How to avoid the yellow Euronet ATMs in Lisbon

Portugal runs one national bank ATM network called Multibanco, or MB, operated by SIBS and shared by nearly every Portuguese bank. Its machines charge little or nothing for the withdrawal itself. The bright yellow standalone machines you meet in airport arrivals and tourist squares are Euronet, a private operator that sits outside that network and sets its own, much higher, pricing.

So the rule is simple. Find a Multibanco machine, or an ATM built into a real bank branch such as CGD, Millennium, Novo Banco or Santander, and skip the freestanding yellow boxes. Then, on any machine, pick euros and turn down the conversion offer, because that offer is where most of the money quietly disappears.

Euronet machines are freestanding and wrapped in bright yellow, they carry no bank name, and the screen skips the normal Multibanco welcome. You will find them clustered at Lisbon airport arrivals, around Rossio and Praca do Comercio, along the Baixa and Alfama tourist streets, and all down the Algarve strip.

A Multibanco machine shows the orange MB logo, opens with a language menu (Portugues, English, Espanol, Francais), and offers preset euro amounts like 20, 40, 60, 100 and 200. It also shows a short fee-disclosure screen before you confirm, so you always see the charge in advance rather than after.

Two charges stack on a Euronet withdrawal. First, a per-withdrawal fee, usually a few euros and steepest at the airport. Second, and far worse, dynamic currency conversion: the machine offers to bill you in US dollars and quietly sets its own exchange rate, which can add roughly 10% or more on top. That is how withdrawing 100 euros can end up costing well over the odds.

You always have the right to decline dollars and be charged in euros, at which point your own bank does the conversion at a normal rate. Euronet's screens make the dollar option look like the helpful default. It is not, so say no.

It takes about a minute and no special app.

1. Leaving the airport, skip the exchange counters and the freestanding yellow machines.
2. Find a Multibanco machine or a bank-branch ATM. At Lisbon airport there are bank machines just past customs.
3. Insert your card, choose English, and pick a sensible amount. Multibanco often caps each withdrawal around 200 euros, so take enough in one go to avoid repeat fees.
4. When it offers to charge you in dollars, say no and choose euros. At a Multibanco machine that question can appear twice, so decline both times.
5. Read the on-screen fee before you confirm, then take your cash and keep the receipt.

Which machine you use matters, but the card in your hand matters more. Your US bank's own foreign and ATM fees stack on top of anything the machine charges, so a no-foreign-fee debit card is the real saving. Charles Schwab refunds ATM fees worldwide, and Wise and Revolut keep them low.

Because Portugal is so card-friendly, you can tap a card or phone for almost everything and only need an ATM once or twice a trip. Get that right and a few euros of machine fee stops mattering. The Portugal money guide has the exact card pairing we would pick and how much cash to actually carry, and cash or card by country covers the broader question of how much to tap versus carry.

Common questions

Quick answers.

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