I’m italian. I like and prefer to use cards but in some places the merchants don’t want to take cards and request you to pay cash. I have been recently in the Netherlands and I returned with the same exact amount of cash I arrived with. Some places didn’t even take cash.
This situation made me think about all of those tourists who come in Italy and are requested to pay cash in some non touristic places. I have been multiple times in Spain and the only Place Who didn’t give me a receipt was italian.
We definitely have a tax evasion problem in Italy but does it affect tourism? I would like to know something from people who visited Italy and had problems with payments, if It happened
29 comments
In Germany Cash is King and the only way of payment you have to accept as a business. Of cause the younger generations prefer to pay by electronic means and it became more widespread during Corona, but the need to carry cash still exists
I don’t think it’s unusual in my country, The Netherlands. However, since our country is so well connected to fast internet cash payment is less preferred. Lots of people use a debit card, contactless payments or other forms of digital payments. Especially young people are comfortable to have use their smart phone as a payment device. Lots of small businesses prefer non cash payment for security reasons. Or the costs for having deposit money at the bank. However, for some businesses is the other way around. The prefer cash because renting a payment terminal will cost them to much money.
Almost all debit in my experience.
Cash can be used but in my experience is about 5% of people only.
3rd place would be credit card.
In Spain singe Covid practically every business accepts cards, even for 1€ purchases, shadier/less legal ones will offer to be paid via bizum. The receipt (scontrino) is not mandatory to be taken by the customer, but yes, as in Italy, paying cash without it going through a cash register with receipt is linked with tax evasion.
On the other hand, in France you could pay your daily baguette via check, up until some years ago (not sure if possible now)…
In Spain some restaurants are cash only, but every year there are less of them remaining. If you don’t have cash on you, is best to ask if they accept card before eating.
There are also a big number of taxis and small souvenir stores not accepting cards.
Apart of that, card is widely accepted. From the people’s side, it depends on the age. 50+ people uses cash more frequently, while people in their 20’s prefers the card always that is possible. If you live in a city, you can go cashless, at worst wearing 20-30 euros in cash just in case.
I found a reference to a study about the payment methods used in Finland:
> According to a consumer survey conducted by the Bank of Finland in the autumn of 2021, almost 90 percent of the respondents said that they mainly prefer card or mobile payment, and about eight percent use only cash to pay. Both payment methods are used by 3.4 percent.
My personal observation is that older people (60+) are more likely to use cash than younger.
Working in retail, I find that it’s around 50:50 whether someone pays with cash or card. There’s also usually a correlation between ones age and willingness to use a card. The older someone is, the more likely they are to use cash.
I personally went 100% card a decade or so ago, and there are very, very few occasions when I need to deposit some cash to the point where I dislike having any on me at all since I’m probably not going to use any of it, so I transfer it to my bank account asap.
in Latvia 90% of salary is recieved in bank account, so unless it is really necessary, people use their debit/credit cards.. especially younger people. even in a small shop during some festival, there will be possibility to pay by card.
In Estonia, you can use your bank card everywhere, be it with a phone or a physical card. Veery few places are cash only. I personally know 1-2 businesses that are cash only.
From my previous experience in working retail, the only ones who prefer cash are older folks and people who get their salary in an envelope, for tax reasons.
Also some apartment landlord may prefer to get the rent in cash, because tax reasons.
I myself use a card 99.9% of the time, I rarely carry cash with me.
it is not unusual at all. By the law you can’t refuse cash, but same law doesn’t have any penalty for not doing so. (but authorities also says they can use other laws in extreme cases, so these things don’t really happen anymore)
I’m in the UK and apart from the occasional takeout place and Lidl needing a £1 coin to use their trolleys (refunded on return), I can’t recall the last place I needed cash.
The UK and the Nordics are the countries least likely to use cash in 2019 according to https://www.statista.com/statistics/1112656/cash-use-in-europe-by-country/
It quite unusual, it’s mostly older people who uses cash. In Sweden cards and pay apps is king and we even got a lot of stores that doesn’t take cash at all.
Very unusual. I haven’t paid anything in cash for at least 3+ years, and regularily carrying cash around throughout a day in a wallet as a routine probably close to 10 years.
Cash is less common than card or mobile payment, and it’s not unusual for stores to not accept cash. If a store was only cash or preferred cash it would be a huge red flag for me, and I would suspect tax dodging or money laundering.
Even banks were starting to refuse to handle cash, but the was a law passed in 2019 which forced major banks to provide cash services.
In Finland, most everyday payments are either card or mobile ones. Only about eight percent use cash as their main method for payments. There are plenty of places that no longer accept cash at all, and that seems to be getting more and more common.
I think I’ve used cash this year maybe five or six times. Card & mobile are way easier, and accepted practically everywhere. Even the scouts selling their traditional advent calendars accepted cards.
Paying in cash feels sorta old-fashioned, even exotic nowadays 😀
It’s not unusual to pay cash. However, in Poland most of the time you can pay with card almost anywhere. There are some places which accept only cash, but it’s becoming rarer.
It is however unusual to pay the exact amount of money instead of just giving a 100 or 200 zlotys banknote. I work in a pharmacy and it annoys me so much when people carry only 100 or 200 zlotys banknotes. Sorry, but I don’t have an infinite amount of spare change… The worst clients/customers are those who come to buy something for a few zlotys and give a 100 zlotys banknote. Yeah, sure, I know you just want to change money and don’t need this 3,99 zloty cream or 9,99 zloty tablets ASAP. I’m not a f-ing ATM. Sometimes there’s also a person who comes in just to ask for a change without buying anything – I kindly say that I don’t have any spare change, but I wish I could say “I’m a pharmacy, not an ATM”.
Sometimes I can be saved by asking them to pay with a card, but if they don’t have a card, I have no choice. But it’s so much inconvenient. Imagine giving me 100 zlotys for something worth 20-something and I tell you that I unfortunately have only 100 zlotys banknotes, so we have a problem. Wait, YOU have a problem. Yesterday evening a situation like that happened and I had to go to the safe and change money because I was given the *n*-th 100 zlotys banknote.
I personally pay only with a credit card, which I don’t carry with myself because it’s on my phone. It makes things a whole lot more convenient.
(Slovenia) Not unusual at all, unfortunately. I would prefer if it was less normal, as it would mean that more places would have terminals to pay with my card. It can be annoying to go buy something and be unable to pay because “cash only”..
Still very much a thing in Austria. I personally pax 90 % with my debit card, but many people prefer cash.
In the UK most people probably pay by card. Only ones that use cash only are small shops and takeaways since they don’t want to pay fees and easier to launder or adjust cashbooks. Self service sometimes only have card options. Whenever I go to Mcdo around after school time since they usually have card self service kiosks and usually one person manned cash register, I usually see a line of school kids lining up because they only have cash.
There isn’t likely a service that wont accept card. Personally i can’t even remember the last time i’ve had cash on me. Every unofficial interaction can be done with mobile pay so cash is not needed.
I guess some people, mainly the elderly still pay with cash. It’s strange, we’re fairly typical Danes who only pay with mobilepay or card here in Denmark, but as soon as we drive south of the border, we use Euro cash.
We haven’t been to Italy since 2015, so things could’ve changed even in the places we’ve been to. I paid with card in…uhm some cosmetic wide chain store you have all over Italy, I believe, and had no problems with my card. Btw. because we travel by car, we’ve never been further than Piemonte. I think we paid with cash in most places, definitely in restaurants.
It’s still somewhat common to pay in cash, a very large chunk of our general population is elderly and really relies on actual physical money for the most part.
I still get random old people asking me for help on how to get money out of the ATM or how make simple utility payments that can be made through ATM, when I’m in line behind them.
In germany you can pay nearly everything cash.
Some things are cash only.
The U.K. is pretty cashless compared to other countries, it’s much more of a norm to pay by card than by cash. I pay by contactless virtually everywhere I go.
Not unusual at all. Electronic payment is evil witchcraft.
Norway is practically a cash less society and has been for years. Very few pay with cash, mostly older people, tourists and those few with a working bank account and card. Cash is seen as a bit dodgy in general.
I moved to germany in 2004 and was surprised how much cash is used, it felt like going back to the UK in the 80s. They still use cash everywhere, sadly. There are even some places that only take cash. I spend a lot of time in italy too. It is not a bad as germany for cash and shops are open on sundays so more like th uk in the 90s.
As someone who lived in Italy for a bit, I keep asking myself (thus why I`’m posting here) why can’t Italy make a law adding a 5-10% tax on cash withdrawals? It would affect certain small businesses, but it would also prevent the massive tax evasion that all landlords used when I was there. I saw people that could rent to six students and get paid in full cash (or make a fake dichiarazione di ospedalita’) by desperate foreigners, that’s a lot of money not going to the government for programs.
Cash is the main way you buy anything in Bulgaria. Only the big stores are guaranteed to have card payment, and outages are not that rare. If you want to buy anything from somewhere else, if you don’t have cash, then you had better ask about paying by card in advance.