Currency in Portugal: What $100 Buys and How to Pay

Some links on this page are affiliate links. If you book through them we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. It does not change which places we recommend.Some links are affiliate links: we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you.

What is the currency in Portugal?

Portugal uses the euro, written EUR or €. The same notes and coins work in every part of the country, the islands included.

Portugal has been a euro country since 1 January 1999, and euro notes and coins arrived on 1 January 2002, per the European Commission. Lisbon, Porto, the Algarve, Madeira and the Azores all use the same notes and coins. There is no second local currency.

The European Central Bank lists 7 note values in the first series: €5, €10, €20, €50, €100, €200 and €500. The newer Europa series has 6, because the ECB stopped issuing the €500 note.

What was the currency in Portugal before the euro?

The Portuguese escudo. The European Commission gives the fixed conversion rate as €1 = 200.482 escudos. The escudo stopped being legal tender on 28 February 2002, after a short period when both currencies were in use.

Portugal currency to US dollars: what $100 buys

On 5 October 2026 the ECB reference rate was $1.1204 for €1. At that rate $100 is €89.25, and €100 costs $112.04.

No bank or card sells at exactly this rate. The ECB rate is the yardstick that EU law uses to measure everyone else’s markup, which is why this page uses it too.

The rate moves. As of 5 October 2026, we compared 255 ECB working days, from 6 October 2025 to 5 October 2026:

• The same €1,000 of spending cost $77.00 more on the highest day than on the lowest.
• The lowest day of the 12 months was the day we pulled the data. That is a fact about one day, and it says nothing about next month.

What a markup costs you in dollars

Every 1% of markup on €500 of spending costs you $5.60 at the rate of 5 October 2026.

Markups come from two places. Your card may add a foreign transaction fee. A cash machine or shop terminal may add its own conversion charge. We multiplied €500 by the ECB rate of 1.1204 and then by each markup level, to show the cost in dollars:

How to read it: at a 3% markup, €500 of spending costs $16.81 more than at the ECB rate. At 8% the same spending costs $44.82 more.

Where the 1% and 3% rows come from

We read the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s commentary on 12 CFR 1026.4 on 5 October 2026. Per that commentary, a card network may charge 1 percent and the issuing bank may add 2 percent. The foreign transaction fee is then 3 percent in total. Our 1% and 3% rows follow that example. The commentary gives those figures as an example only. Your own card may charge less or nothing, so read its terms. We chose the 5% and 8% rows ourselves to show the scale, and no source sets them.

Should you pay in dollars or euros on the machine?

Short answer: read the markup on the screen, compare it with your card’s foreign fee, and pick the lower one.

What the screen must show

Under article 4 of Regulation (EU) 2021/1230, a cash machine or shop terminal that offers currency conversion must show its total charge as a percentage markup over the latest ECB reference rate, before you confirm. It must also tell you that you can pay in the local currency and let your own bank convert.

The regulation says article 4 applies to payments in euros that involve a currency conversion service. We read that as covering a US card at a machine in Portugal. That is our reading of the text. It is not legal advice.

How to choose

The choice is a comparison of two numbers:

• The markup on the screen is what the machine charges to convert for you. The MULTIBANCO network says its machines offer this conversion in more than 30 currencies.
• Your card’s foreign transaction fee is what your bank charges when you pick euros. Your card terms state it.

Pick the lower one. One caveat: when you pick euros, your card network converts at its own daily rate. We have not compared those rates with the ECB rate, so treat the two numbers as a guide and not as an exact bill.

Can you use US dollars in Portugal?

Plan on paying in euros. A price shown to you in dollars is a conversion, and it has a markup.

Prices in Portugal are set in euros, and the dollar is not the country’s currency. When a terminal or cash machine shows you a price in dollars, it is not accepting dollars. It is converting your payment into euros and charging the markup from the section above.

Should you get euros before you go?

You do not have to. Cash machines in Portugal give euros, and one national network covers the country.

MULTIBANCO, the national cash machine network run by SIBS, says its machines allow withdrawals of up to €400 a day, around the clock. If you buy euros at home instead, the seller’s rate has a markup too. We have no dated source for what US banks or airport desks charge, so we print no figure for it.

Before you fly, do two things:

1. Ask your bank for its foreign transaction fee and for its fee at a cash machine outside its network.
2. Find the first number in the markup table above. That row is your cost of paying in euros.

Are there ATM fees in Portugal?

Portuguese law bars banks from charging a direct fee for a cash machine withdrawal. Your bank at home is outside that law.

Article 2 of Decreto-Lei 3/2010 bars credit institutions from charging any direct fee for banking operations at cash machines, and it names withdrawals. We read the consolidated version on the Diário da República site on 5 October 2026, where the act is marked as in force.

Two limits apply to that sentence:

• The law binds institutions in Portugal. It does not bind your bank at home, which can still charge its own fee for a foreign withdrawal.
• The article names credit institutions. We found no official page that says how it applies to a cash machine run by a company that is not a bank. A conversion markup has to be on the screen before you confirm, so read the screen and cancel if you do not like it.

Should you carry cash, and what is the best currency to take?

Take euros, or a card that gives you euros cheaply. No other currency helps you in Portugal.

For cards, article 3 of the same Portuguese law bars the business you pay from charging you extra for using a particular payment instrument. So a shop that takes your card may not add a card fee of its own.

Limits of this page. We have no official figure for how many shops and restaurants take foreign cards, so we cannot tell you how much cash you need. We found no official rule that sets a tip, so this page gives no tip amounts. Our Porto menu decoder covers what the law says about the bread and olives that arrive before you order.

Plan the rest of the trip

Money is one line of the plan. For what a trip costs, use the Porto cost calculator, which prices lodging, transport and sights from dated sources, and start from the Porto guide if that is your base. For mobile data, see our eSIM price comparison for Portugal. For timing, Portugal in November ranks 10 cities on weather and crowds.

Compare eSIM prices