Yes, everywhere. At whatever rate the shop feels like, which is the part nobody tells you.
Something I noticed within about an hour of arriving: anything official is priced in pounds and quoted in pounds, and the euro only appears where somebody has chosen to accept it. Parking at Casemates cost me £8.50 for eight hours through the app. The bus was £1.80 a single. The taxi rank quoted me £60 for a guided run up the Rock, dropping to £40 the moment I said I already had entry. Every one of those is sterling, and none of them was negotiable in euros.
Where the euro turns up is in the shops and the restaurants, on Main Street and around Casemates Square. That’s where you get to choose the currency, and where choosing badly quietly costs you. The full story of what it costs to get up the Rock is in getting around Gibraltar. The rest of what two days here cost, itemised from what we actually handed over, is in is Gibraltar expensive.
Does It Matter Which One You Pay In?
Yes, and it’s card where it bites hardest.
Pay cash in euros and the shop picks the rate. Pay by card and the machine asks whether you’d like to be charged in euros or pounds, and choosing euros hands the conversion to the terminal. That’s called dynamic currency conversion, and it’s never once in your favour.
Choose GBP every time. Your own bank will do that conversion at a much better rate than a card machine in a souvenir shop on Main Street, and it takes one extra second to press the right button.
What Currency Is Used in Gibraltar?
Gibraltar pounds are the local issue, and they’re legal tender only here. How much is 100 Gibraltar pounds? Exactly £100 sterling, because the peg is one to one. There’s no spread to lose and nothing to work out, which is honestly a relief.
The catch is where you can spend them. Gibraltar notes aren’t accepted in the UK, and they’re worth nothing the moment you cross back into Spain. It’s the one genuine trap in an otherwise lovely simple system.
Can I use English pounds in Gibraltar? Yes, and they work everywhere at face value with no fuss at all. Euros are taken everywhere too, at whatever rate the till fancies, and in a tourist shop that gap really isn’t small.
What to Carry
A card, and honestly that’s it. I didn’t change money once in two days and never once needed to, which made the whole trip nice and simple.
If you want cash anyway, bring sterling rather than euros. And do spend or change any Gibraltar notes before you leave, because the handful you carry back over the border buys you absolutely nothing on either side of it.
The best things to do in Gibraltar covers the good stuff you’d be spending it on.
If you’re still at the stage of working out how the border and the money fit together, the short answers are on facts about Gibraltar.
