Money in Romania

The Leu, Not the Euro — and You Must Pay in Lei

Romania is in the European Union but not the eurozone: the currency is the Romanian leu, and there is no confirmed date for euro adoption, so check the current position rather than assuming either way. The practical consequence catches people out constantly. Euro prices are quoted everywhere — in property listings, on hotel rates, in tourist-facing menus — but payment is legally required in lei, so a euro price is a reference figure rather than something you can hand over. The rate floats, so look it up before you travel rather than working from a remembered figure or from any number printed in a guidebook. If you are changing cash, licensed exchange offices in city centres give appreciably better rates than hotels, airports or banks; look for clearly displayed rates and no commission, and count what you are handed before leaving the window. In practice most visitors skip all of this and simply draw lei from a cash machine on arrival, which is simpler and usually cheaper than carrying currency to exchange.

Cash Machines Are Everywhere — Decline the Conversion

Cash machines are plentiful in every city and in most towns of any size, and rural coverage is reasonable if you plan a little. Two habits matter more than which network you use. Prefer a machine attached to a bank branch, inside the building or in its wall, over a standalone unit on a busy tourist street — the free-standing ones charge the most and are the likeliest to have been tampered with. And when the screen offers to bill you in your own currency instead of lei, always decline. That is dynamic currency conversion, it is unusually aggressive in Bucharest's tourist areas, and the rate it applies is invariably worse than your own bank's. The same offer appears on card terminals in hotels and restaurants and the same answer applies. Beyond that, a travel card that does not add a foreign-exchange markup will save you more over a trip than any choice of machine, and drawing larger amounts less often beats repeated small withdrawals if your bank charges per transaction.

Cards Work Well in Cities, Cash Rules the Countryside

Card infrastructure has improved quickly and is now good: Visa and Mastercard are accepted almost everywhere in Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca, Timișoara and Brașov, contactless is standard, and both major phone wallets work reliably. American Express is a different matter and is accepted far more narrowly, so do not rely on it as a primary card. Where the picture changes is outside the cities, and it changes sharply: village guesthouses, rural restaurants, small-town markets, roadside producers, monastery donations, mountain huts and the person who unlocks a wooden church for you all work in cash. Since those are precisely the experiences that make a Romanian trip, the sensible approach is to run on cards in the towns and carry a working cash reserve whenever you leave them. Keep small notes in particular — breaking a large one in a village shop is a genuine inconvenience.

One of Europe's Best-Value Countries

Romania is among the most affordable destinations in the European Union, and the gap against Western Europe is wide enough to change what a trip looks like rather than merely trimming it — a standard of accommodation and eating that would be a splurge in Italy or Austria is routine here. The spread within the country follows a predictable pattern: Bucharest is the most expensive place, the other big cities sit below it, and the countryside and small towns are cheaper again, with rural guesthouses offering the best value in the country by a distance. The main tourist concentrations are the exception, so expect the castle towns and the Black Sea coast in August to charge what the location is worth. Two things are worth budgeting separately because they surprise people: admission to the major castles and museums, which is modest individually and adds up across a circuit, and car hire, which is the one line that is not conspicuously cheaper than elsewhere in Europe. Eating at an inn rather than a tourist-facing restaurant is the same lever it is everywhere, and the food guide explains where to look.