.3.7), and SORA Biome, the company that runs soracard.com and the SORA apps, operated the programme on top. In a notice dated 10 January 2026 SORA said the card, the app and the card functions would stop after Friday 30 January 2026 at 18:00 GMT. From that moment the in-app card controls, the euro fiat balance and the way to withdraw it through the app were all gone. SORA’s role ended there; Unlimit still holds the funds, but Unlimit had already suspended a number of accounts before the closure and was reviewing them.

A few non-obvious facts matter here, so I will pull them out:

• The card was open by EEA residence, not nationality, with people from Russia, Iran and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea specifically excluded. The full exclusion list was at /blacklist. That policy is moot now but it explains who got cards in the first place.
• KYC was required (selfie, ID document, proof of address). The KYC tiering and the processing time were not stated on the pages I read, and the closure notice did not introduce any new documents that holders need to provide for a release.
• The card was offered in physical and virtual form, and the network (Visa or Mastercard) was not stated on the public pages. That is unusual; most card programmes publish the network because merchants ask.
• Standard fees dated 17 September 2024: card issuance €0 for first card (virtual and physical), monthly fee €0, client membership €39 per year charged after the first year. International card payments €0.90 + 1.1%, with the first ten online and ten domestic POS payments free. Top-up €0. Crypto conversion went through an XOR/EUR partner; the spread was not stated. The fees page dates itself to 17 September 2024, which I would expect to be the most recent version of the fees schedule because the closure notice did not introduce a new fees document.
• Top-up was either XOR-to-EUR conversion or a SEPA bank transfer. There was no direct load of any other crypto token, which is the kind of constraint that made sense in 2024 when the card launched but that reads as narrow against what MetaMask Card and KAST can do now.
• Apple Pay and Google Pay were promised for “Phase 2”; the closure notice arrived before that phase shipped, so tokenised wallet support was never delivered to most users.
• Rewards and a multi-tier structure were not stated; the €39-per-year membership after year one was the only paid level, and there was no rewards column in the fees table.
• The SORA Wallet application, which is the self-custodial crypto wallet, is a separate product and continues. The closure affected only the card and the card-related functions of the SORA app, not the wallet itself.
• The iOS app was published as “SORA” on the App Store (apps.apple.com/us/app/sora-dae/id1457566711) and the Android listing is on Google Play (play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=jp.co.soramitsu.sora). Card functions in the app stopped on the date above.
• Unlimit had already begun suspending accounts before the closure. The pattern matters: this was not a one-day event, it was a wind-down that started earlier and accelerated into the public closure date.

The reason for the closure was not stated, and SORA was not required to publish one. Visa and Mastercard themselves do not issue crypto cards to consumers; they license an issuer like Unlimit and can suspend a programme, but no public statement from the network has been tied to this closure and there is no public Unlimit statement naming a cause for the SORA programme. What was stated was that Unlimit had already been suspending accounts and that any balance shown in the app after 30 January 2026 18:00 GMT was effectively inaccessible until Unlimit reviewed the account. SORA’s own page is direct that it “cannot submit release requests for users”, so the operational path runs through Unlimit, not SORA.

I should also be honest about what is not stated on the public pages, because it is the kind of thing that catches people out: card limits were linked from the fees page (soracard.com/fees#4) but no amounts were on the pages I read; closure fees, replacement cost, dispute procedure and operating hours for support were all not listed. The country list for who could apply was governed by the residence rule I described above and the /blacklist page; the fees did not list a country-specific fee schedule; and the rewards column was empty.

If you already have the card

If you already had a SORA card before 30 January 2026, the practical steps are the same whether your card still works at point of sale or has already been locked. I am going to write them out as a sequence and then add a few extras you will probably want to know.

Step one: know who actually holds the balance. After 30 January 2026 18:00 GMT the SORA app gave no access to balances; the issuer, Unlimit EU Ltd (Cyprus), does. Your card’s euro balance is now with the issuer, not with SORA. The SORA Wallet’s crypto (held by you, self-custodially) is unaffected and remains accessible through the SORA Wallet — only the card side of the SORA app stopped. If you are looking at the app now and seeing a balance that is not moving, that is the issuer-side freeze that the closure notice describes.

Step two: empty the GateHub wallet before the cutoff if you have not already. The closure notice made this explicit: any crypto sitting in a connected GateHub wallet had to be withdrawn before 30 January 2026. After that, the path Unlimit described was via its own support, and SORA itself does not have technical access to the issuer’s records.

Step three: contact Unlimit, not SORA, for a balance release. The single support email given in the closure notice for balance release is [email protected]. SORA’s own page is clear that SORA cannot file the request for you. Some users have reported that even though a balance appears in the app (or in statements), the account is suspended pending Unlimit’s review and the funds are not accessible. If that is your case, the route is the same: write to Unlimit with the account details and any documents Unlimit asks for. Quote the closure notice if you need to; the notice is dated 10 January 2026 and was posted at soracard.com/blog/project-closure, and referring to it makes it harder for the request to be miscategorised as a routine support ticket.

Step four: do not assume the SEPA fee structure still applies. On a live programme the standard outgoing SEPA fee was €0.50 and SEPA Instant €0.50; the closure notice did not confirm that those withdrawal fees are still being honoured during the wind-down, and that is exactly the kind of thing you should ask Unlimit before initiating a withdrawal. If the issuer is treating your withdrawal under the wind-down (and not under the live fees schedule), the fee may be different, and the wait time may be different too.

A few more points I want to flag while you are working through this:

• At the ATM. On the live programme domestic ATM withdrawals inside the EU, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway were €1.20 plus 3%; international were €1.75 plus 3%; one free balance inquiry per month. Whether ATMs still work after the closure notice is not stated; if a card is still active for you, confirm at the ATM and with Unlimit before relying on it, and remember that a declined authorisation can leave a hold on funds for several days even when it is not actually charged.
• Top-ups. The cards were topped up by converting XOR to EUR or by a SEPA transfer in; the ledger load fee was €0, and a minimum top-up was not stated. Post-closure, top-ups are not the relevant move — withdrawals are. If you keep trying to top up a live card you may simply be feeding a balance that will then be inaccessible.
• Support channels. SORA’s general support page was soracard.com/support and [email protected]; the site listed Discord, Telegram, X and Reddit as community channels. The site was available in English and Spanish; Russian was not offered. Hours were not stated, and these channels cannot replace the Unlimit email for a balance release; treat the SORA community channels as informational, not transactional.
• Disputes. Disputes and chargebacks were not described on the pages I read. Cardholder rights on a programme that has been terminated are a different question from disputes on a live programme, so if you are trying to recover a specific transaction the right first port of call is Unlimit. Your second port of call, if Unlimit is unresponsive, is the regulator in the issuer’s country — Unlimit EU Ltd is supervised by the Central Bank of Cyprus on EMI matters.
• Account deletion. Deleting a SORA account is the wrong order of operations if you still have a balance. The closure notice is explicit that you need Unlimit’s involvement to release the funds, and I would not delete the account before that has happened. There is no documented account-deletion flow on the pages I read; the closure notice does not address deletion at all.
• What is not changing. The SORA Wallet’s crypto remains under your control regardless of the card-side closure; do not let anyone convince you that “closing the account” also closes the wallet, because it does not.

If your card is fully closed and your balance has been returned, the only loose end is the SORA Wallet, which is a separate product and continues to work as a self-custodial crypto wallet. Treat the card and the wallet as two different things now.

What can go wrong

Risk on a closed programme looks different from risk on a live programme, so I will split the section into three pieces: the operational risks that came with the closure, the structural risks that were always there, and the things no one is required to tell you. I will then finish with a short checklist for the reader.

Risks that came with the closure itself. The closure notice did not give a cause and there is no record of an independent user-report wave — when I re-checked SORA-specific Trustpilot and Reddit entries on 2026-10-20, no SORA-specific pages came back; results were unrelated card providers. The official incident is the closure notice: the 10 January 2026 termination notice, the suspension of some accounts by Unlimit and the post-cutoff inaccessibility of balances. Those are not “complaints” in the consumer sense; they are the documented facts of the wind-down.

The practical risk is that “inaccessible until Unlimit reviews them” can mean a long wait. EMIs have to safeguard customer funds, usually by segregation into dedicated accounts, and they also have to do ongoing sanctions, anti-money-laundering and counter-terrorism-financing checks. If your account was on Unlimit’s pre-existing review list, the delay is the review itself; if your account was a routine account, the closure did not create a new delay but did remove your previous in-app route. Either way, the path is the same: write to Unlimit, attach what they ask for, and wait. There is no public SLA from Unlimit.

The position of Unlimit EU Ltd and what it means for you. The card was issued by an EMI licensed in Cyprus, not by a credit institution. Funds safeguarded by an EMI are not deposits; they are not covered by Cyprus’s deposit insurance. The closure notice is clear that balances remain with Unlimit pending review, which means the standard banking protections (deposit insurance, central-bank lender of last resort, formal bank-resolution regime) do not apply. The only practical safeguard is Unlimit’s own segregation and licensing obligations as an EMI under EU rules. That is a real safeguard — EMIs cannot lend out safeguarded funds and their regulator (the Central Bank of Cyprus) supervises the segregation — but it is not the same as deposit insurance.

If your balance ends up stuck for a long time, the escalation route is the regulator, not the press. The Central Bank of Cyprus supervises Unlimit EU Ltd on EMI matters; complaints about payment services can also be directed to the Cyprus consumer-protection routes. I am flagging this as the second port of call, not as advice to skip Unlimit in the first instance.

The position of SORA itself. SORA Biome, which runs the apps and the website, is based in Bulgaria and is not the issuer. The SORA Wallet is a self-custodial product: the user keeps the keys and 2FA and biometrics are mentioned as wallet-side safeguards. That model is good for the wallet (no custodian to be hacked) but does not extend to the fiat side of the card, which was always custodial by nature. There was a 2FA and biometric layer for app access while the card was live; a card-freeze function was not described in the materials I read, which means even before the closure you could not “lock” the card from a lost-phone standpoint using an in-app toggle.

What is not stated and is easy to miss. Across the official pages there are several deliberate gaps I want to put on the table:

• Card limits (linked from /fees#4 but absent on the page).
• Closure and replacement fees.
• Dispute, chargeback and complaint procedures.
• Customer service hours.
• The card network (Visa or Mastercard).
• The cryptocurrency conversion spread.
• Reward structure, if any, after the first year.
• Blocked merchant categories, including whether gambling (MCC 7995) was blocked or allowed.

These are not unusual omissions for a small crypto card programme, but on a closed programme they matter more because there is no live programme to fall back on. If your card was used at a merchant that you now want to dispute, “not stated” means there is no published route.

The things the reader must check first. Before you assume a balance is lost, work through this short list:

• Is your account among the ones Unlimit has suspended, or did the standard wind-down apply to you?
• Do you have any open card transactions that could be reversed when the account is closed?
• Have you already received any email from [email protected] or from SORA with a reference number?
• Do you need any documents (proof of address, source-of-funds) ready for an Unlimit review?
• Are you holding any crypto in the SORA Wallet that you also want to move while you are doing the rest of this?

On what the closure is not. The closure is not a sanctions event. The /blacklist page excluded residents of Russia, Iran and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, and the closure was not framed as related to those lists. It is also not a bankruptcy event as far as the published notices go; the operative phrase is “termination of SORA Card services”, with continuing operation of the SORA Wallet. That is not a comfort, just a clarification, because the practical answer about your money is the same in either case: ask Unlimit.

I will not give you tax advice, but I will note for completeness that in many jurisdictions the conversion of crypto into a fiat balance on the card, or the disposal of crypto into a card payment, may be a taxable event; you should check the rules where you live. In the US the IRS treats digital assets as property and each disposal (including a card payment funded by crypto) is generally a taxable event at fair market value on the date of the transaction; many other jurisdictions have their own rules.

What to take instead

Three crypto cards I would actually look at today, picked for the readers most likely to have been considering SORA: people who wanted to spend their own self-custodied crypto or stablecoins without opening a bank relationship, and who need either an EEA-issued product or a card they can use across borders. None of these is a direct “SORA replacement” — they are simply the strongest choices in the category right now.

A bit more detail so you can pick without having to leave this page.

MetaMask Card. Open to residents of 45 listed countries and territories (Andorra, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, Germany, France, Spain, Uruguay and others); other regions go on a waitlist. Proof of residency is required and the citizenship rule is not stated. US and UK sign-ups were temporarily closed per the FAQ. The card is Mastercard, issued by Monovate, with the card provider Crypto Life. A Virtual card is issued first and free; a Metal card can be pre-ordered through the app after Virtual approval, and the Metal tier costs $199 per year. The card currency is not stated. Spending is “minimal fee per transaction” plus no foreign transaction fee; the Mastercard rate is used. Rewards are cashback in mUSD: 1% on Virtual, headline 3% on Metal (the footnote limits 3% to the first $10,000 of spend and then 1%), and a $FLY bonus of 5X on Virtual and 7X on Metal via the Blackbird dining app.

KAST. Open by residence (the country list is shown only during KYC; if your country is not listed, KAST is not available). The Restricted Locations list is referenced but no specific countries are named, and KYC’s citizenship rule is strict: if you hold an ID from a restricted region, you may not pass even if you live in a supported country; dual citizens can pass if their ID is from a supported country; only the account holder’s own ID is accepted; VPN does not bypass. Russia and Belarus are not mentioned. Cards go up to ten per user: Visa Platinum (Standard), Visa Infinite metal (Premium) and Visa Infinite gold plated (Private), with branded designs like Pengu, Solana and Bitcoin. The account balance is USD; deposits of USDT and USDC are converted 1:1 with a 0% spread. Annual membership: Standard 0 USD, Premium 1,000 USD and Private 10,000 USD (billed annually upfront, no monthly option). Extra virtual cards cost 2 USD, Standard physical cards carry a 40 USD delivery, Premium and Private physical cards are included. There is a 1 USD per month inactivity fee after 12 months. Top-up of stablecoins costs 0%, card spend in USD costs 0% and the transaction fee is 0%. Non-USD FX is 0.5%–1.75% depending on residence and programme; non-USD transactions under 25 USD pay 0.10 USD, and a declined transaction costs 0.50 USD. Cashback in USD: 1.5% on first 2,000 USD a month (Standard), 2% on first 10,000 USD (Premium) and 3% on first 40,000 USD (Private), with KAST Points additional for the higher tiers.

Zeal. Spend in 150+ countries; the card programme behind it is live in EU, UK, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Japan, Singapore, Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand, and Zeal update notes mention Mexico, Colombia and Bolivia. Citizenship and residence rules are not stated; Russia and Belarus are not stated either. The card is Visa, virtual first, addable to Apple Pay. Accounts are in EUR, USD and GBP; funding runs through the card Safe (chains Gnosis Chain and Celo per the Gnosis Pay docs), and the exact tokens Zeal supports were not stated on the pages I read. Zeal charges no additional FX fee; the conversion uses Visa’s wholesale rate. Cashback is up to 4% paid in GNO on Gnosis Chain; the GNO has to live in the card Safe to qualify; the rate can change. The App Store listing also advertises up to 5% variable APY on EUR and USD balances.

A few honest comparisons against SORA on what the table does not capture:

• Top-up model. SORA loaded by XOR-to-EUR conversion or SEPA only. MetaMask spends directly from the wallet on networks like Linea, Base, Monad and Solana. KAST holds USD against a stablecoin deposit. Zeal spends from balances in a Safe.
• Cost ceiling. SORA’s €39 per year after the first year is modest against MetaMask Metal ($199/year) and KAST Premium ($1,000/year); but SORA’s free issuance and €0 monthly were never the deciding factor.
• Tokenised wallet support. SORA promised Apple Pay and Google Pay for Phase 2 and did not deliver before closure; MetaMask and KAST already work with Apple Pay and Google Pay; Zeal works with Apple Pay. If mobile wallet support matters to you, none of these three is currently promising it on a Mastercard; only MetaMask and KAST publish working Apple Pay and Google Pay today.
• Path off the programme. If you were a SORA holder and your takeaway from this page is that you want a card you can keep, the practical question is which of these three issues cards in your country of residence today.

If none of these three matches your situation, the most common reason is residence: MetaMask’s eligibility list is short, KAST publishes the list behind KYC and Zeal’s list is the widest in the category. If you are outside all three lists, you are looking at a broader search, not a SORA-shaped replacement.

Who I would recommend it to

I would not recommend the SORA card to anyone trying to get a card in 2026. There is nothing to recommend; the programme is closed. The audience I would point to it, and only with caveats, is:

• Existing holders who still have a balance in the Unlimit-managed euro account and who have not yet contacted [email protected]. For that narrow group the value of this page is the closure notice summary, the route through Unlimit, and the warning that SORA itself cannot submit a release request for them.
• Existing users of the SORA Wallet who never used the card. The wallet product continues, and the closure notice is explicit that the wallet is separate from the card-side shutdown. If your engagement with SORA was the wallet, this review does not change that.

If you are not in that group, you are shopping, and the honest answer is to skip this review and read the alternatives section above instead. I am not going to dress up 2.2 out of 10 as a recommendation, and I am not going to tell you the closure is somehow a buying opportunity. The product is over. The application is closed. The SORA app’s card functions ended on 30 January 2026 at 18:00 GMT, and that is the answer.

If you came here from an older review and you are wondering whether I would have scored the card differently when it was open: probably. The cost column was honest (5 out of 10), the top-up options really were limited (2 out of 10), the everyday-use ceiling was always going to be hit by the absence of Apple Pay and Google Pay (3 out of 10). The reason the total score is what it is, is that the most heavily weighted criterion — access — collapsed to zero on a fixed date, and a 0 in any criterion that is a precondition for use pulls everything else down with it. The card I would have written up in 2024 would not have looked like 2.2 out of 10; it would have looked like an honest mid-tier card with a niche use case and a small but engaged community. It still closed, which is the more important fact.

Frequently asked questions

Is the SORA card still available?

No. New cards stopped being issued and the card functions in the SORA app ended after Friday 30 January 2026 at 18:00 GMT, per a notice dated 10 January 2026 on soracard.com. The SORA Wallet product continues as a self-custodial crypto wallet and is separate from the card.

Who actually holds the balance after the closure?

Unlimit EU Ltd (Cyprus), the card’s issuer, holds the euro balance. Unlimit is an EMI licensed by the Central Bank of Cyprus (licence 115.1.3.7); such funds are not the same as bank deposits and are not covered by Cyprus’s deposit insurance.

How do I get my balance back?

Email [email protected] with your account details. SORA’s own page is clear that SORA cannot submit release requests for users; only Unlimit can. If your account was suspended earlier, the same address is the route to a review; the closure notice said Unlimit will work through the queue.

Could I still use my SORA card at an ATM?

Possibly, for some users. On the live programme domestic ATMs in the EU, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway were €1.20 + 3%, international ATMs €1.75 + 3%, with a free monthly balance inquiry. The closure notice did not confirm that ATMs continue to work during the wind-down, so confirm with Unlimit before relying on one.

What happened to the crypto in my GateHub wallet?

The closure notice instructed users to withdraw any crypto in their GateHub wallet before 30 January 2026. If you missed that window you are working with Unlimit; SORA cannot move it for you. Crypto in the SORA Wallet (a separate, self-custodial product) was not affected by the card-side closure.

Is SORA a bank?

No. SORA Biome, the company behind soracard.com, is based in Bulgaria and runs the website and the apps; it is not a bank and was not the issuer. The card was issued by Unlimit EU Ltd, an electronic money institution licensed in Cyprus. Funds held with an EMI are safeguarded but are not bank deposits.

Was the SORA card ever free?

Card issuance and the monthly fee were €0 on the standard plan. A client membership of €39 per year was charged after the first year. International card payments were €0.90 + 1.1%, with the first ten online and ten domestic POS payments free, and top-ups €0. Conversion spread was not stated.

Did SORA card work with Apple Pay or Google Pay?

Apple Pay and Google Pay were promised for “Phase 2” and were not delivered before the closure. There is no statement that tokenised wallet support shipped to live users, and the verification on 2026-10-20 did not find a published add-to-wallet flow.

Is SORA card safe?

The SORA Wallet is self-custodial and the user holds the keys, which reduces custodial risk but puts the burden of key protection on the user. The card’s euro balance was custodial, sitting with Unlimit EU Ltd, and was not covered by deposit insurance. After closure, the practical safety question is whether Unlimit releases balances.

Are there any disputes or complaints I can read?

Independent SORA-specific complaints were thin: a check on 2026-10-20 did not return SORA-specific Trustpilot or Reddit pages (results were unrelated card providers). The official incident is the closure notice itself (10 January 2026) and the pre-cutoff Unlimit account suspensions; both are documented on soracard.com/blog/project-closure.

Prepared by the Crypto Card Rating editorial staff.