ATM situation in Uzbekistan

[netllama]

I'm going to be in Uzbekistan in July (got my e-visa yesterday!), and am working on pre-planning money. Since it seems like ATMs are not a sure thing for easily withdrawing cash, I am planning to bring US$ into the country, and exchange at an official counter (in the airport, i guess).

Does anyone know which denominations of US$ are accepted? I'm hoping its something more than US$20, as that's potentially a huge number of bills to carry with me. Has anyone been able to exchange US$50 or US$100 bills?

thanks!

[Milad]

I never had problems to exchange $50 notes. $100 will most likely be accepted as well, but that would mean a huge number of bills to carry in UZS, as the highest UZS bill is 50000 (USD 6). Also, the exchange offices frequently run out of UZS 50000 notes, meaning you might get only notes of 10000 or even 5000 UZS (e.g. the exchange in Khiva only had notes of 5000 last year) which can strain your wallet quite a lot.

[swingaling]

I’d be wary of exchanging too much because it’s not easy to change back. Additionally, exchange offices typically require pristine bills with no marks on them whatsoever. So bring some brand new bills with you.

Also, keep the receipt the exchange office issues you. You will need to present the receipt in order to convert your sum back to dollars. Without that receipt, you’ll be stuck with the sum. This just happened to me st Tashkent Airport when I tried to get rid of my sum. Luckily, I only had $20 worth remaining.

[Granite2018]

There's no shortage of ATMs in Uzbekistan's bigger cities . I had no trouble finding one in Tashkent, Bukhara, Samarkand, Nukus. No problems with Visa, but the only bank that accepted Mastercard while I was there in December 2018 was Asaka Bank.

[netllama]

@Granite2018: all of these ATMs dispensed Som?

[mancam]

If you want to exchange dollars, I recommend you to do it in bigger cities or train stations. I needed some sum in Khiva a few weeks ago, exchanged roughly $40 and got only 1000 sum bills in return - that's almost 350 bills in total! Thank god I had a backpack...

[EvilDoctorK]

I had no issue recently with $100, $20, $10 and even $1 notes at NBU exchange offices .. no differential rates

In terms of ATMs my experience was pretty good .. ( was expecting it to be not so good !) ... There's ATMs that dispense Som and ATMs that dispense US$ fairly widely available ... most common seemed to be ones called 'Kapital' or something similar .. Yellow coloured kiosks .. these dispensed Som against Visa cards without issue for me .... also found US$ ones too that dispensed on Mastercard ... overall it seemed Visa was a bit better for ATMs .. ideally you'd have both .. but in the major tourist towns at least no issue with ATMs in my experience last month ( though I'd still bring a bit of cash for emergencies )

[Granite2018]

@Granite2018: all of these ATMs dispensed Som?

It's a mix. I found that the yellow cash machines mentioned below rip you off when taking SOM out, charging a 3% commission, compared to 1% when taking dollars. So it worked out better to take dollars and exchange at a bank. If I remember correctly, Asaka Bank's ATMs don't charge commission when withdrawing SOM.

[Lovetheworld]

For anyone who is going to Samarkand, in the Western building of the Registon there is an ATM where you can get US$ with most cards.

Expect only working ATMs in the big cities, expect nothing outside. Khiva in that sense is not a big city.

[EvilDoctorK]

For what it's worth no huge issue with ATMs in Khiva - but as ever you won't want to rely on them

There's one that dispenses SOM on Visa beside the ticket office at the West Gate (though it was only taking local cards temporarily a few weeks back )
There's one that dispenses US$ on Mastercard in the Hotel Arkanchi inside the walled town
There's a whole collection of ATMs in the Hotel Asia ( just outside the South Gate ) .. I used a Mastercard US$ one , but the guy said they had Visa too .. seemed to be at least 3 different ATMs in this hotel.

There were probably others around too but having found all the above I didn't need to look harder.