Money, cards and ATMs in Austria

Cash matters more than you expect

Austria is a rich western European country that still runs partly on cash, and travellers from card-only countries get caught out.

• Small restaurants, bakeries, market stalls and mountain huts are frequently cash only. A Gasthaus in a village may genuinely not take a card.
• Carry EUR 50 to EUR 100 in notes as a working float. Break large notes at a supermarket.
• Contactless is universal in supermarkets, chains and city restaurants, and Vienna is far more card friendly than the countryside.
• A receipt is legally required for every sale. If you are handed one unprompted, that is the law, not a formality.

ATMs

• Use a machine attached to a bank. Erste, Bank Austria, Raiffeisen and BAWAG Bankomat machines charge no operator fee to foreign cards.
• Avoid Euronet. The standalone yellow-and-blue machines in tourist streets charge a surcharge per withdrawal and push a bad exchange rate at you.
• Always decline conversion into your own currency. When the screen offers to charge you in dollars or pounds, choose euros. That prompt is dynamic currency conversion and it costs several percent.
• Withdraw larger amounts less often if your own bank charges per transaction.

Tipping

• Round up, roughly 5 to 10 percent in a restaurant. On a EUR 46 bill you say "fifty" as you hand over the money.
• Say the total you want to pay, do not leave coins on the table. Tell the waiter the figure including the tip when you pay; leaving money behind on the table is not the local habit.
• Cafes and bars: round to the next euro or two.
• Taxis: round up. Hotel housekeeping: a euro or two a night if you wish.
• Service is never automatically added in Austria, so a "service charge" line on a tourist-district bill is worth querying.

Prices to calibrate against

• A coffee in a proper Viennese cafe: EUR 4 to EUR 6. You are renting the chair as much as buying the coffee, and nobody will hurry you.
• A half litre of beer: EUR 4.50 to EUR 6.
• A main course in a Gasthaus: EUR 14 to EUR 22.
• A museum ticket: EUR 16 to EUR 21 for the big Vienna institutions.
• Tap water is excellent and comes from alpine springs, but a glass of it alongside coffee is a Viennese tradition rather than a right, and restaurants often charge for a bottle.