Germany Currency and Money Guide

The short version

Germany uses the euro. It is a fully convertible 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 the trip. There is nothing to arrange in advance and no permit to obtain.

What does need thinking about is the mix. Germany is more of a cash country than you expect, and that is the single most common way a visitor's day goes wrong here.

⚠ Cash, and where a card will not work

Cards work in cities, in hotels, in chains and in anything built for visitors. They work less reliably in the places a good trip actually goes: bakeries, market stalls, small family restaurants, rural guesthouses, museum kiosks, and the huts and cafes at the top of a lift. Some of them still do not take cards at all, and some set a minimum.

Coins matter more here than in a card first country. Public toilets, luggage lockers, parking machines, lockers at a pool and some market stalls all want them. The useful habit is to keep some notes and coins on you rather than relying on a card for everything, and to break a large note when you have the chance rather than when you need to.

⚠ The counterfeit currency warning, which is specific to Germany

The advisory says two things and they belong together. Only change money at banks, cash machines or official money exchanges. And check your change when you pay in cash, because British nationals have been arrested for trying to pay with counterfeit currency.

The trap is not being handed a fake note by a criminal. It is being handed one as change by a tired cashier and then spending it yourself, at which point you are the person holding it. This is one of the few pieces of money advice in this guide with a criminal consequence attached, which is why it gets its own heading.

The practical version: take money out of a machine attached to a bank, not from a street exchange or a person offering a better rate, and glance at what you are given back.

Cards, machines and what to tell your bank

Tell your bank and card issuer where you are going before you leave, so that an ordinary transaction in Berlin is not read as fraud and your card frozen on the first evening. Carry a second card from a different issuer if you can, kept somewhere other than the first.

The advisory names cash machines among the places where distraction theft happens, so use a machine inside a bank or a station concourse rather than one on a quiet street at night, and put the money away before you turn around.

If a machine or a card terminal offers to charge you in your home currency rather than in euros, decline it. The exchange rate in that offer is set by the terminal's operator and it is not in your favor.

Bringing money in

You must declare any amount above 10,000 euros, in cash or in other forms of payment, when you enter or leave. Below that there is nothing to declare. The threshold is on the total you are carrying rather than per person in your group.

Tipping, briefly

Rounding up rather than a calculation. In a restaurant you tell the server the total you want to pay as you hand over the money rather than leaving coins on the table afterwards, which is the one piece of German payment etiquette a visitor notices immediately. Our culture and etiquette guide covers the rest of it.

What this guide does not publish

Prices. Not a fare, not an entrance fee, not a meal. Nothing we read for this guide publishes one, a price on a travel page is out of date within a season, and a wrong price is worse than no price. The one money figure on this page is the declaration threshold, because it is a rule rather than a cost.

Verify Before You Travel

• The UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office Germany entry requirements page, for the cash declaration threshold.
• The UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office Germany safety page, for the counterfeit currency warning and for where distraction theft happens.
• Your own bank, for foreign transaction fees and for telling them you are traveling.

Sources

• UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office: Germany travel advice: no advisory against travel to any part of the country. Accessed 16 September 2026.
• UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office: Germany entry requirements: Schengen area rules, the two passport tests, the temporary checks on the Polish border, the food restrictions and the 10,000 euro cash declaration. Accessed 16 September 2026.
• UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office: Germany safety and security: the terrorism assessment, the counterfeit currency warning, the personal identification rule and the winter sports advice. Accessed 16 September 2026.