They say “money’s honey” and they couldn’t be more right! But if your trip to Iran is around the corner and you are worrying about the currency differences and how many bucks you should have in cash on you, keep reading. You are in the right place.
What is the currency of Iran?
The official currency of Iran is Rial; also written as IRR. All the bank notes, banking transactions, money withdrawals from ATMs, paying for something with POSE and anything official or serious is done in Rial. Nothing complicated, right?
But the truth is, the locals do not usually use the official currency for their day-to-day payments. They use a second and more common currency called Toman. How should you tell the difference?
1 Toman = 10 Rials. As simple as that! In other words, if you omit the last zero on a price tag in Rial, you will get the Toman version. For example, a bottle of mineral water is 40,000 Rials which is 4,000 Tomans.
However, on your trip to Iran, you will soon realize that too many zeros are involved and may wonder how Iranians take care of all that. This is the part which can be confusing to you! People usually omit the thousand or million part of the price in their conversations. For instance, when you are told that you should pay 35 Tomans for your coffee, it actually means 35,000 Tomans.
When you wish to buy something make sure to ask the shop keeper whether their prices are in Rial or in Toman. If you have a local guide, you will not have to deal with this and get yourself puzzled, ask them to do it for you or ask people for help. They usually go out of their way to help a guest and make them feel welcomed.
A licensed English-speaking tour guide, who is a vegan just like you and has adequate information about Iranian cuisine, will accompany you throughout your trip. They can take you to shops and stores with vegan handicrafts and souvenirs, as well. You can also meet people who follow the same lifestyle as yours and make friends with them. Some of them are good artists and celebrities.
Using your card in Iran
Unfortunately, because of the ongoing sanctions against Iran, all the international debit cards such as VisaCard, MasterCard, PayPal are out of order in the country. So you cannot use your card in Iran apart from in a couple of carpet or handicraft stores in bazaars. But in a regular place, the card is useless which means you will have to bring cash to Iran. Feel free to cash a maximum amount of 10,000 Euros prior to your trip. But if you want to bring more, there is no problem. You should just declare it to the customs office at the airport and submit some relevant information.
If you don’t feel safe carrying big sums of money around with yourself, Journey2Iran can take care of that by getting you an Iranian debit card. There are some companies that prepare cards usable in Iran with the name of the traveller on it. If you get one, problem solved! You can easily pay for everything using your card in any shop, or if you feel the need to do so, you can withdraw money from an ATM machine that can easily and abundantly be found in each city and on every street.
Exchanging money in Iran
In each city, you can find currency exchange offices. You can search it online beforehand, or ask for them when you get to the city. There are always some bank branches or some small offices in each airport that can exchange your money for you. However, they are not recommended because of their noticeably high exchange rates.
Speaking of rates, something that would come in handy is knowing that the government has announced different currency exchange rates for different purposes. Do not be ripped off by mixing them up and have in mind that the open market rate is what is used. You can check any currency price online to make sure you are not ripped off.
The mentioned exchange bureaus can exchange many currencies for you including AUD, CAD, OMR, etc. But the most common ones are Euro and US Dollars. It’s recommended that the money you take to Iran with yourself is in one of these two.