Is it really cash only in Germany/Austria?
 

My husband and I will be travelling to Berlin for 4 days in September and will spend another 8 days after that touring Nurnburg, Munich, Salzburg. My guide books, which are a couple of years old, suggest that restaurants, taxis, etc do not take credit cards. If you have travelled to Germany/Austria recently, I am asking if you found this to be true? Do merchants in Germany and Austria deal in cash only? I have noticed "Cash only" has been stated on some restaurant websites.

LOL

That's hilarious! This is not true of course!

https://www.thelocal.de/20190507/car...ime-in-germany

It's true however that some vendors accept only cash. Always have cash with you, which is a good idea anywhere, not only in Germany.

Good Lord, what guidebooks are you reading? Please tell us so that we can avoid them.

Of course there will always be some establishments, in any country, that prefer or insist on cash only, but does anyone seriously think that advanced economies like those of Germany and Austria generally take cash only????

Always have some cash on you, of course, but jeeeeeeez!

Our experience is that Germany tends to be more cash oriented. The heavy tourists areas generally will be more credit card friendly. Always ask and do not make the assumption that a credit card is accepted. And there are often a min set for credit card usage. As long as you check before hand, you will be fine.

Thank you! Your responses are helpful!

I was in Germany recently in June.
This subject lacks context. This is not an all or nothing; always or never matter. It depends on with whom you are dealing with. Comparatively speaking, German shops of similar sizes seems to be more (not exclusively) cash only. Even when they do take credit cards, it felt like it was a fall back position. At restaurants, when I mentioned I wanted to pay with a credit card, unlike in other countries where they would bring a handheld cc machine, in Germany I was asked to physically walk to a cash register and complete the transaction with a credit card.
If you are reading guidebooks targeted to budget travelers, they probably list budget businesses who are more likely to be cash only.
It also depends on whom who ask -- The Blind Men and an Elephant moment.
If you are not carrying sufficient cash to complete transaction in case they really don't take cash, ask before you enter into a transaction so that you can opt out or hit an ATM before doing a business.
>>> As long as you check before hand, you will be fine.
Even dealing with a tourist oriented shop that normally takes credit cards, you might also need cash. I was in a shop in Munich and none of my three credit card would work on neither of their two credit card machines. All my cards worked before and after visiting this shop. None of my bank reported blocking the cards. It appeared it was something wrong with their credit card processor, nevertheless, I did not have time to come back to this store, so I ended up having to use most of the Euro cash at hand.
We were in Vienna one time, and the restaurant happened to be cash only. The Americans sitting next table did not realize this and there was no other way to pay. So, one of the diner had to walk back to his hotel and come back 30 minutes later with enough cash.

We lived in Austria (Vienna) for 7 years before returning to the U.S. a couple of months ago. Hands down, cash was always preferred no matter to where we roamed, and in most places was the accepted norm. This said, in the tourist cities to where you will be traveling, credit cards will generally be accepted (AmEx, not so much) in restaurants and larger shops. Still, don't be surprised if dining or shopping in a smaller place to learn that the credit card machine is, "broken" or that the owner only accepts cash.

Our experience was similar to greg's. We were there this past summer and the year before and we were actually very surprised at how cash-centric Germany in particular was. We found this particularly true in restaurants in Bavaria. We saw many of the servers wearing cash belts and either they took credit cards reluctantly or not at all. We also found many of the gas stations (off the autobahn since we almost always fill at cheaper stations) would only take cash. Of course though we had no problems using credit cards at hotels large store etc.

We found Austria much more credit card friendly at restaurants at least in Vienna.

We've run into so many restaurants and shops in Germany, Austria (and even the odd restaurant in Switzerland) that will not take credit cards, that we now pay with cash when traveling in those countries.

Hotels, ticket kiosks, etc will take credit cards of course, but you may be surprised with how many other businesses will not.

When in doubt, ask.

Bavaria is very much cash only. Munich has more places that will take a credit card. Oktoberfest is cash. We pay cash.

"Due primarily to a desire for privacy and a passionate fear of debt, Germans have historically preferred to pay with cash. Card payments allow financial institutions and potentially others to monitor where your money is being spend, which is something that reminds Germans of the slippery slope of a surveillance state.

German distaste for debt has halted the rollout of credit card payment in the country – the German word for debt ‘Schuld’ also means guilt – meaning that even if you wanted to pay with credit card it would be difficult."


https://www.thelocal.de/20190507/car...ime-in-germany

thursdaysd--That was our experience with our lodgings. We stayed at 4 places on our trip and 3 of them gave us a "discount" if we paid cash, which we did.

If you want to pay gas/petrol with credit card in Germany, use stations belonging to a large chain, like Aral, Shell, Esso, BP etc. Small local stations often don't take cards, or only German Girocard system, which is supposed to work with Maestro debit card.

Well, I live in Germany and I prefer to pay by card.

Any type of "chain store" - which can be anything from chain supermarkets, chain apparel stores or chain restaurants - will most be most likely to accept cards, regardless of the amount.
Department stores will always take credit cards.
Any stores or merchants or eateries within a mall complex is supposed to take cards.
Places where you can almost never pay by card: Small cafes, ice cream parlors, wurst, döner or any type of take-away stands or eateries, farmers markets, and kind of temporary "market", like Christmas markets.
Museums or sights are hit and miss - likelyhood decreases from well-known to small, obscure. Those places which charge only a nominal entrance fee of 2 or 3 euros are not likely to accept cards.

Restaurants are totally random hit and miss.
For example, my next door Vietnamese restaurant (decent size, no "hole in the wall") takes only cash; the tiny Korean BBQ eatery takes cards. As said before: Ask when you enter - it's also pretty common for German customers to ask if they don't have or want to use cash. The waitstaff will be very much used to it.

Independent shops are hit and miss. This includes souvenir shops - don't ask why.

Taxis - depends on municipality. In Berlin, for example, licensed taxis must take cards, it's part of the license obligations.
Public transport - ticket machines are likely to accept cards, but as cashless payment for tickets is now possible by app, it can happen that some machines won't get upgraded.
Long distance travel - Deutsche Bahn ticket machines always accept cards.
Parking garages - hit and miss.

NB: Whenever you can pay with cards, especially at machines, you must have a chip+PIN or NFC card.

P.S. One reason why especially restaurants seem be totally random hit and miss cannot be explained with transaction fees (which are just nominal nowadays, and the restaurants also pay their local banks to process cash) or a dislike of German customers to pay by card. It has more to do with tax evasion...

I've traveled to Germany a couple of times in June. One of which we stayed in a remote hostel in the Bavarian region. I wouldn't have been surprised if they didn't accept cards, as it was old and in the middle of nowhere, but they were fully advanced regarding technology and cards weren't a problem. I agree with everyone before me who says that you need to ditch those guidebooks. Everywhere I went card was the only way I paid for services.

I think many places accept debit cards but not credit cards. Like the Dutch the Germans don't like credit cards much and tend not to use them, and the many shops don't accept them. we have a perfectly good European wide debit card system and last month in Germany we paid for everything by debit card apart from one campsite which was cash only. We did however carry cash with us just in case, something we never do at home. If I have a couple of euros in my purse that is unusual.

This thread reminded me that we've paid cash for accommodation in Germany too. In Dresden our accommodation didn't accept credit cards - in lieu of a bank transfer, the owner asked us to send a check in US funds, which he held as a deposit until our arrival, then we paid in cash. And the owner of an apartment in Nurnburg allowed us to pay cash upon arrival instead of sending a bank transfer (at our request).

We do this routinely in Switzerland too (for privately owned apartments).

I must be in the minority. My money market account charges me zero fees for cash so have no problem pulling out cash and spending it. Major hotels we pay with card but we have already paid for our apartment via paypal for upcoming Germany trip, we have used booking.com for hotels but eating out and bars, buying groceries and other items we pay cash. I will look and see if southern Bavaria has changed since our last visit. I will always have cash for the vendors at markets and small shops.

There is a HUGE difference between some server "reluctant to take" a credit card and one who absolutely won't.

Reading everyone's experiences has been very helpful, and I will definitely have euros before leaving USA, and I need to make sure my bank card works for withdrawing from a 24 hour bank machine (it should). We like to go to local eateries rather than chains, and many of the local German restaurant websites state "cash only." I am very surprised by this. Can't remember the last time I used cash to pay for a restaurant meal. I have a debit card and have not used it for years. I am glad to have this info before leaving! It did not cross my mind that credit cards are shunned by merchants in Germany! This is useful information to know. Thanks to everyone who responded.

Germany is pretty cash oriented. Been caught out a number of times in restaurants because I assumed they would take cards. Always ask.

It's not a scam. In Germany generally, there is also much more awareness about privacy and accessibility issues in the economy.

I traveled to Germany before and didn't know about this issue so I guess I was just lucky to end up in the places that did accept card payments. Have fun exploring Germany!

<< It's not a scam. In Germany generally, there is also much more awareness about privacy and accessibility issues in the economy. >>

In this case, I believe she was scamming me. The night before the cc machine was working just fine in the restaurant where many people were dining. So it would have been difficult to refuse everyone's cc. However, the next morning when I was one of a very few people staying there, the cc machine upstairs was not working. I had previously read about this happening to avoid taxes and cc fees.

Although not in Germany, it was in Austria so still very close by. I honestly don't believe it had anything to do with privacy since she said the cc machine was not working, she never said said anything about privacy nor accessibility.

I was just in Berlin and used my CC most of the time. I don't remember any place that was cash only (restaurants or museums). Of course my hotel took a CC, they couldn't stay in business if they didn't, but it was a regular big hotel. I did pay cash to a taxi which I just used arrival and departure, but I usually do that, I don't remember if they would take CCs or not. I never bought anything small from a small vendor, if I did, I'd pay cash, but I never did that. I bought a Berlin Welcome card so just used that for transportation and never had to buy any other tickets for that. The TI took a CC to buy it.

I bought some wine and minor food items at a large store, they took CCs for sure. That was the Galeries Lafayette food section, though.

It would be odd if they only took cash when you have some Scandinavian countries that refuse to take cash (which I think is discriminatory, but they do it). But you never know, one reason business don't like taking cash (in those countries) is that it cuts down on crime and security and other costs a lot when you aren't dealing with lots of cash on your premises (not to mention having to take it to the bank).

I was only in the main part of Berlin, true, not some rural area.