Tanzania Money: Cash, Cards & Daily Costs

Tanzania quietly runs on two currencies, and once you understand which one to reach for, the whole trip gets simpler. The short version: pay for park fees, organised safaris and most mid-to-upper hotels in US dollars, and pay for everything in daily life, meals, taxis, markets, the local Kilimanjaro lager, in Tanzanian shillings (TZS). Cards exist but you cannot lean on them. Cash, in both currencies, is what keeps you moving.

I have watched plenty of guests arrive with a single card and three crisp notes from 2006, then spend their first morning hunting for an ATM. A little planning here saves you that.

Dollars or shillings: who wants what

National park and conservation fees (Serengeti, Ngorongoro, Tarangire) are priced in dollars and usually paid by card or, increasingly, prepaid card at the gate, not loose cash. Safari operators, dive centres, balloon flights and upper-tier hotels also quote in USD. For all of that, dollars are your friend.

Shillings are for the rest of life. Street food, dala-dala minibuses, a bajaji (tuk-tuk) across Stone Town, fruit at the market, a SIM card, tips for everyday staff. Paying these in dollars works occasionally but you will get a poor made-up rate, so change money and use TZS.

One firm rule that trips people up every week: your dollar notes need to be series 2013 or newer, clean, unmarked and unfolded. Older notes, or anything with a pen mark or a tear, get rejected flat by banks, bureaux and many hotels — I’ve seen a 2009 note turned away more than once, so don’t assume it scrapes by. Ask your bank at home for new bills, and bring a mix of denominations, including small ones, because change for a USD 100 note is not always forthcoming.

Cards, ATMs and the surcharge reality

Cards (Visa and Mastercard, rarely Amex) work at established hotels, dive shops, supermarkets and the better restaurants in Stone Town, Arusha, Moshi and Dar es Salaam. Expect a card surcharge of roughly 3-5 percent at many places, since they pass on the processing cost. Tell your bank you are travelling so the payment does not get blocked.

ATMs are dependable in towns and absent everywhere else. CRDB and NMB are the most reliable networks; Exim and Stanbic are fine too. Per-transaction withdrawal limits sit around TZS 400,000 with a fee near USD 3-5, so if you need a lot of shillings you will make several pulls. There are no ATMs inside the national parks and few on the smaller stretches of the Zanzibar coast, so draw your cash while you are still in a proper town.

What to skip: do not bother changing a big wad at the airport. The rate is mediocre. Change just enough at Kilimanjaro or Zanzibar arrivals to cover your transfer and first day, then get a sensible rate from a town bureau de change or an ATM.

The July 2026 mandatory electronic payments rule: what it means for you

Since 1 July 2026, Tanzania legally requires electronic payment — card, mobile money, bank transfer — for hotel, restaurant, and tourism-service payments, under the Electronic Transactions (Mandatory Electronic Payments for Specified Transactions) Order, 2026. There is no size exemption: a small guesthouse or beach café is technically covered the same as a five-star hotel, and businesses have a 6-month transition period (into roughly January 2027) to get compliant payment systems running.

Here’s what’s actually happening on the ground, weeks after the law took effect: cash still runs most tourism payments in Tanzania, especially the smaller, village-level places this guide is mostly about. Don’t change your packing list. Card machines are more common now, sure — but I wouldn’t call them reliable. The network they run on drops out enough on this coast that “sorry, the machine’s not working” is something you’ll hear even somewhere that normally takes cards. Doesn’t matter what the law says; a village shop still wants cash in hand. Bring enough for the whole trip, treat a working card reader as a nice surprise, and don’t count on plastic getting you through a day once you’re away from the bigger hotels.

Rough daily costs

Budgets swing wildly depending on whether you are on safari or just living on the coast.

• Shoestring: USD 30-50 a day. Guesthouses, local food, public transport, no big tours.
• Mid-range: USD 60-120 a day. Comfortable hotel, mix of local and tourist restaurants, a few taxis and a guided day or two.
• Comfortable Zanzibar week, off-safari: boutique stays, good restaurants, the odd boat trip, generally USD 150-300 a day per couple.

Safari is a separate line entirely, because the cost is front-loaded into lodge, vehicle, guide and park fees.

Safari price bands

These are per person per day, all-inclusive of vehicle, guide, fees and lodging, as a planning guide only:

• Budget camping safari: roughly USD 200-350 pp/day.
• Mid-range lodge safari: roughly USD 400-700 pp/day.
• High-end / luxury: USD 800 to well over USD 1,500 pp/day.

Northern circuit prices climb in the June-October high season and peak migration months; green season (March-May) is cheaper and quieter but wetter. Always confirm exactly what a quote includes, as park fees alone can add USD 82.60 per person per day at the Serengeti.

Currency exchange: where to get the best rate

The exchange rate hierarchy, from best to worst:

1. Bureau de change in Arusha or Stone Town. Competitive rates, cash transaction, immediate. The currency bureaux around Clock Tower Square in Arusha and the main streets in Stone Town are generally fair. Compare two before you commit.
2. Bank ATM in a town. Reasonable rate, your home bank’s exchange rate applies. Better than the airport but with a fee per withdrawal.
3. Hotel exchange desk. Convenient, rate is 5–10% below bureau de change. Fine for a small amount if you need shillings urgently.
4. Airport bureau de change. Poor rate, use only to cover your first day.
5. Exchanging on the street. Never. Street money changers in Tanzania operate on short-change scams and counterfeit notes. The rate offered is too good because you will receive the wrong thing.

Useful amounts to have in each currency before leaving a town:

• USD 100–200 in mixed denominations for tips, any non-card park fees, emergencies
• TZS 100,000–200,000 for taxis, meals, markets, tips for everyday staff

Dynamic currency conversion: always decline

At many hotel checkouts, lodge billing terminals, and some ATMs you will be offered the choice to pay in your home currency instead of TZS. This is called dynamic currency conversion (DCC) and it is worth declining every time. The exchange rate the terminal uses is set by the card processor, not your bank, and is typically 3–8% worse than your bank’s own rate. Pay in TZS when prompted. If the terminal has already defaulted to your home currency, ask the cashier to re-run it in shillings — they can do it.

The Bank of Tanzania rule on USD vs TZS

This catches some travellers by surprise: the Bank of Tanzania requires that prices for high-value tourism services be settled in TZS equivalent, not USD cash directly, even when prices are quoted in dollars. In practice, your safari operator or lodge will convert the USD-quoted price to the TZS equivalent at a published daily rate and charge your card or collect the equivalent in shillings. You are still paying the USD-quoted amount, but technically in TZS. The practical implication: large USD cash payments are less common than they were; most high-end property settlement is now done electronically in TZS at the gate or invoice stage.

The March 2025 foreign-currency regulations: what actually changed

Tanzania’s Ministry of Finance issued Government Notice 198 of 2025, the Foreign Currency Usage Regulations, effective 28 March 2025. These regulations prohibit the use of foreign currency for local transactions — in legal terms, prices must be quoted and settled in Tanzanian shillings. Two independent sources confirm this: the official Bank of Tanzania channel and multiple travel-industry operators who updated their payment guidance in the weeks that followed.

What this means in practice for a visitor:

• Safari lodges and operators still quote in USD, because that is the standard tourism-industry currency and the regulations contain practical exceptions for tourism services. They convert the USD amount to TZS at the daily Bank of Tanzania rate and invoice you in shillings. Your card payment or electronic transfer effectively settles in TZS.
• Large USD cash payments to properties are now less common than before March 2025. Most mid-to-upper lodges expect card or bank-transfer settlement in TZS equivalent, not a pile of dollar bills at checkout.
• Tips, daily spending and small transactions are unchanged in practice. Guides still prefer USD tips; markets, taxis and street food vendors still work in TZS.
• Dollar notes for visa and ZIC insurance remain useful and accepted for those specific government-fee purposes.

The bottom line: carry USD for fees, tips and emergencies, but do not plan on paying your full lodge bill in cash dollars. The property will charge your card in TZS and the math works out to the same USD-quoted amount at the prevailing rate.

I noticed the shift at our hotel on the east coast in early 2025: what used to be a simple cash settlement in USD at checkout became a card transaction in TZS. For guests it changed almost nothing — except that the receipt now shows a shilling figure with several zeroes on it.

ATM availability by location: where cash runs out

The distribution of ATMs across Tanzania is uneven, and getting caught cashless in the wrong place is a genuine problem. Here is an honest breakdown by location.

Stone Town, Zanzibar: the most ATM-dense part of the island. CRDB has a branch and ATM on Mizingani Road near the ferry terminal, plus a second ATM-only location on Malawi Road. If you’re arriving by boat, our Dar es Salaam to Zanzibar ferry guide covers exactly where the Stone Town terminal sits and what the first few minutes off the boat look like. NMB and Absa (formerly Barclays) also have Stone Town locations. Multiple independent travellers cite CRDB, NMB and Absa as the most reliable options in Stone Town. The CRDB ATM on Mizingani Road is a convenient first stop after a ferry arrival. NMB operates more than 700 ATMs across Tanzania as a whole — represented in all districts — so branches appear in Arusha, Dar, Moshi and larger towns reliably. Standard per-transaction withdrawal limits run around TZS 200,000–400,000, with fees of approximately USD 3–4 per pull. NMB also offers a currency-exchange ATM function at select major locations, which can exchange up to USD 2,000 at the bank’s rate.

Nungwi and the north coast: one or two ATMs exist in the tourist strip but they run out of cash or go offline regularly, especially on weekends and in peak season. Do not arrive at the north coast expecting to draw cash there. Draw what you need in Stone Town before heading north.

Paje, Michamvi and the east coast: this has changed fast. Paje now has several ATMs, banks, and exchange offices — a real shift from a couple of years ago. Michamvi (where Matlai is) got its first ATM too, opposite the Karafuu Hotel, though it’s new enough that I’d still treat it as a backup, not a guarantee — it hasn’t proven itself the way Stone Town’s banks have. Bwejuu hasn’t caught up: still nothing reliable there. Jambiani is murkier — one 2026 source mentions some ATM presence, but nothing established the way Paje’s is, so I wouldn’t count on it. If you’re staying in either, draw cash in Stone Town on your way through — TZS 200,000–300,000 for daily spending will see you through several days of local transactions.

Arusha and Kilimanjaro area: well-served. CRDB, NMB, Exim and Stanbic ATMs are plentiful in the town centre. Draw cash here before heading to any safari park.

Inside national parks: zero ATMs. The parks use card payment at gates for entry fees and increasingly for concession charges, but the connection is not always reliable. Do not count on a card working at a remote park gate.

I carry a small emergency TZS float whenever I leave the east coast: enough for a tank of diesel, a taxi and a meal. ATMs here are not a given.

Tipping guide: specific amounts by service

Tipping is genuinely important in Tanzania’s tourism economy and the most commonly under-budgeted line item on any itinerary. Here is what the numbers look like across service categories, drawn from multiple operator-published guidelines:

Safari guides:

• Group safari: USD 10–20 per guest per day, from each traveller in the vehicle independently, or pooled and divided
• Private safari: USD 25–40 per day from the vehicle combined (not per person) — this is the group total, split however feels right

Camp and lodge staff:

• Camp staff pool (cooks, housekeeping, camp manager, askaris): USD 5–10 per traveller per day, placed in the communal tip box at the end of your stay
• Lodge porters: USD 1–2 per bag

Drivers and transfers:

• Short transfer (airport to hotel, 30–60 min): USD 5–10
• Full-day drive: USD 15–20

Kilimanjaro climbers:

• Lead guide: USD 20–30 per day from the group
• Assistant guide: USD 12–15 per day from the group
• Cook: USD 12 per day from the group
• Porters: USD 6–10 per porter per day

For a 7-day safari, budget USD 150–200 per traveller in tip cash, in a dedicated envelope of small-denomination USD bills. Keep USD 5s, 10s and 20s — nobody in Tarangire can change a USD 100 note.

Tip in dollars for guides and senior staff (they hold value better and guides often prefer them); tip in shillings for everyday local-service staff who spend close to home.

Tipping budget: how much cash to set aside before you arrive

Tipping is the most commonly under-budgeted item on Tanzania itineraries. For a 7-day safari, a realistic cash tipping budget is USD 150–200 per traveller, distributed roughly as:

• Safari guide: USD 25–40 per day (from the group total, not per person)
• Camp staff pool (cooks, housekeeping, camp manager): USD 5–10 per traveller per day
• Transfer driver: USD 5–10 for a short run; USD 15–20 for a full-day drive
• Airport and lodge porters: USD 1–2 per bag

Tip in dollars for guides and senior staff (they prefer it); tip in shillings for everyday service staff who spend locally. Keep a dedicated envelope of small-denomination USD bills — USD 5s, USD 10s, USD 20s — before you leave your last town.

Mobile money: the payment system that actually runs Tanzania

Worth understanding even if you never touch it yourself, because it’s how nearly everyone around you is paying for things. Forget “app” — mobile money here is a phone-based wallet with no banking app involved. Over 87 million active accounts run on it across Tanzania, more than the population, because plenty of people carry two SIMs and two accounts. Four providers actually matter: Vodacom’s M-Pesa is the big one at roughly 41% of the market, then Tigo’s Mixx (still called Tigo Pesa by half the country, ~30%), Airtel Money (~19%), and Halotel’s HaloPesa (~10%). All four talk to each other — send from M-Pesa straight to a Mixx account, no conversion step.

Here’s the bit that catches people off guard: none of it needs internet. It runs on USSD — the short-code system behind those old-school “press 1 for…” phone menus — so a decade-old Nokia does exactly what a smartphone does here. Dial the code, get a text menu, send money, buy airtime, check your balance. That’s the whole reason it took over the way it did: no data network to build, no smartphones to hand out, just the basic signal that already reaches almost the entire country.

Then there’s the agent side of it, which is honestly the more interesting half. Around 2 million agents work across Tanzania — practically one in every village, usually a shopkeeper with a provider’s logo painted on the wall. Hand over cash, it lands on your phone (or someone else’s, anywhere in the country) in a couple of minutes. Works the other way too — cash out through the same agent. That’s how an enormous share of ordinary commerce and money-sent-home actually happens here: no bank, no card, sometimes no internet, just a phone number and a person behind a counter.

Does any of this change your trip? Not really, unless you’re staying a while. A two-week visitor with a card and some cash has no reason to sign up. But if you’re around for a month or more, grab a local SIM (passport required to register) and you can set up mobile money at the same time — handy for paying a driver directly or not being the only person fumbling with a card. For everyone else, it’s mostly worth knowing so you understand what you’re looking at: that little kiosk with the queue and the red or blue sign isn’t a shop. It’s someone sending money home.

Quick reference: budget by trip type

Safari prices are per person per day, all-inclusive (accommodation, meals, game drives, park fees, guide). They do not include tips, Zanzibar ZIC insurance, flights to/from Tanzania, or visas.

How much cash to actually carry

Carry USD 300-500 per person in clean recent notes as your dollar float, mostly for tips, any cash-priced tours and emergencies, plus a card or two for fees and hotels. Top up TZS from ATMs as you go rather than carrying enormous local cash. Keep your money split across two spots, a money belt and your day bag, and hold a stash of small TZS notes for tips, taxis and markets where nobody can break a big bill.

Tipping is real money here and worth budgeting: about USD 15-25 a day for a safari guide (from the group), USD 5-10 a day pooled for camp staff, and roughly 10 percent rounded onto restaurant bills. Tip guides in dollars, everyday staff in shillings.

What to avoid

A few patterns that cost people money or create problems:

Old or damaged dollar notes. The 2013-and-newer rule is enforced strictly across East Africa. Bring crisp bills from your home bank; do not pick up leftover currency from a friend who travelled here five years ago.

Relying on one card. Card machines fail, connections drop, and some parks and lodges genuinely cannot process a payment when the system is down. Two cards on two different accounts (ideally Visa and Mastercard from different networks) is the minimum sensible safety net.

Carrying all your cash in one place. Split it: a money belt worn on the body with your main USD float and one card; a day bag or hotel safe with daily spending cash and your backup card. Losing one means you still have the other.

Changing money at your safari camp. Some camps will exchange at a rate that is convenient for them, not you. Unless you are stuck in the middle of the Serengeti with no other option, wait for a town bureau.

Forgetting small denominations. A stack of USD 50 notes is useless when your guide tip is USD 20 and nobody can change them in the Tarangire gate area. Bring mixed: USD 5s, 10s and 20s are the working currency of safari tipping.

Next, line this up with your route in our Tanzania travel overview and pin down timings with the best time to visit Tanzania guide so your budget matches the season. For tipping cash, see our tipping breakdown.