Austria Currency and Money Guide

The short version

Austria uses the euro. It is a fully convertible international currency, so you can buy it at home before you travel, withdraw it from a machine on arrival, or simply pay by card for most of what you do. There is no restriction on bringing it in or taking it out beyond the declaration threshold below.

We publish no exchange rates and no prices anywhere in this cluster. A rate printed on a travel page is out of date within days and a price is out of date within a season.

The one number to know before the border

Declare cash or traveler's checks if the value is 10,000 euros or more. You will be given a certified declaration showing you brought it in with you, and if you do not declare it your money can be seized.

Two details people get wrong. The threshold is about the total being carried, not a per-person allowance to be split among a group to stay underneath it, and it applies to instruments such as traveler's checks as well as to banknotes. If you are traveling as a group and the combined total approaches the threshold, declare it. The declaration is administrative and free; the alternative is not.

Austria is more of a cash country than you expect

This is the practical difference between Austria and, say, the Netherlands or Sweden. Cards work in hotels, restaurants, department stores and anywhere used to international visitors. But small Austrian businesses, market stalls, some cafés, mountain huts, small guesthouses and rural operators have stayed attached to cash, and a few of them still do not take cards at all.

The useful habit is to keep some notes and coins on you rather than relying on a card for everything. A mountain hut at the top of a chairlift is exactly the place where a card is least likely to work and where you will most want lunch.

Coins matter more here than in a card-first country. Public toilets, luggage lockers, some market stalls and some parking machines want them.

Cards, machines and what to tell your bank

Tell your bank and card issuer where you are going before you leave, so a normal transaction in Vienna is not read as fraud and your card frozen on your first evening. Carry a second card from a different issuer, kept somewhere other than your wallet. The safety guidance for Austria names cash machines among the places where distraction theft happens, so use a machine inside a bank or a busy well-lit spot rather than a quiet street at night, and put the money away before you step back from it.

If a machine or a card terminal offers to charge you in your home currency rather than in euros, that is a conversion done at the operator's rate. Choosing euros and letting your own bank convert is usually the cheaper answer, but check your own bank's terms; that is a question about your account, not about Austria.

Tipping and service, without a figure

Tipping in Austria is customary and modest, and it is normally done by rounding up or by telling the server the total you want to pay as you hand over the money, rather than by leaving coins on the table afterwards. We deliberately publish no percentage, because the conventional figure moves and because handing a visitor a number encourages them to apply it mechanically. Ask your guide on the first day; it is a two-second question and the answer will be current.

Verify Before You Travel

• The UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office Austria entry requirements page, for the declaration threshold.
• Your own bank, for foreign transaction terms, daily withdrawal limits and travel notification.

Sources

• UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office: Austria travel advice: no advisory against travel to any part of the country. Accessed 16 September 2026.
• UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office: Austria entry requirements: Schengen area rules, visa-free stays of up to 90 days in any 180-day period counted across the whole area, the two passport validity tests, the Entry/Exit System, and the cash declaration threshold. Accessed 16 September 2026.