A made-up traveller called Marisol has three weeks, one backpack and a route she drew on a napkin: Bangkok, Hanoi, Bali, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore. She’s from Melbourne, so her bank account is in Australian dollars. By the second country she’ll have noticed the pattern. Southeast Asia isn’t one money system. It’s five, with different notes, different cash habits and different ways to lose a few percent without noticing.
We’ll take her through them in order. Anything that depends on a rule or a fee is attributed to a source at the end, and where I couldn’t confirm something current, I’ll say so.
Bangkok: the flat fee that punishes small withdrawals
Marisol lands, finds an ATM, asks for 3,000 baht, and a screen tells her the machine charges a fee for foreign cards. That’s normal in Thailand. Guides updated in 2026 put the usual fee at around 220 to 250 baht per withdrawal, whatever the amount, with one chain’s machines lower at around 150 (The Longest Way Home). A 2024 guide from Wise also gave 220 baht as typical, and said the fee shows on the screen before you confirm. Treat those as indicative: the fee is set by the Thai bank, can change, and your own bank may add its own charge on top.
A flat fee means size matters. Per-transaction limits are commonly reported as somewhere between 20,000 and 30,000 baht, depending on the bank. So here’s the arithmetic, using the 220 baht figure as an illustration:
| Plan | Cash received | Fees (illustrative) | Fee as % of cash |
|---|---|---|---|
| One withdrawal | 20,000 baht | 220 baht | 1.1% |
| Four withdrawals | 4 x 5,000 = 20,000 baht | 4 x 220 = 880 baht | 4.4% |
Same cash, four times the fee. The catch is that a big withdrawal means a bigger wad to look after. Many people split the difference: one decent withdrawal, keep most of it locked in the room, carry a day’s worth.
One more habit. Sometimes the ATM or a shop terminal asks whether to charge in baht or in Australian dollars. Pick baht. The home-currency option is dynamic currency conversion, and Wise’s Thailand guide calls the rate it uses “nearly always poor”. You can check what 20,000 baht should cost with AUD to THB before you go to the machine.
In day-to-day Thailand, cards work at malls, 7-Eleven and many mid-range restaurants, but street food, small guesthouses and anywhere off the main tourist routes tend to want cash, says the same 2026 guide. Money changers exist on every tourist strip, and that guide advises sticking to genuine, well-known booths rather than look-alikes. Hedge accordingly: look at the board, then count your baht before leaving the counter.
Hanoi: more zeros, smaller limits
In Vietnam the first shock is arithmetic. The dong is quoted in tens of thousands to the dollar, so a coffee can cost 40,000 and a hotel night a million or two. Marisol learns to drop three zeros and then do the real conversion.
ATMs are where it gets fiddly. A Wise guide on Vietnam says banks there charge a fee per withdrawal and cap each one at a modest number of millions of dong, with limits tending to be lower outside the big cities. That page dates from 2017 and shows its age, so I won’t repeat its exact figures. The principle holds even if the numbers drifted: when each withdrawal is small, a fixed fee is a bigger slice.
An illustration with made-up numbers. Say a machine pays out at most 3,000,000 dong per transaction and charges 50,000 dong. That’s 50,000 / 3,000,000 = 1.7% of the cash, before your own bank adds anything. Ask her bank whether it reimburses ATM fees, and check what the screen says before pressing confirm.
For carrying cash across the border, Vietnam has declaration thresholds. A circular published by the State Bank of Vietnam sets them at USD 5,000 in foreign cash, or VND 15 million. The page I read couldn’t confirm the circular is still current, so check with Vietnamese customs before relying on it. To see the size of the numbers for yourself, try AUD to VND.
Bali: choose your money changer carefully
Indonesia’s rupiah has the same big-number feel, and Bali has the most famous money-changer problem in the region. Bank Indonesia has urged foreign tourists to exchange only at authorised changers, because unlicensed ones carry risks of fraud and counterfeit or damaged notes. It says to look for the “Authorized Money Changer” sign and the central bank’s logo or certificate with a QR code, and it points to the Authorizedmoneychanger.id website (Tempo, August 2022).
The trick to avoid is the one where a rate board looks wonderful and the staff do something with the counting. Count the rupiah yourself, slowly, at the counter. If the rate looks far better than the one next door, ask what the catch is. Our AUD to IDR page gives you the benchmark; rates refreshed hourly.
For ATMs, Wise’s Indonesia guide (last updated December 2024) says many bank-owned machines don’t charge their own access fee, non-bank operators might, and typical per-withdrawal limits run from about 1.25 to 3 million rupiah. Airport machines were described as pricey. Again: your home bank sets its own charges.
As for QR payments, Bali is pushing QRIS, the national system. The Bali Sun reported in April 2026 that visitors can pay by scanning with their home-country payment app, but also said the rollout is widest for travellers from neighbouring countries like Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore, and that Europe and Australia may be some way off. So an Australian shouldn’t count on it. Keep cash for warungs, scooter rentals and beach spots.
Kuala Lumpur: the ringgit stays home
She arrives in Malaysia with a plan: change money after landing, not before. There’s a reason. Bank Negara Malaysia has exchange control rules on how much ringgit cash travellers can carry in and out, and every traveller has to complete a declaration form. The only published guidance I could open dates from 1998, so I’m not quoting its thresholds. Check the current rules with Bank Negara Malaysia or Malaysian customs if you’re carrying anything sizeable, and don’t assume you can buy a stack of ringgit at home.
Everyday habits I couldn’t confirm to a standard I’d publish, so I’ll keep this general: use your card where terminals are obvious, keep a little cash for markets and kopitiams, and compare the ATM screen’s fee before agreeing. The converter is there to check the sums.
Singapore: the easy one, with one catch
After the previous four, Singapore feels like a different planet. Wise’s 2026 update says cards work for most everyday spending but recommends carrying some Singapore dollars, because hawker centres usually take only cash and while taxis often take cards, the guide says to check with the driver first. Some ATMs are free for foreign cards while others charge SGD 3 to 8, and limits typically run from about SGD 300 to 2,000 per transaction.
On a 300-dollar withdrawal, an SGD 8 machine fee is 8 / 300 = 2.7%, while an SGD 3 fee is 1%. Not a disaster, but avoidable if you check the screen. AUD to SGD covers the conversion.
The catch is for people carrying lots of cash. Singapore requires travellers entering or leaving with more than SGD 20,000 in physical currency or bearer negotiable instruments, or the foreign-currency equivalent, to file a cross-border cash movement report, which can be done online within 72 hours before arrival or departure (Singapore Police Force).
A short list of habits that travel
- Pick local currency whenever a machine offers to charge you at home.
- Take out larger sums less often where there’s a flat ATM fee, as long as you can keep the cash safe.
- Count notes at the counter, and use only licensed changers in Bali.
- Check cash-declaration limits before you fly with any large sums.
By the end she has a few leftover notes in five currencies and a fair idea of which counter she’d use again. Her main discovery wasn’t a clever trick. It was that the fee a machine shows, the rate on a board and the question on a terminal each take a different small bite, and she could see all three if she looked.
All fees, limits and rules here are as reported by the sources below in 2024 to 2026 and can change. Ask your own bank about its charges.
Sources
- Money in Thailand: 2026 Guide (The Longest Way Home)
- ATMs in Thailand: locations, fees, and tips (Wise)
- Circular 15/2011/TT-NHNN on carrying cash in foreign currency and Vietnamese dong (LuatVietnam)
- ATMs in Vietnam (Wise)
- Bank Indonesia Urges Foreign Tourists in Bali to Exchange Money in Authorized Money Changer (Tempo)
- ATMs in Indonesia (Wise)
- New digital payment system makes traveling in Bali easier than ever (The Bali Sun)
- Guide to the exchange control rules (Bank Negara Malaysia)
- Is it better to use cash or card in Singapore? (Wise)
- Cross-border cash movement reporting (Singapore Police Force)
Checked: November 2026
