Money - how to pay in Iran

[_Ellen_]

Hello family,
we schedule to leave end of april from Spain and would like to get to Mongolia with our motorbikes, but with the current situation it is difficult to make any planning...

In any case we want to visit Iran and I was wondering if somebody can give me recent information about money / how to pay / ATMS...
I read that in this country it is not possible to pay with credit cards or withdraw money from ATMs charged to international cards. Therefore, it is necessary to travel with a sufficient amount of cash for the entire trip.

Can somebody please let me have some updated information?
I have also ready about the "Tourist Card":
https://www.tasteiran.net/irantouristcard
Any experience with this?

Thank you in advance

[hsarailoo]

you can use mahcard
mahcard is a travel debit card for tourists in Iran and they active for more than 4 years.
https://www.mahcard.com/

[_Ellen_]

Perfect! Thanks for your confirmation to this point!
Can’t wait to reach Iran

[marchoso]

I Hope does It work in abril, I dont want take money with me.

[Lutnistas1969]

I was in Iran in October 2018. I don't use any cards, only cash. There was no problem with changing money.

[Hound_Dog]

Cash is better. You get a better rate.

[Lzh]

Hi there,

We are entering Iran by land this summer. Probably via Armenia (if Azerbaijan doesn´t open its land borders).

We will go driving from Bilbao, and of course, visiting other countries on our way. So we would like to avoid having to travel with a lot of cash for a long time just to exchange it in Iran. But we also would like to avoid paying the 7% fee that Mahcard charges for sending the money online.

So, we where wondering if this plan could be a good idea and wanted to know your opinions:

First, the day before enterin Iran withdraw cash in Armenia or Azerbaijan at an ATM that can give us dollars.
Then, enter Irán with that money and exchange it with a better rate.

Of course, we know that in this plan we will also have to pay the exchange rate (euro to dollar) and the fees of the ATM but our question is if maybe we can still save some money and also avoid the risk of having to travel with so much cash for long time.

Does someone tryied to do this before? Is there something importan that I am missing in this plan?

Thank you very much!

[theroadtrotter]

Hi there,

I am traveling without money at all and just depending on ATM inside the countries. For Iran I tried to get dollars or euros in Armenia but it was quite hard. I did not find any ATM which gave dollar or euros at all. In the end I ended up changing Armenian dram to dollar at an Armenian bank.

Next time I would try to get all the money at Georgia. There I saw lots of dollar/euro ATMs and it would not have been a problem at all. At the Georgien ATMs there were no additional fees added to the picked up amount as I saw.

greetings
theroadtrotter

[uncle_sam01]

I've been to Iran three times now (last time was in November 2021) and cash is starting to be a hurdle now due to inflation. Western cards don't work in Iran (just to state the obvious).

I exchanged $100 in November and got 28 million back - this meant the guy had to run around the bazaar for 20 minutes before he got all of the cash together... Hence, I'd recommend that you get the tourist prepaid card (in addition to taking some backup Euros or dollars), even if this entails a worse rate/fees. Iranians use these cards to pay for absolutely everything, especially now that they're starting to run out of banknotes - even fruit peddlers accept them. Obviously, you also have the peace of mind of not walking around with all your cash. You might also be able to get the prepaid card locally without a tourist agency, so you could exchange your cash to riyal just after the border and then get/top up the card locally with riyal cash (though this is just a speculation and I have no idea what fees they charge/how much of a hassle this might be).

In any case, if you are going to take convertible currency with you, my advice is don't rely on Armenia/Georgia/Azerbaian and simply withdraw money in the last Eurozone country on your trip. This is because these EUR/USD ATMs oftentimes don't have the newest/current design bills (Euros with a see through "window" and colorful dollar notes) and you obviously don't see the bills beforehand with an ATM. Not having the newest bills is oftentimes a hassle in Iran and can lead to either getting a worse rate or not being accepted at all.

[Roadtophnompenh]

Goodmorning, i am planning also to go to iram in september, would it be maybe a good idea to take small euro-notes with me if even a 100 dollar is complicated to change ?? I can imagine what they do if you ask a 200 or even 500 euro bill. If travelling far its so nice to have some 500ers with you, but complicated to change anyplace. Any idea whats the differnce between official and black market exchange ?? Any idea what you would spend in for example 30 days in Iran, crossing from Bazargan to Mirjaveh ?? As the gasoline is as good as free ???