just wondering?
Do European ATMs give 20E bills?
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Yes.
And 10 and 50 and 100.
so you can choose? In Canada and from all my US experiences, it's always 20s.
No you can't choose. You'll get whatever the machine (or the bank) has decided you'll get. But I will say that in the US while it is usually all 20's (my bank's ATM used to give you 4 50's when you asked for $200 -- go figure), in Europe you often get a bit of assortment of several denominations -- but not always.
The pattern seems to vary from one country to another. In Ireland, I have never received a €100 note (and they are not much in circulation here); in Austria, I received nothing else (obviously I asked for amounts in multiples of 100); in France, some ATMs seem to have nothing higher than €20s; in Hungary, they don't deliver euros at all.
This another case where there is no general answer about "Europe". But I am fairly confident that if you request an amount like €220 anywhere in the eurozone you will get at least one €20 note (unless the machine is out of them).
In Greece i always get 20 or 50€. Never 10€ or 100€!
As Padraig mentioned here as well you don't see 100€ very often and 500€ ..well i've only seen it twice and it was weird having all this money in just one note!!
It really does vary, but most of the ones I used will give you some amount in 20 euro notes, if necessary (ie, if you want 120 euro, you'll get one 20 euro note at least). I have never encountered one that only gave 20 euro notes, they always have given me 50 euro notes to the extent possible. I've encountered several, probably most, that would not allow you to put in an amount that would require a ten euro note (ie, no 190 euro withdrawals).
It's a problem as you often want notes smaller than 50 euro, but the only way to insure that you'll get at least two is to put in 140 euro or something like that.
In August when I requested 250 I got all 50s in Venice and all 20s in Eze, France.
If you want small bills, ask for 190E instead of 200E.

Ira here they don't accept a request of 190€.. only 180€ or 200€ so probably they don't put 10€ notes in the machine.
I think here in Spain the machine first gives 100 and 50 euro notes (if possible) and when it runs out of them..begins to give 20 and 10

If I want to be sure it gives me 20 euro notes..I ask for 40..and then again 40 more...it's a bit slower but it works
In Luxembourg, the ATMs even give 5 notes.
French ATMs only give 10 & 20€ or 10, 20 & 50€.
That was supposed to be 5€ for Luxembourg.
For people (like me) who are charged a $5 fee for every use of a foreign ATM, we can't use that method of repeated small transactions. Just try to use the 100 Euro bills at large establishments or for a significant dinner bill or for your hotel bill.
Sometimes, you'll get a menu with suggested amounts, but there is usually "other" on the menu, whereupon you can request a specific amount.
Its' funny but I find that shopkeepers here in the US are much more adverse to large bills than in Europe. I get a lot of 50's in Europe from ATM's and have never had anyone bat an eye when I pull one out for a 1.80 euro coffee at a bar, for example. Pull out a $10 bill here at Starbuck's for a $3 coffee and they'll often ask "do you have ones or a five instead?"
That's the opposite of my experience. Several times in France and Italy I was asked for something smaller or for exact change, until I was reprogrammed.
But it doesn't happen to you in the US? I generally only have 20's in the US and it happens to me all the time here. But in Europe I mainly have 50's after a trip to the ATM and rarely get asked for anything smaller. And I don't think I've ever been asked for anything smaller when pulling out a 20 euro note.
In the last six months in Germany I ran into at least a dozen ATMs that gave me a choice of which denominations I wanted. Generally though they gave me a combination from 5 to 20 euro notes with a total withdrawal of 370 euros (my daily limit).
I've never seen that. So you mean after you punch in the amount you want, you get a screen showing different combinations of how it can be issued? Or is their a list of denominations and you type in the number of each one you want?
I guess occasionally I get asked for something smaller in the US, but I so rarely use a large bill for a transaction there that I can't really say.
"In Luxembourg, the ATMs even give 5 notes."
In Belgium too, though to get 5s you have to have an account with the bank whose ATM you are using. My bank even lets me choose the notes that I want when withdrawing money from their ATMs (i.e. the number of 5s, 20s and/or 50s).
For 100€ I usually get 1x50€ + 2x20's + 1x10€
Last year in Germany and Austria I would pull out 300 Euros at ATM's every few days and I always got 2-100's 1-50 2-20's and a 10
Old ATMs only dispensed a single denomination and required new bills. Over the past decade or so newer ATMs have been developed that can not only handle several denominations of bills but can dispense bills that don't have to be uncirculated. So you get a better selection of bills, but they are a bit tattier than they used to be.