In this article, I will tell you everything you need to know about getting access to your money the best way when travelling Latin America.
Most important thing first is making sure you’ll have access to your money. To ensure this, start by reading my Travel payment guide.
Withdrawal taxes
There are 3 cost factors to withdrawing money:
- what your bank charges you for withrdrawing abroad/ withdrawing in general
- ATM fees. So the fee the local ATM charges you for withdrawing money from it
- The local ATM that suggests you two different change rate. One is the official one, the other one is a very bad rate they suggest to indirectly charge you even higher ATM fees
To avoid bank fees, I would strongly recommend you to get an travel debit/credit card! More details in my article Travel payment guide.
To avoid ATM fees, stay tuned for my list of ATMs without withdrawal fees at the bottom of my article.
Opening hours of banks
In Latinamerica you will very regularly see people queuing in front of bank offices. No worries, this is not caused by a bank run, but by the opening hours of the banks. These are usually opened only work days and only approx. from 9:00 to 13:00. That information is mostly irrelevant to you as you most probably don’t have an account at a Latinamerican bank, but sometimes the ATMs are inside of the bank, which means you’ll only be able to acces them workdays until 14:00. There are also ATM outside of banks, but you might need to search a bit further for these.
Safety
Befire withdrawing money, check your surroundings. I would personally recommend that you split the money you withdraw and put half of it in your wallet, and other half of it in a safety belt that you can wear under your clothes.
I usually keep some local cash, some dollars, my back up payment card and my little card with my emergency contacts in this safety belt.
Card payments
In most countries of Latinamerica, the banking system distinguishes between debit and credit cards. So when you’re at the supermarket and want to pay with card, saying “con tarjeta” won’t be enough. You’ll have to say “con debito” or “con credito”.
If you say debito but use your credit card, the payment won’t work. Don’t know why it’s so important, but apparently for their system it is.
In some rare cases, your European debit card will be considered as a credit card in the Latinamerican payment system. I honestly don’t know why, but in case your payment card isn’t working, try choosing the other option.
There is also a good chance that the machine will ask you to pick one of these three options:
- “corriente” which is your main account. That’s what I usually selected.
- “ahorro” which is your savings account. I tried this one once and it took the money from my main account, so i don’t think these options really work with foreign cards.
- “credito” which means you want this to be a credit. It even suggested it to me when I was using my debit card. Personally I didn’t try this option…
If you travel to chile, the payment machines with touch screens will probably suggest you different payment options. Select REDBANK.
Online payment
In Chile, the online payment system is a bit different. If you have an international payment card, select REDBANK, then scroll down to the very bottom of their Dropdown list of all chilean banks and select “international debit or credit card”. If they ask you for a RUT in the process, fill in your passport number. If this is not an option, fill in a random RUT, in most cases it won’t matter, and you’ll just explain you don’t have a RUT, and that their online field didn’t let you fill in letters, but that your passport number contains letters.
Sharing costs
If you’re not traveling alone, the odds are high that you’ll have to split costs with 1 or more people.
There are a few apps for that, that are really convenient! Most of them work just the same. They all have free versions. If you decide you want very advanced features, they also have paid versions.
Splitwise: the most sofisticated one. Here you can even categorize your expenses to track if you’re staying inside your budget for the different activities.
Tricount: very basic, very simple, does the job
Settle up: a bit nicer graphic interface but therefore also a tiny little bit more complex then Tricount. Does the job.
In most cases, card payments are pretty easy to fill in into these tools. It gets tricky on how to write down expenses when it comes to cash. If you write down the expense when someone withdraws the cash, and then write down all the cash expenses you do, then your total expenses calculated by the app will count the cash in double. On top of that, writing down every cash expense you do can become a pain really fast, as there will probably be a lot of very small expenses. Up to you to decide if having this level of detail over your expenses is worth your time. If you decide to have it detailed, be disciplined and really fill in all your expenses of the day every evening. You’ll forget about them way to fast otherwise. My recommendation would be that in every country, one person does all the card and online payments, and the other person does all the money withdrawing/cash expenses. And then you only write the amount withdrawn into your accounting app.
How often can I pay by card?
This will significantly differ depending on the country you’re in!
In Chile and Brasil, paying with card is very common and will be available almost everywhere. Sometimes even street food stands will have a sum up card payment machine!
In all other countries, paying with card will be significantly less available, and when available, you’ll most probably have to pay a 5% fee because you’re paying with card.
If you’re traveling to Argentina, be aware that their economy has crazy inflation, and that handling your money there will be different then in any other country in the world. Further detail, in my article “Everything you need to know about Argentina”.
ATMs that don’t charge fees
Chile
No ATM fees
Scotiabank
Accepts international cards
Itaú
Santander
Argentina
Don’t use an ATM! Use Western Union to get the blue dollar change rate. Link to my article about getting money in Argentina.
Bolivia
Peru
Multired
Ecuador
No ATM fees:
Banco Internacional
Banco del Austro
Low fees and accepts international cards:
Banco Pichincha
Colombia
BBVA
Davidienda
Colpatria
Pichincha