Egypt runs on cash. Your hotel will take a card and so will a large restaurant, but the porter, the taxi, the man selling cold water outside a temple gate and the guide you spend three days with all deal in Egyptian pounds. At some point on your first day you will be standing in front of an ATM or an exchange counter working out how this is supposed to work.

It is a simple problem with a few sharp edges. Get the method right and money stops being something you think about for the rest of the trip.

The currency you will be handling

The Egyptian pound is written EGP, and locally you will see it abbreviated as LE. Say "pounds" and everyone knows what you mean. It divides into 100 piastres, but piastres have effectively disappeared from daily use, and the coin you end up holding is the 1 pound coin.

Notes run from 5 pounds up to 200, and the two you will care about most are the 10 and the 20, because those are the tipping notes. Both of those circulate in two versions at once: the older paper design and a newer plastic one in a different colour. They are equally valid, and the plastic ones are simply harder to tear. Spend a minute on your first evening laying out what you have and learning the colours, because the 50 and the 200 are easy to confuse in a dim souk while someone waits.

The pound has moved a lot against major currencies in recent years. That has one practical consequence for you, and it is not the one people expect: holding a large pile of pounds for two weeks has no upside, and turning them back at the end has a cost. Change what you need, when you need it.

What to bring from home

Which currency travels best

US dollars and euros are the two currencies every Egyptian bank and licensed exchange office will take without a second look, at the best rates on the board. British pounds are accepted at banks and the larger exchange offices, though not everywhere. Beyond those three, do not assume a counter will take what you are carrying.

If your home currency is anything else, do not try to solve it in Egypt. Either buy dollars or euros at home before you fly, or plan to draw pounds straight from an ATM with your card and skip the cash exchange entirely. Most people are best off doing a bit of both.

The condition of your notes matters more than you think

This is the detail that catches out travellers who have never been asked about it anywhere else. Egyptian exchange counters inspect foreign notes and refuse the ones they do not like. A tear, a heavily worn edge, a pen mark, an ink stamp, a stain: any of these can get a note handed back to you. Sorting your cash at home takes two minutes and saves an argument at a counter in a language you do not speak.

Two related habits are worth knowing. With US dollars, many places prefer the newer series designs and will either refuse older ones or quote a worse rate for them, which is a market convention rather than an official rule. And larger denominations often attract a slightly better rate than small ones, so a single hundred tends to do better than five twenties. Bring the bulk in large notes and keep one or two small ones for a moment when you need a little cash quickly.

Where to change money, and what each option costs you

Where Rate What to know
ATM Close to the interbank rate Two fees apply: the machine's own charge and whatever your bank adds. Fewer, larger withdrawals cost less.
Bank branch Fair and posted Passport required. Slower, but the calmest place to change a large amount of cash.
Licensed exchange office Fair, sometimes marginally better than a bank Look for a shopfront with a licence displayed and a rate board. Passport required, and quicker than a bank.
Hotel front desk Noticeably worse Convenient at midnight. Fine for a small amount, wrong for the bulk of your trip money.
Someone who approaches you Sounds excellent Do not. This is where counterfeits and short counts live.

ATMs are the default answer for most people. They sit in arrivals halls, bank lobbies, shopping centres and the lobbies of most tourist hotels, and drawing pounds directly avoids the double conversion of buying dollars at home and selling them again in Egypt. Tell your bank you are travelling first, because a card blocked on day one is a genuinely bad start, and check what your bank charges per foreign withdrawal so you can decide how often to use one.

For changing physical cash, banks and licensed exchange offices are the two respectable options, and the difference between them is mostly speed. Both will want your passport. Count the money at the counter before you walk away and keep the receipt, which matters more than it sounds for reasons that come up at the end of the trip.

The street changer is the one absolute. Someone offering a rate well above the boards is not being generous, and the loss shows up either as counterfeit notes or as a count that comes up short while you are being hurried along. Staying with official counters is part of the same ordinary caution that makes the rest of the country straightforward, which the guide to whether Egypt is safe to travel in goes into properly.

Always let the machine charge you in Egyptian pounds

At an Egyptian ATM, and on some card terminals in shops, you will be offered a choice: pay in Egyptian pounds, or pay in your own home currency with the amount helpfully displayed for you. Choosing your home currency is dynamic currency conversion, and it hands the exchange rate to the machine's operator instead of your bank. That rate is always worse, sometimes considerably.

Decline it every time. Choose Egyptian pounds, or press whichever button refuses the conversion, and let your own bank do the arithmetic at its normal rate. It is the easiest saving there is and it costs you nothing but a moment of attention at the screen. Withdrawals are also capped per transaction, so a substantial amount may take two goes, which is another reason to know your bank's per withdrawal fee before you leave home.

How much to change at once

Change enough for the next few days, not for the whole trip. There are three reasons, and none of them is fussiness.

You will need less local cash than you imagine. On an organized trip the large costs are already settled, so pounds are for tips, drinks, souvenirs and taxis. Independent travellers spend more on the ground, mostly on entrance tickets, but even then the daily figure is smaller than the total trip budget suggests. The arithmetic is broken down properly in the guide to how much cash to bring to Egypt.

Leftover pounds are awkward. They are difficult to sell outside Egypt, and the buy back inside Egypt gives you less than you paid. Every pound you change and do not spend is a small loss you chose.

And carrying two weeks of cash in one wallet has no advantage. Split it: some in the room safe, some in a day bag, a working amount in your pocket. Keep a thick stack of 10 and 20 pound notes specifically for tipping, because breaking a 200 for a small tip is inconvenient and the change often does not appear. Who gets what, and when it is handed over, is set out in the guide to tipping and baksheesh in Egypt.

Cards, and where they stop working

Visa and Mastercard are accepted at hotels, larger restaurants, established shops and organized tour operators. American Express works in fewer places, mainly international hotel chains, and other networks are unreliable enough that you should not plan around them. Bring a second card on a different network if you can, and keep it somewhere separate from the first.

Cards stop being useful the moment you step outside that world. Bazaar stalls, street taxis, small cafes, tips, the ticket window for one extra tomb: all cash. Some places that do take cards add a surcharge, and a terminal that is "not working today" is often a preference rather than a fault. Ride hailing is the useful exception, since you can attach a card in the app and settle the fare without cash, which the guide to using Uber and Careem in Cairo covers.

Entrance tickets deserve their own line. Many sites sell interior access, photography permits and specific tombs as separate purchases at the gate, and those windows usually want cash. Check the current entrance fees for Egyptian sites while you are planning, because they are revised more often than people expect and they are the item that moves an independent budget most.

Checking the rate before you travel

The pound moves enough that any rate you read weeks in advance will be wrong by the time you land. Budget from a stale figure and you will also end up arguing with a perfectly honest cashier because the board does not match the number in your head.

Look it up on the morning you fly, in a converter or your banking app, and carry that figure in your head as a reference. You do not need precision. You need to be able to glance at a rate board and tell the difference between a normal margin and something absurd. The official rate and the rate any given counter offers are never identical, because the gap is that business's margin, and a small gap is completely normal. A large one tells you to walk to the next counter.

For sizing the whole trip rather than a single transaction, the fuller picture is in what a trip to Egypt costs.

Arriving with no Egyptian pounds

You do not need pounds before you land, and buying them abroad usually gets you a poor rate anyway. Cairo airport has bank desks and ATMs in the arrivals area, and the same is true at Luxor, Aswan and Hurghada. Draw a modest amount there, enough for a couple of days, and do the rest properly once you are in the city.

One thing to plan for: if your nationality pays a visa fee on arrival, it is bought at the bank counters in the arrivals hall before passport control, and it is paid in cash, with US dollars the currency to have ready. Have suitable notes in your hand luggage rather than in a checked bag. Which nationalities need what, and how the fee is handled, sits on the page covering Egypt visa requirements and entry rules, and the rest of the landing sequence is in the guide to what happens when you land in Cairo.

Egypt also requires travellers carrying cash above a set threshold to declare it on arrival. If you are bringing an unusually large amount, check the current limit with your airline or an Egyptian consulate before you fly rather than discovering it at the customs channel.

What to do with what is left

Plan the last two days, because this is where money quietly disappears.

Spending it is the efficient answer. Outstanding tips, loose tea and hibiscus and spices by weight, anything on the hotel bill the hotel will accept in pounds. It turns leftover currency into something you keep.

Selling pounds back is possible at some banks and exchange offices if you can produce the original exchange receipt, and without it the transaction gets harder and is sometimes refused. An ATM withdrawal gives you no such receipt, so if you expect to have pounds left over, change at least part of your cash over a bank or exchange counter and keep that paperwork. Do it in the city rather than at the departure gate: airport counters give a worse rate, and they take notes only.

Coins, the 1 pound coin included, cannot be changed anywhere, by anyone. Spend them, or leave them as a tip on the last morning. And if you are stopping for a final meal on the way out, a rough sense of what meals cost in Egypt helps you land close to zero.

Before you fly, in short

  • Sort your foreign notes and remove anything torn, marked or heavily worn.
  • Tell your bank you are travelling, and check its foreign withdrawal fee.
  • Bring a second card on a different network, stored separately from the first.
  • Look up the rate on the morning you leave and keep it as a mental reference.
  • Plan to draw a small amount at the airport and the rest in the city.
  • Refuse conversion into your home currency at every ATM and card terminal.
  • Keep any counter exchange receipt until you have left the country.

Working it out for your own trip

How much cash you actually handle depends on what is already paid for. On an organized itinerary the hotels, transfers, guiding and most meals are settled in advance, so pounds are for tips and whatever you buy for yourself. Guided day excursions with transport and entry included start from US$120 per person, and those are the decisions that move a budget rather than the daily small change. What is and is not covered is set out across our Egypt tour packages.

If you want a straight answer for your own dates and route, message our team in Egypt on WhatsApp at 201032295513. We will tell you what your itinerary genuinely needs in cash, which days are heavy on tipping, and where the nearest reliable ATM sits at each stop.