Money in Guatemala

The currency is the Guatemalan quetzal, named after the bird that is also the national symbol. This guide publishes no exchange rate, because any figure printed here would be out of date by the time you read it. Check a live rate the week you travel.

Cash, and why it still matters

Hotels, tour operators and the better restaurants in Antigua, Guatemala City and the main lake towns take cards. Almost everything else does not, or takes them unreliably: markets, shuttle drivers, village comedores, entrance fees at smaller sites, tuk tuks, and every stall you will actually want to buy something from.

The real problem is not obtaining cash, it is breaking it. ATMs dispense large notes and small vendors genuinely cannot change them. Break a big note whenever a supermarket or a hotel gives you the chance, and keep a working float of small ones. A traveler with the right change moves through a day here far more easily than one with more money and worse denominations.

ATMs

• Use machines inside a bank, a supermarket or a hotel lobby during daylight rather than a street unit at night.
• Expect a withdrawal limit per transaction that is lower than you are used to, and a fee from both the local bank and your own.
• Tell your bank you are traveling. A blocked card on a Sunday in a highland town is a genuinely bad afternoon.
• Carry a second card from a different institution, stored separately from the first.

US dollars

Dollars are sometimes accepted for tours, hotels and shuttles, usually at a rate that favors the seller. Take them as a reserve, not as a plan, and bring clean, unmarked, untorn notes: damaged ones are routinely refused.

Tipping

• Restaurants: about ten percent, and check whether it has already been added.
• Guides and drivers: the largest single thing you can do for the people who actually make a trip work, and it is expected on day tours and multi day ones alike.
• Hotel staff and porters: small notes, which is another reason to keep them.

Bargaining

Expected in markets, not in shops. Do it in good humor and at a scale that matches what is being sold: the difference you are negotiating over a handwoven textile is small to you and is not small to the person who wove it. The culture guide has more on this, and the safety guide covers carrying cash sensibly.

Sources

• UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office: Guatemala travel advice: the standing warning that the FCDO advises against all but essential travel to parts of Guatemala, and the index to the entry, safety, regional and health pages this cluster draws on. Accessed 17 September 2026.
• UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office: Guatemala entry requirements: ninety days without a visa, a passport valid at least six months beyond arrival and carrying at least two blank pages, the online immigration declaration form required before entering and before exiting, the thirty US dollar airport departure tax normally included in the ticket, and the notarized Spanish letter required for a child traveling with one parent or alone. Accessed 17 September 2026.