Travelling to Egypt

Discussion
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Travelling to Egypt soon. Has anyone used Revolut over there?

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Officially, Revolut supports both spending and withdrawing money in Egypt, but I could not find any previous thread on egypt here on the community page.

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Thanks for that. I guess Iā€™ll just have to give it a tryā€¦

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I thought Iā€™d report back from my journey:

It should be noted that Egypt is very much a cash society - I knew that in advance. (Which is weird, because they also have a severe cash shortage - especially of smaller denominations, which leads to most shops not being able to give you correct change, but thatā€™s a different story.) Card payments are only accepted in the larger shops, and even then they look at you like you are an alien when you get out your card, and need to get a supervisor to ask for instructions how to use their card machine.

I did manage to use the card twice for card payments. I could not get the card to work at any ATM. (Not that I really intended to use it for cash withdrawals, due to the low limits, but I wanted to try anyway.) I also have a Monzo card, and was able to use this much more, including at most ATMs.

So, in general I would say Revolut is very poorly supported in Egypt.

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Thanks for your feedback. I hope Revolut will take actions regarding Egipt as this is one of most popular holiday destinations for poorer part of Europe (central and east).

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Well, quite frankly I am not too sure how much Revolut can do here:

The main issue is that Egypt is so cash based. Therefore, card usage is uncommon, and even in shops that allow card payments staff is largely untrained in how to use their machines. (In at least two cases I am convinced that the payment was refused because even the store manager couldnā€™t figure out how to use the machine. This was somewhat amusing to watch, to be honestā€¦)

While it was disappointing that Revolut was less well supported than Monzo, the real issue is that you simply need cash in Egypt, and Revolut isnā€™t a good option for cash withdrawals, due to the low usage limit, and ā€œpenaltyā€ for weekend transactions.

So, the main problem is really that I couldnā€™t withdraw cash from ATMs with Revolut, as card payments arenā€™t something that you can expect to do with any regularity. And for cash withdrawals there are better (i.e. cheaper) options than Revolut anyway, thus this is largely academic.

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Yeah, not much can be done except to keep up with monzo quality in regarding matter you mention.

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Iā€™ve just arrived in Egypt now and found for ATMs the best chance of success is to use Bank of Egypt and Credit Agricole ATMs. As Egypt is so cash based and no one takes cards - you are better to take cash with you and change it here for the best rates

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I spent a lot of time in Egypt and found there were only two banks that allowed me to withdraw cash:

*QNB Bank
*Alexbank

All other ATMs would just spit out the card and not read it at all or cancel the transaction at some point, even the aforementioned Bank of Egypt and Credit Agricole.
Withdrawals at QNB and Alex were free within Revolut limits. However, they are not the most common banks around so it was quite bothersome sometimes.
Also in many places the card payment terminals wouldnā€™t accept the card and deny transactions. Definitely not the best Revolut country.

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Visit Egypt every year and originally born there. Used the my Revolut in Egypt for the first time in December 2018.
As mentioned above Egypt is very cash based but you should be fine in most shopping malls. I used my card to withdraw cash at various ATMs (including random stand-alone ones that charge). I got buy with around EGP3000 cash (~Ā£150) for a week, the rest all on card payments.
If you are concerned, I would withdraw your cash limit (or the max you want to spend) at the first ATM that works and go from there.

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Just back from Makadi Bay in Hurghada. My revolut card did not work in the Back of Egypt ATMā€™s there.

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I was in Hurghada and Cairo April. Firstly, I was surprised that I was able to use Uber and it was way cheaper than getting a cab on the street. Secondly, I was able to pay in all shops and take the money from ATM. I used Revolut for all transactions.

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Currently in Hurghada, just want to give an update on the ATM situation as I experience it.

At the airport long line at the currency exchange counter before passport control, so decided to try my luck and hopefully find some ATMs in the arrival hall.

Indeed there are 3, one is Bank of Egypt, decided that one might work best and it did, only it didnā€˜t contain enough cash for my request, so it cancelled the transaction, and I only wanted 800 EGP, which is about CHF 100.ā€”

Then tried the ATM from Banque Misr and there I got the 800 EGP in 200 EGP bills.

Maybe Iā€˜m trying again at the ATM here in the hotel in Makadi Bay if I need some more cash and will update then.

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At our hotel (Sunwing Waterworld Makadi) there is an ATM in the Lobby from National Bank of Egypt and since I had a hard time to get smaller change from even 100 EGP I tried to only get 20 EGP from the machine. I gave me 2 10 EGP so this is perfect to get smaller bills for tipping.

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Strange! I use Revolut every day in Egypt its the only card I use here. I pay everywhere and withdraw money from almost all banks and no issue at all. only some ATMs will not accept it or will charge additional fees! I would say in my three month plus here in Egypt I saved 100ā€™s of Euros on fees if I was using my usual bank account.

The only downside here is if you lose your Revolut card there is no way you can get replacement as Egypt is not in the list of countries where they will be sending you a replacement card.

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Hi, so the solution is to load my Revolut card with GPD, then i withdraw EPD they exchange automatically from ATM? Thank you so much for helping

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I have been to Egypt several times and I donā€™t want to go there anymore. In reality, apart from the pyramids, there are not so many attractions.

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I suggest you check trip advisor , there are many many places and stuff to do it Cairo more that only going to see the pyramids

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thank you in the name of the poorer part of Europe

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Hi everyone,
Despite not being able to convert your money into EGP, can you pay for Ɯber with revolut? Also, from which account does it deduct the money and what is the conversion rate?
Thanks for your replies!