Money in Ethiopia

Okay this subject is totally boring unless you’re planning a trip to Ethiopia. But for those who are planning a trip, this is super valuable information.

We took $2000 in US dollars. We changed over $200 USD at the Addis airport. The rest was changed over prior to shopping day. Since the hotel just keeps a running tab of food and drinks, there wasn’t a huge need for cash. We did use cash when we ate out and when we shopped at the grocery store. The day of money exchange, our travel group gathered together the money we wanted exchanged and Tesfaw (the driver hired by Holt) took all the money and had it exchanged. Our group had a little mishap when we realized that people were short ~$500 USD in birr. Since I had gathered the groups money, I was really nervous. Tesfaw took the envelopes with the wrong amounts back outside (we were eating lunch at the time) and got it straightened out. Besides that little mishap, it went great.

We exchanged more than enough money. My theory was to not have to exchange money again. With more than enough, we could pay our hotel bill in birr and if need be exchange money back to USD. We knew that we’d likely lose a little in the exchange rate but we thought it was worth it. Good theory, in theory. The problem that we ran into was the we didn’t have a receipt for the money exchange.

When we got through airport security, we were running short on time. Ryan had $500 USD worth of money to exchange back and headed off to do that. I went through the security to the gate and waited. As Ryan got to the exchange place, he quickly learned that without a receipt he could only exchange $150 USD worth of money on his passport. Being short on time and the fact that I was through the second security check and at the gate meant that we wouldn’t have time for me to go and exchange money with my passport. Tired, and ready to go home, Ryan did what he though best – he headed over to the duty free shop and purchased LOTS of Ethiopian stuff. It was wild. We are thankful for the Ethiopian stuff but would have preferred to exchange our money back.

So for those of you travelling. Take into consideration that you can only exchange $150 USD per passport. Maybe you can talk to Tesfaw (he’s a great guy) and tell him that you need a receipt or ask him about exchanging money a second time if need be. Doing so might remove some of the stress at the start of your trip back home.