I live in Germany, and none of the shops in my small village accept credit cards. The larger town about 15 minutes from here has many stores that do not accept them, but also many that do. If we travel to one of the more touristy areas, most places will accept them for purchases over 30 euros, unless the items you are purchasing are discounted.

By the way, to find our nearest 24 hour gas station, we must drive to the autobahn and go several kilometres (about 25 minutes away).

Good heavens, where <b>do</b> you live, Heather? :-)

With regard to ATMs and banks you will most likely have branches of two chains of banks even in smaller places:

1. &quot;Postamt&quot; (Post Offices) with Postbank ATMs
2. &quot;Sparkasse&quot; (also as Stadtsparkasse or Kreissparkasse) which is the German equivalent of your Savings&amp;Loans Banks
3. &quot;Volksbank&quot; or &quot;Raiffeisenbank&quot;

Historically, you will find those often in the town or village center, and not on the outskirts.

The German word for ATM is &quot;Geldautomat&quot;.

For the first two villages you mentioned in Northern Hesse, you will find an ATM in either one. Neighboring Hessisch Lichtenau (3-5 miles) will be the town to go for 24/7 gas stations, or for major supermarkets/ shopping centers. But don't expect the local pub in Laudenbach to accept CCs ;-)

Thanks all for your very helpful insights. Guess we can safely assume CC will be useful in Berlin and Frankfort but ATMs will be the go-to method in smaller towns.

Special thanks to Cowboy with your information on ATMs in Northern Hesse. This is a &quot;roots&quot; trip and Lichtenau is actually one of the places we will stop to see former home of Grosseltern. Now we know we can look forward to some amenities there.

Danke!

Actually CC use in Germany is a problem but itld really 's not one that would really affect tourists.

Some big electronic stores - like Media Markt won't take CC or will only take German issued ATM cards....same in some furniture stores/baby shops etc.

Same problem in the Netherlands. It's a real pain in the neck for us souls living in Belgium, as often I go to Germany or the Netherlands to buy electiacal goods or baby stuff or whatever and I have to bring wads of cash with me...which is also a pain as due to Nanny state banking laws here I can only take out so much money per week/month out of my account!

@Lawchick

My experiences are totally opposite! I live in the Netherlands and often go to Germany and Belgium to shop.

A few years ago, it was sometimes a problem to pay electronically with my debit-card (bank-card in the Neterhlands or EC-karte in Germany).

In recent years almost all the stores (in Germany, Belgium and other EU-countries) accept my debit-card with Maestro-logo. Especially the big onse like Media Markt. Sometimes I have to give in my PIN-number, sometimes I have to give an autograph.

Do you a have special kind of account? Or is it maybe a problem of Belgium bank-card (Bancomat)?

Back on-topic:
IMO most large stores (escpicially chain-stores) and restaruants/hotel etc in Germany do accept CC. Sometime you do have to show some extra identification.

Most stores/restaurants/hotels etc also accept debit-cards for electronic payments. Your card has to have a Maestro-logo.

It is certainly not necessary to carry around a lot of cash!

I lived in Stuttgart for the last 2.5 years and quickly got used to the fact that many smaller restaurants, shops, and hotels did not take credit cards. I believe it is partly a cultural thing: Germans don't like the idea of buying things on credit. We never had a problem since we had a German bank account and used our bank card (EC Karte) for the vast majority of our daily transactions. (traveller1959, this is what people are referring to as a debit card, so I think you will agree that they are far more commonly used in Germany than credit cards.) I only rarely used my American bank debit card to get cash from ATMs, so I don't know if we would have run into any trouble using it for purchases.

It's true that most larger stores and hotels in big cities will take credit cards, but you can imagine our shock when we made one of our first shopping runs at Ikea and discovered that they didn't take credit cards! We practically maxxed out our German bank account since we had only just arrived in the country.

bedorah, I think your assumptions are fine. Of course it's a good idea to know what form of payment your hotels will accept ahead of time, and always have some cash on hand.

I am living in Cologne while working in Merkenich. I've been here 6 weeks now and several times a cashier has refused a Visa and Mastercard! This is in big shops like Saturn (electrical appliances), medium size stores etc.
The landlady we rent our apartment from said "most Germans use a cash card/debit card or cash, you can always try a creditcard but be prepared with a debit card/cash back-up"
Funny thing though, is that if you shop online and have goods delivered, creditcards from the same shops are accepted (I tried Saturn for a Toaster, a laundry Iron and Water Filter Jug). So now I make sure I have enough cash when I go out, or look for the nearest ATM.

Forgot to add, one shop Rewe I think, accepted my creditcard but wanted to see my passport.