Daniel is a made-up traveller from Vancouver with a rail pass, a reusable water bottle and a worry. His itinerary reads Paris, Prague, Zurich, London. Four cities, and when he goes through the booking confirmations he realises he’ll need to pay in three different currencies. He assumed Europe was “the euro”. It’s not quite that simple, and the gaps are where the money leaks.
So let’s ride along with him and see where the rules change. Daniel is invented, and the euro and koruna rates in his story are illustrative, not quotes.
First, who actually uses the euro?
As of 1 January 2026 the euro area has 21 members, after Bulgaria adopted the currency that day (Al Jazeera). Paris is easy: euros. The same goes for Berlin, Rome, Madrid, Lisbon, Athens, Dublin and the rest of the euro area.
Six EU members still run their own currencies: Czechia, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Sweden. Switzerland, Norway and the UK aren’t in the EU at all and keep theirs too. So the correct mental model isn’t “the EU equals the euro”. It’s “most of western and southern Europe uses the euro, and several neighbours don’t”.
| Country | Currency (code) | Where Daniel meets it |
|---|---|---|
| France and euro-area countries | Euro (EUR) | Paris |
| Czechia | Koruna (CZK) | Prague |
| Switzerland | Franc (CHF) | Zurich |
| United Kingdom | Pound (GBP) | London |
| Sweden, Denmark, Poland, Hungary, Romania | SEK, DKK, PLN, HUF, RON | Not on this trip |
To get a feel for sizes before he leaves, he checks CAD to EUR and writes the rough number on the back of his hand. Rates refreshed hourly, so he can check again at the station.
Paris: cards are normal, but a little cash helps
Euro notes and coins are legal tender in all 21 member countries, so a single stash of cash works from Dublin to Sofia, and leftover euros from one stop spend perfectly well at the next. In the euro area, card payments are routine, and a phone tap is often quicker than finding coins. How much cash do you need? That varies by country and even by neighbourhood, and I can’t give a clean rule that holds across 21 countries. Hungary is a case in point on the other side of the line, where one 2026 travel roundup says markets and smaller places can still lean on cash. The sensible plan is a modest cash buffer for bakeries, public toilets and street markets, and cards for the bulk.
There’s a European rule worth knowing about. EU regulation on cross-border payments, adopted in 2019, requires anyone offering currency conversion at an ATM or card terminal to show the total conversion charge as a percentage mark-up over the latest euro foreign-exchange reference rates from the European Central Bank, before the payment starts (EUR-Lex). The text was later codified as Regulation 2021/1230. A caution: the rule is written around payment providers and terminals in the EU, so a card issued in Canada may not trigger the same text-message reminders the regulation describes for EU-issued cards. Don’t assume protection you haven’t seen on a screen.
Prague: where the trap is the helpful question
Czechia keeps the koruna. Daniel goes to an ATM in the old town. The machine offers two options: be charged in korunas, or in his home currency. The second looks friendlier. It’s usually the more expensive one.
Here’s an illustrative calculation. Say he wants 5,000 korunas and the fair conversion is 25 korunas to the euro (a made-up rate, to keep the maths clean). Then 5,000 / 25 = 200 euros of value. If the terminal’s own conversion adds a 6% mark-up (also made up), the same cash costs 200 x 1.06 = 212 euros. That’s 12 euros extra, for pressing the green button instead of the grey one. Add a machine fee and it grows.
It’s not purely hypothetical. In June 2026, the Czech outlet Seznam Zprávy reported on a case in which a tourist withdrew 1,000 euros at a Euronet ATM in Prague, the screen showed 1,003.95 euros including a 3.95-euro fee, yet about 1,175 euros was debited. The article attributes the difference to dynamic currency conversion, and says a Czech member of the European Parliament had put a question to the European Commission on the matter. Euronet’s local director rejected accusations of misleading customers and said the cancel option is on the screen. Whatever you think of the dispute, the lesson doesn’t need anyone to be a villain: read the screen, choose local currency, and compare the total shown with what your banking app later says.
Suppose Daniel had added Budapest. Ulysse’s roundup says euro prices in Hungarian tourist areas are a courtesy rather than a guarantee, and that accepting euros usually means a worse rate than paying in forints. The same habit applies across the other non-euro EU countries. The same roundup says Sweden is often card-only, Denmark pays almost everything by card, Poland is easy to do by card, and that in tourist areas an accepted euro often comes with a poor exchange rate. Those are travel-press generalisations, not guarantees, but they match the Riksbank’s own framing, where its 2025 payments report describes the Swedish payments market as almost entirely digital, with cash use continuing to decline.
Zurich: francs, and what happens when you offer euros
Switzerland has its own franc. A guide from MySwissAlps says many shops, hotels, rail stations and petrol stations accept euros, but not all, and many smaller shops, market stalls and kiosks take only Swiss francs. If you do pay in euros, your change typically comes back in francs, and the rate used is usually not in your favour. The same guide says credit and debit cards are widely accepted, and that franc ATMs are found in all towns.
For Daniel the logic is the same as everywhere. Pay in the local currency, let his bank convert. If he’s staying a week and spending day to day, one or two ATM withdrawals in francs will beat repeated euro purchases with francs given back as change. The pair to watch is CAD to CHF.
London: another currency, and less cash than you’d think
Last leg. The pound sterling is Britain’s currency. Any shop that takes euros anyway will set its own rate, so treat that as a convenience, not a deal. Cards and phones dominate. The UK Finance Payment Markets Report for 2025 data says cash made up 8% of all UK payments, debit cards 54%, and that 39% of payments were contactless, with more than six in ten adults registered for a mobile wallet. So Daniel can arrive with almost no pounds. The same principle holds: if a terminal asks about his home currency, he chooses pounds. For planning, CAD to GBP shows the day’s number.
The short list Daniel keeps in his phone
- Choose the local currency whenever a machine asks.
- Check the ATM’s fee on screen, and cancel if it looks odd.
- Expect cash to matter more in some places, and card to be the default in others.
- Keep one card in a separate pocket.
He steps off the train at St Pancras with an app that shows four currencies, one small stash of cash and a better understanding of why the button that says “your currency” isn’t always on his side. Fees and policies differ by bank and change over time, so check with your own provider before you go.
Sources
- Which countries will start using the euro in 2026? (Al Jazeera)
- Regulation (EU) 2019/518 on cross-border payments and currency conversion charges (EUR-Lex)
- Charges on cross-border payments in the Union and currency conversion charges (European Parliament Legislative Observatory)
- Za výběr z bankomatu zaplatila 4250 korun (Seznam Zprávy)
- Six EU countries where you’ll still need local currency in 2026 (Ulysse)
- Payments Report 2025: the Swedish payments market is almost entirely digital (Sveriges Riksbank)
- Swiss franc (MySwissAlps)
- Payment Markets Report 2026 summary (UK Finance)
Checked: November 2026
