Practical information Uganda - Money

Currency

The Ugandan currency is the Ugandan Shilling.

Cash

To make sure you are not spending more then nececery we recommend you to pay all small items (food, drinks, snacks, souvenirs, laundry, etc) in Ugandan shillings. You can change dollars, pounds and euro's everywhere in Uganda, but the best exchange rates are found in Kampala. It's good to have some us dollars with you at all times. You can pay hotels, activities, park fees with this and you can always exchange if an ATM is empty or out of order.

Important Notes

• In Uganda they do not except us dollars given out before 2001
• When you exchange money use big notes (50 or 100 us dollar). The exchange rate of smaller notes is much lower.
• Make sure notes are not cut, or damaged in any way. It will not be accepted.
• Euro's and Pounds have a good exchange rate. Don't change Euro's or pounds in dollars and change dollars to Ugandan Shillings later. You will lose a lot. Bring dollars for saferty and direct payments only.

Exchange rate

This was the exchange rate in January 2011.

Check the current exchange rates in the Ugandan news paper www.newvision.co.ug

ATM

There are ATM machines from Stanbic bank in all big trading centers or cities. In the big cities like Kampala, Mbarara and Jinja you can find several branches and many machines. In other towns normally only 1 ot 2 ATM machines are found and they may be out of money. Make sure you always have enough cash with you to cover 3 -4 days.

Traveler cheques

They are not common and only excepted in 2 banks in Kampala. They give you a very bad exchange rate for it. We do not advize you to bring this.

Credit Card

In some big hotels credit cards are accepted, but it is still not very common in Uganda. Charges are normally around 10%. Don’t use credit cards as your primary method of paying.