Thank you for the question and we hope you will find our answer satisfying. There are several articles dealing with this matter on the web, and in our own Budapest Guide you can also read about this in the following article. The first question is where it is best to change Euro to Forint (not Florint) in Budapest. Probably the best way to change money is by using an ATM. Thus you get the best exchange rate, which is the actual rate, and the only fee added is the fee of withdrawing money from your account using your card abroad. There are lots of ATMs in Budapest, so that should not be so hard to find. If you still need to change money, what to do then?
There are quite a lot of exchange offices around downtown Budapest, and our advice would be to check out 3 such offices before changing money for the first time. Compare the exchange rates, and pick the one that is best. There are some offices known in Budapest to be very good places to change money, and one of these are located just opposite the New York hotel (on the other side of the Grand boulevard), near Blaha Lujza square in Budapest. That would be our recommendation. A good sign of quality and great exchange rates is that if you change Euro to Forint the sale and buy price has very little difference. For example you can buy Euro for 286 Forint and sell Euro for 283 Forint. If you see such small difference, that is a good sign. In the very city center you will probably not find such good rates, but if the difference is 4-6 Forint between buy and sell, that is still quite good.
Can I pay with Euro in Budapest?
Yes, in many situations you can, but let us say that one Euro is currently worth 285 Forint. When you walk into a shop to pay with Euro they have normally a set Euro value, meaning that you get somewhere between 250-275 Forint per Euro, far less than what it is actually worth. It doesn’t mean to so much if you are only eating a meal in McDonalds, but if you use Euro in a lot of places you will in fact lose a good amount of money in the end. Therefore it is much better to grab hold of some local Forints instead of running around paying with Euro everywhere.
Hope this answer will help you. You can find more info about the Hungarian currency in this article as well.
Ask your Budapest question!
There are of course some exceptions to the rule, especially in smaller restaurants (like Comme Chez Soi) and if you visit Szentendre most shops there only accept payment in cash. However the general “rule” is that shops in the shopping street Vaci utca, shops in the malls and so on accept payment with VISA.