Do I need cash in Spain, or can I use cards?

Spain is comfortably card-first. Visa and Mastercard are taken almost everywhere, over 90% of city businesses accept a tap, contactless is the default with no PIN under about 50 euros, and Apple Pay and Google Pay are widely accepted. You will hear about Bizum, an instant phone-to-phone payment locals love, but it needs a Spanish bank account, so it is not your tool. Carry a chip-and-PIN card as a backup.

Keep 40 to 50 euros in small notes and coins for the cash-friendly corners: tapas bars, neighborhood markets, small towns, tips, and the occasional place with a card minimum of around 5 euros. Anything above a 50 euro note is awkward to spend, so break big notes at a supermarket.

When a card terminal or an ATM asks whether to charge in dollars or euros, always choose euros. Choosing dollars triggers dynamic currency conversion at a rate about 3 to 8% worse than your own bank's, and a Euronet machine can mark it up far more. At a Spanish ATM the prompt reads con conversion or sin conversion, so pick sin conversion, without conversion.

Avoid the blue-and-yellow Euronet and Cashzone ATMs at airports, stations and tourist sites. They charge flat fees around 4 to 7 euros and push the dollar conversion hardest. Use a machine attached to a real bank, CaixaBank, BBVA, Santander or Sabadell, and read the on-screen fee before you confirm.

Use a bank-branch ATM in daylight, take out a few days' worth at once to limit per-visit fees, and use a debit card rather than a credit card, since a credit-card withdrawal is a cash advance with a fee and interest from day one. Carry a no-foreign-fee card plus a backup on a different network.

As a rough guide, two mid-range travelers might pull 250 to 350 euros of day-to-day cash across a week beyond the hotel, with cards covering the rest. Watch your pockets in crowds: Barcelona and Madrid pickpockets work Las Ramblas, the metro and the crowds at big sights, so keep cards and phone in a front or zipped pocket.

Tipping is light in Spain: the price already includes IVA (VAT) and staff earn a real wage, so there is no US-style percentage. Locals just round up or leave the small change, the propina. Leave any tip in cash, since card terminals rarely pass it on. One bill quirk: some places add a small terrace surcharge (suplemento de terraza) to sit outside, which is not a tip, so read the bill first.

Spain's tourist tax is regional: only Catalonia (including Barcelona) and the Balearic Islands charge one, and most of the country does not. Where it applies and how much is in Spain's tourist tax. For the wider picture, see the Spain money guide.

Common questions

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More on Spain

The little money things nobody warns you about.

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