Yesterday a friend of mine in Hungary called a mutual friend of ours here in the USA, and told her that the Euro is starting to be used more and more in Hungary, and that by May of this year it will be the only currency allowed to be used in Hungary. We will have to use the Euro to buy or pay for anything. But I just read The Budapest Sun Paper online the other day, and it said the Euro will not go into use in Hugary until around 2008! Is this true? Please help me, as I really need to know how much I need to save for my trip there in early June. I'll be there for a little over six weeks, so I really have to budget this trip big time. The dollar is not doing good now against the Euro. Thank you very much for any help. Bela', in Hungary are you still out there? Please help me! Thank you again. Alice.. 'Alizka"

I can't answer your question specifically, but I'm trying to figure out what difference it makes. Do you somehow think that if you have to pay in euro it will cost you more than if you paid in their old currency? Surely the exchange rate will be comparable between the two. Your budget should not be affected at all!

I would guess that there was some miscommunication of the facts here. While Hungary is one of 10 states slated to be inducted into the EU in May, the earliest the euro could become the sole currency is 1 Jan, 2008 - and that is still being ironed out -- could be more like 2010.

supporting info:

http://www.interfax.com/com?item=Hun...03024&req=

I agree with Patrick,

and I also agree with KS452 about the dates,

but ultimately what's the difference?

Today E$1 will get you US$1.22
E$1 = 251HUF
US$1.22 = 251HUF

For me it would make a difference Because once they know they can use the euro, the prices double or triple! I went to many shops who said oh you can use the euro if you don't have any forints. I asked them how much would it cost in the euro, they would tell me anywhere in the price range of $15.00 to $20.00's. And in the forint it cost only 1,000, and the exchange rate was 210 forint to the USA dollar last year. That would make it only $4.76. NOT $15.00- $20.00's. If that happened every time I had to use the euro it would make a big difference for me. The higher it cost in the forint they more they raised the price in euro.Even Hotels were doing it too. This happened to me in many shops and with street vendors too. So I made sure to always have the forint on me. I used my Euro's in Austria. Thank you everyone for your help. Also If I had known I was going to lose my job before I bought my airline ticket, I would never had planned for a six week trip. Thank you very much again. I'm not cheap! I just have to watch my budget much more now. I'm very sorry if I offended anyone, I didn't mean to. Alice

Alice,
I knew exactly what you were going to say. It is true that the "Euro" has raised rates all over Europe. I seem to recall several "Euro" countries being very upset when this first happened, but...

The other thing is that I find that vendors sometimes try to take advantage of people who want to pay in things like Dollars or Euros. Your stories are PRIME examples of that. Baiscally they figure if you have these currencies you don't know local customs and see what they can get away with.

Americans are notorious for this "They take Dollars here!" Look at the exchange rate in some of those nice stores that take Dollars! It is amazing!

A store will charge you more if you're using a non-official currency. Like you can often use Canadian $ in more stores in the U.S. near the border, and vice versa, and they will definitely charge you more, as they're providing you a service for your convenience.

However, once a country formally adopt Euro, then the prices will be the same as before, more or less. The local Hungarians have to use them too, and they haven't just got richer overnight.

So, unless there's some radical changes in International monetary happenings, it doesn't matter much for a tourists. The Euro and can rise or fall, and the Forint can rise or fall between now and your travel against the US Dollar. There's no way of predicting.

The only places that may quote you in Euros even now is hotels. I was booking hotels in Prague late last year, and basically all booking sites quoted me in Euros.

I think hotels in Prague quote euro prices just because so much of their clientele uses euro, so it's good for listing.

I've been in Budapest several years ago, and even then many stores in the main area would accept other currencies than the forint (USD, Austrian schillings, etc) because the forint is not a hard currency and they were glad to get something else. I imagine they might have charged a markup for that, just like any place that accepts a foreign currency. So, I imagine your friend just meant more and more places are accepting the Euro, not that it is an official currency. I think your friend may actually not know that when a country becomes part of the EU, the euro does not automatically become the official currency. There are certain fiscal requirements that have to be met, I believe. The Czech Republic isn't going to be using the euro right away, either, and I've seen estimates of that from 2007-2009.