Tashkent airport: reports and Q&A

[ceam3000]

Hello,

My flight to Tashkent arrives at 2am in the morning so i wanted to ask if you know if in the Airport there is a money exchange store where I can exchange USD to UZS at that hour and how can i locate it?

Thank you very much!

[leela]

My flight FROM Tashkent was at 2:40am. Certainly while I was in departures (landside) well after midnight, there was an exchange booth open. I'd imagine (though don't rely on it) that there'd be booth open for arriving flights, in that case. Especially as there are wide-bodied aircraft arriving at that time.

The new baggage hall is one clear, modern open area, so it's very easy to see what's around the edges. It shouldn't be difficult to find the exchange counter.

[ceam3000]

Thank you very much

[Gareth]

Still the older building for departures (I'm pretty sure - it was a pretty tired space). There's a bar, a fast food place, and a cafe in the departure lounge, as well as VIP lounge. There wasn't, when I was there in August 2018, anywhere to change money once through security, and only USD were accepted. There was a baggage scan and metal detector on entry to airport area, and then again on entry to building. But getting through to departures was fairly swift. At passport control, my registration slips were waved away with a smile - the man had no interest in these (however, these were checked on leaving at a land border so it's advisable to collect these and hang on to them anyway, just in case).

[Helena]

City Palace Hotel and Grand Art hotel also have ATMs in their lobbies. Asia hotel in Bukhara also had one.
I was there in August 2018 and diligently collected my hotel registration forms. Useless work as no one asked me for them when I was leaving from Tashkent airport.
You also do not need to fill in a customs form unless you carry more than US$2000 with you. So getting through the airport is easy, staff are very pleasant.

[Belteral]

Arrived this morning at Tashkent airport and unexpectedly I believe I beat my record for the least amount of time needed to get out of an airport.
I was among the first passengers to get out of the bus and into the terminal, our flight was the only one arriving at this time so there was no line at passport check.
It went really smoothly, the borders control guy just looked at my passport and e-visa, took a picture and let me through. Since I had no luggage to collect I headed straight to customs and as I thought I needed to fill a form I started looking for instructions (available in Uzbek and Russian only). At that point a custom officer asked me how much money I was carrying and since it was less than 2000 USD he saw me through instantly.
All in all it took me about five minutes, and it would have been even less if I had not tried to withdraw money from the single ATM available in the arrivals hall, which was empty...
The staff I met were nice, reasonably helpful and speaking enough English to answer basic questions.
I'm just a little worried that I don't have a custom form to show when I leave Uzbekistan through a land border in ten days time, hope the guys at Shavat are up to speed on the latest policies.
Uzbekistan is quickly turning into a very tourist friendly place, this is good!

[Adrian]

Below is my experience of arriving at Tashkent Airport yesterday. I arrived in a flight from Bishkek (Kygrz) at 1030am on a Monday morning. All in all it was extremely efficient and zero hassle. One of the easiest arrivals I’ve had in my travels.

Arrival, Immigration, Customs, Money Exchange

After dis-embarking onto the tarmac, we waited for a couple of minutes for the bus to fill up and then drove two minutes pulling up directly in front of the arrivals hall. Immigration is immediately in front of you upon entering the building. There were no queues and no need to complete any forms. Passport check was done within two minutes and I was waved through with a smile. Extraordinarily, bags were already moving around the belt so I happily picked mine up and literally walked straight through customs control, no forms, no search, no questions. Looking around for an atm, I didn’t spot any but upon asking for ‘exchange’ the customs guy actually pointed me back to immigration. I walked back though customs (again, no questions) and immigration let me actually go back through the passport control gate to the single exchange booth. I hadn’t spotted it when I arrived but for those arriving in future, when you arrive and are standing in front of the passport control desks, the exchange booth is alongside them on the far right hand side. There is a sign indicating ‘Exchange’. I’d say from when we disembarked the plane to when I was outside the terminal was a total of 15 mins covering bus transfer, immigration, money exchange, bags and customs.

Bus from Airport to Train Station

There was a very small scrum of taxi drivers outside the airport arrivals. For the bus, walk past them and veer to the left - you’ll see city buses and smaller mashstrukas pulling up regularly. For those who want to transfer directly to the train station, take bus #40. Jump on board - the on-board ticket seller will come around to collect the fare (1,200 som). It’s about a 15 min ride to the train station; there is a small bus station attached to the train station so jump off when the bus pulls in there

Train Station

Standing in front of and facing the station, the ticket office is to the left of the main building. I was fortunate enough to get a platz ticket for the evening (slow) train to Samarkand. With half a day to spare, this gives some time to see the sights. Show your passport and ticket to the guard to enter the main station. Once you go through luggage screening and have your ticket validated at the entrance to the main station building, you’ll find the ‘left luggage’ office downstairs; the stairs are on the right hand side as you walk through the main building towards the tracks. Show your passport and ticket to the luggage room attendant and he’ll store the bags for 1,000 som and give you a security token for collection later.

Metro

Head back outside the main train station building, exit the enclosure surrounding the building and go down the set of stairs to enter the metro. Buy a metro token from the cassa for 1,200 som and enjoy exploring the city of Tashkent

[Lisa Lai]

We arrived from London into Tashkent this morning. It was a very smooth experience as I was bracing myself for potential chaos!
We went through the old terminal, into the new terminal, that was a bit confusing as it seemed we were being directed to Departures again but there were people around telling us to walk straight on.
We looked for the money exchange before passport control, as per the advice on Caravanistan.com, it is actually at passport control itself. Confusingly there are two booths - one on each end. The one you reach first was shut (snoozing lady at the counter) but on the one on the right hand side was open, thankfully we walked right down to check and it was open (near the toilets).
Very friendly immigration officer
Our luggage was already waiting for us on the belt.
From disembarking to exiting the airport was about 15 mins - remarkably quick.
Two functioning ATMs after immigration
Now the problem we had was that we left the airport and went left to where the buses were. Waited for 30 mins, no number 40 bus so we ended up getting a taxi - it got to the stage where we weren't sure if we were at the right stop but after an overnight flight with little sleep, we didn't want to carry on hunting.

[netllama]

We arrived from London into Tashkent this morning. It was a very smooth experience as I was bracing myself for potential chaos!
...
Two functioning ATMs after immigration
...

This is welcome news. Were you actually able to use these ATMs, or just observed that they existed? If you used them, what kind of bank card worked (Visa, MC, etc)? Any monetary limits?

[EvilDoctorK]

There were two ATMs in the baggage hall after immigration .. I think one would have dispensed US$ against Visa .. the other one I think was just an exchange machine which would change US$ bills to Som .. so between the two of them I guess you could have got sorted .. I did not see anyone using them and wasn't sure how they worked ( the US$ seemed to allow massive withdrawals so I was scared!) ... ATM situation overall seems greatly improved from recent reports anyway .. perhaps just not so much at the airports/stations