Money in Costa Maya: Pesos, Cards and Cash

The currency, and the figure this page will not give you.

The monetary unit is the Mexican peso. That is what TravelHealthPro records for the country, and it is the whole of what this register says about money in Mexico.

No exchange rate appears on this page. That is a deliberate limit rather than an omission: no source in this cluster's register publishes one, and a rate is the single most perishable number in travel writing. Your own bank will tell you the real figure on the morning, in less time than it took to read this paragraph, and it will be right.

What the price boards tell you that a converter does not.

The genuinely useful skill on a few hours ashore is not knowing the rate to two decimal places. It is reading a price in pesos and knowing roughly what it means, which you get from looking at two or three boards near the pier before you buy anything. A market stall writes its prices per kilo on a chalkboard; a beach bar writes them on a wall. Ten minutes of looking calibrates you better than any figure published weeks earlier.

Beyond that, the questions of how widely cards are taken across Mexico, which banks charge what, and how tipping works nationally are country level ones. The Mexico money guide answers them for the whole country, and repeating it here in a shorter form would help nobody.

The one piece of official advice about money here.

It is not about rates or cards. The safety advice for Mexico records that pickpocketing and theft are common, including on public transport, and that crime is a risk to foreign nationals particularly in major cities and tourist resort areas. A cruise terminal is a tourist resort area by any reading.

What follows for a day ashore is ordinary and worth doing anyway. Carry what you expect to spend and leave the rest aboard. Keep it on you rather than in a bag set down beside a sun lounger. And treat a card problem as an inconvenience rather than the end of your day by bringing enough cash that you are not dependent on a single machine you have never seen before. The safety guide covers the rest of that advice.

If you would like the day planned so that the money question is settled before you step off, tell us what you have in mind.

Sources

• TravelHealthPro, National Travel Health Network and Centre: the Mexico country page: that the monetary unit is the Mexican peso. Accessed 21 September 2026.
• UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office: the Mexico safety and security page: that crime is a risk to foreign nationals in Mexico, particularly in major cities and tourist resort areas; that pickpocketing and theft are common, including on public transport; that unlicensed taxi drivers have robbed and assaulted passengers, and that travelers should use the better regulated sitio taxis from authorized ranks or ask a hotel to order one; and that travelers should check their travel insurance covers all their planned activities. Accessed 21 September 2026.