💰 Quick Context: The Euro and IGIC in the Canaries
The Canary Islands use the Euro (EUR / €) exactly as mainland Spain does, so there is nothing separate to exchange and your cards behave normally. The difference is tax. The archipelago sits outside the EU VAT area and charges IGIC at a 7 percent standard rate in place of the mainland's 21 percent IVA, which is why alcohol, tobacco, perfume, electronics and fuel are cheaper here. Card acceptance is strong. The one real money trap is the standalone ATMs blanketing the southern resort strips, which surcharge far more than any bank machine.
🎧 Order Euros Before You Fly
Land with small notes for the guagua, not two €50s from an airport ATM.
Order EUR → CEI Currency ExchangeIGIC, Not IVA: Why the Canaries Are a Separate Tax Zone
The islands are politically Spain and fiscally not quite. The Canary Islands are an autonomous community of Spain and a full part of the European Union, but they are excluded from the EU VAT area. In place of Spanish IVA they levy their own Impuesto General Indirecto Canario, IGIC, a historical arrangement that recognises the cost of running an economy 1,000 kilometres off the African coast.
The headline number is 7 percent against the mainland's 21. There are reduced bands at 3 and 0 percent and a higher 15 percent band on certain goods. IGIC is already inside the marked price rather than added at the till, so you do not calculate anything: you simply see IGIC printed on the receipt where a bill in Madrid would read IVA. It is not optional and there is no tourist refund to claim on an ordinary restaurant meal or supermarket shop.
What it actually changes is what things cost. Alcohol, tobacco, perfume, electronics and fuel are visibly cheaper in the islands than on the peninsula, which is why the airport shops do brisk business and why filling a hire car here costs noticeably less. Restaurant meals and hotels sit closer to mainland prices, and in the busiest resort areas can run higher, because the tax saving competes with a freight premium on everything that arrives by sea.
The airport consequence catches people out. Because the islands are outside the EU VAT and excise area, the airside shops at Canary airports sell genuine duty-free on alcohol, tobacco and perfume even on flights to mainland Spain and the rest of the EU. No airport on the Spanish mainland can do that. Allowance limits apply, so check the current thresholds before buying in quantity.
Cash vs. Card: What to Expect in the Canary Islands
Card acceptance is strong and matches mainland Spanish standards. Visa and Mastercard work at hotels, restaurants, supermarkets, petrol stations, pharmacies, car hire desks and the resort bars. Contactless is the default at most terminals with a €50 ceiling per tap before a PIN is requested. American Express is patchier, accepted at larger hotels and international chains and regularly refused by neighbourhood bars and small shops, so it should never be your only card.
Cash still earns its place in specific spots. Municipal markets, beach kiosks and chiringuitos, small bars in the older parts of Santa Cruz, Vegueta and La Laguna, parking meters, and the smaller village restaurants inland all prefer or require notes. So do some of the boat operators and market stalls in the fishing villages.
Carry €50 to €100, and care about the denominations. This is the island-specific part. Buses are guaguas here, and on Gran Canaria the Global network will not accept a note larger than €20 on board, with drivers frequently unable to give exact change even below that. Tenerife's TITSA drivers have the same trouble breaking large notes. An airport ATM that hands you two €50 notes has just made your bus fare a problem, so break one in the terminal before you walk to the stop.
How to Get Euros for Your Canary Islands Trip
The Canaries run on full Spanish banking, so the routes are the same as the mainland with one local wrinkle: the resort machines are worse than almost anything you will meet in Madrid, which raises the value of arriving with cash or withdrawing at the airport. Two cheap routes: order euros before takeoff, or pull from a CaixaBank, Santander or BBVA machine after landing.
Order euros before you fly
Ordering ahead solves a problem specific to these islands. CEI Currency Exchange ships physical euros to a US address with insured 2 to 5 day delivery, and your home bank will do the same on a 3 to 7 business day timeline. The advantage over an airport ATM is that you arrive with small notes and coins rather than the €50s a cash machine tends to dispense, which is exactly what the guagua, the beach kiosk and the parking meter want. Bank of America customers get no alliance perk here: Spain has no Global ATM Alliance partner, so a BoA card pays its own 3 percent non-network fee at every Canarian machine. The cleanest setup is a Wise or Charles Schwab card for everyday payments plus a small envelope of euros for the cash-only gaps.
Withdraw from a Canarian bank ATM
A bank-branded machine gives you the interbank rate with a surcharge you get to read first. CaixaBank is the one to look for, with Santander and BBVA close behind. Withdrawal limits run roughly €300 to €500 per transaction. Coverage is dense in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, La Laguna, Las Palmas and Arrecife, thinner in the inland villages and on the smaller islands, so top up before heading into the interior of La Gomera or El Hierro. Spanish law requires the machine to display any non-customer surcharge on screen and let you cancel, which is your best defence on this archipelago. Decline DCC every time the screen offers to charge you in dollars or pounds. Want to know what a specific withdrawal will cost on your card? Drop it into our ATM fee calculator.
Resort-strip machines & airport bureaux
Two things to walk past. The currency-exchange bureaux in arrivals at Tenerife South and Gran Canaria quote several percent off interbank and generally add commission on top. Worse are the standalone machines saturating the southern resort belts: Playa de las Américas, Los Cristianos and Costa Adeje on Tenerife, and Playa del Inglés, Maspalomas and Puerto Rico on Gran Canaria. Sited outside minimarkets, bars and hotel lobbies exactly where holidaymakers walk, they add their own surcharge to a poor rate and push dynamic currency conversion hard, with travellers reporting charges around €7 for a single withdrawal. Terminal-level detail is in our Tenerife South (TFS) and Gran Canaria (LPA) currency guides.
For a side-by-side comparison of every method (bank wire, travel card, pre-order, ATM, exchange counter) including USD-to-EUR timing tips, see our complete Getting Currency guide →.
Best ATMs to Use in the Canary Islands
The islands have an unusual banking history that works in your favour. Both of the old Canary savings banks were absorbed into one network, so a single bank now carries the deepest branch coverage across the archipelago.
CaixaBank
The closest thing the Canaries have to a hometown bank. CaixaBank absorbed CajaCanarias, the Santa Cruz de Tenerife savings bank that ran more than 200 offices across the islands, through the Banca Cívica merger in 2012, and picked up Gran Canaria's La Caja de Canarias when it merged with Bankia in 2021. Both island savings banks now sit inside one network, giving it the densest ATM footprint on the archipelago. Charges €2–5 for non-customers, shown on screen first.
Top Pick
BBVA
Solid coverage in the island capitals, particularly around Triana and Vegueta in Las Palmas and the centre of Santa Cruz. Gives the interbank rate on Visa and Mastercard withdrawals and displays any non-customer surcharge before you confirm. A dependable second choice when there is no CaixaBank machine nearby.
Recommended
Santander
Present across both main islands and in the resort towns, so often the easiest bank machine to find on the south coasts. The catch is cost: Santander has been reported charging non-customers around €5 per withdrawal, more than CaixaBank typically asks. Still far better than a standalone machine, and the fee is disclosed on screen so you can cancel.
Fine, Check the Fee⚠️ Always Choose Euros, Never Your Home Currency
Canarian ATMs and card terminals will offer to charge you in dollars or pounds instead of euros. Accepting hands the exchange rate to the machine's operator rather than your card network, at a markup that dwarfs any withdrawal fee on this page. Press the option for euros every single time. The full mechanics are in our dynamic currency conversion explainer, and there is a short DCC quiz if you want to check you would catch it on a live screen.
ATMs to Avoid in the Canary Islands
The southern resort belts are among the most heavily worked standalone-ATM markets anywhere in Spain. These machines are legal and they will dispense euros, but they cost multiples of a bank machine standing a few streets away.
Euronet
Concentrated exactly where holidaymakers walk: outside minimarkets, bars and hotel lobbies in Playa de las Américas, Los Cristianos, Costa Adeje, Playa del Inglés, Maspalomas and Puerto Rico. Travellers have reported surcharges around €7 for a single withdrawal, on top of a poor rate and an aggressive DCC prompt. The blue-and-yellow branding is easy to spot. Keep walking.
AvoidHotel Lobby & Minimarket Machines
Unbranded or lightly branded machines inside resort hotels, apartment complexes and convenience stores. Same economics as Euronet, sometimes worse, and their convenience is the entire business model: they are betting you will not walk to a bank. Because Spanish law makes them disclose the surcharge on screen, you can read the number and press cancel at no cost. Do that.
AvoidIsland by Island: Where the Money Differs
Tenerife splits between a working north and a holiday south. Santa Cruz de Tenerife and La Laguna have ordinary Spanish banking density and normal prices. The southern strip through Los Cristianos, Playa de las Américas and Costa Adeje is where the surcharging machines cluster. TITSA guaguas run the island: line 111 covers the southern resorts from the airport in about 35 minutes for roughly €3.20, and the rechargeable Ten+ card cuts fares substantially if you are staying a week. Full arrivals detail is in the Tenerife South (TFS) currency guide.
Gran Canaria has the sharpest split of all. Las Palmas is a real city of nearly 400,000 people with dense, ordinary bank ATMs around Triana, Vegueta and Santa Catalina, while the southern belt through Playa del Inglés, Maspalomas and Puerto Rico runs on resort machines. Global guaguas serve the island, with line 60 to Las Palmas at about €2.95 and line 66 to Maspalomas, and the €20 note ceiling applies on board. See the Gran Canaria (LPA) currency guide for the terminal detail.
Lanzarote and Fuerteventura are smaller and more concentrated. Bank coverage is good in Arrecife and Puerto del Rosario and around the main resorts at Puerto del Carmen, Playa Blanca, Corralejo and Caleta de Fuste, and thinner elsewhere. The same resort-machine pattern applies wherever tourists cluster, so withdraw in the capitals when you pass through.
La Palma, La Gomera and El Hierro are the ones to plan for. These are quieter, greener islands with far fewer visitors and correspondingly fewer machines once you leave the main town. Card acceptance is fine in the towns and patchier in the rural interior, where small restaurants and guesthouses may be cash-only. Withdraw before you head inland rather than assuming a machine will appear.
Tipping in the Canary Islands
Tipping is appreciated and not expected, following mainland Spanish norms rather than anything Caribbean. Rounding up or leaving €1 to €2 at a restaurant is normal, and 5 to 10 percent marks genuinely good service. At a bar, leaving the small change is the whole custom. No tip is expected for counter service in a café, and taxi fares are usually just rounded up.
Tips need to be cash. Spanish card terminals do not offer a tipping prompt, so a table paid entirely by card leaves nothing behind unless you put coins down. This is the most common reason a visitor who never carries cash ends up tipping nothing for a week without meaning to.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do the Canary Islands use the euro?
Yes. The islands are part of Spain and use the euro, so there is no separate island currency and nothing to exchange if you already hold euros. Tenerife, Gran Canaria, Lanzarote, Fuerteventura, La Palma, La Gomera and El Hierro all use the same notes and coins as Madrid. The difference is tax, not currency: the archipelago sits outside the EU VAT area and charges IGIC instead of IVA.
What is IGIC and how is it different from IVA?
IGIC is the Canary Islands General Indirect Tax, the local replacement for Spanish VAT, and it exists because the islands are excluded from the EU VAT area. The standard rate is 7 percent against the mainland's 21, with reduced bands at 3 and 0 percent and a higher 15 percent band on some goods. It is already inside the marked price and is not optional. You will see IGIC on receipts where a mainland bill would read IVA.
Are the Canary Islands cheaper than mainland Spain?
For taxed goods, noticeably. Alcohol, tobacco, perfume, electronics and fuel are visibly cheaper thanks to the 7 percent IGIC rate. Restaurant meals and accommodation sit closer to mainland prices and can run higher in the busiest resort areas, because the tax saving competes with a freight premium on everything shipped in.
Which ATMs should I use in Tenerife and Gran Canaria?
Bank-branded machines. CaixaBank has the densest island network, having absorbed both old Canary savings banks, with BBVA and Santander close behind, though Santander has been reported charging non-customers around €5. Avoid the standalone machines on the southern resort strips, where reported surcharges run near €7 a withdrawal. Spanish law makes every machine display its fee on screen so you can cancel before any cash moves.
Why won't the bus take my €50 note?
On Gran Canaria the Global network does not accept notes larger than €20 on board, and drivers frequently cannot give exact change even below that. Tenerife's TITSA drivers have the same trouble with large notes. It catches visitors who have just withdrawn €100 from an airport ATM in two notes. Break one in the terminal first, or pay contactless, which works on board on both islands.
Can I buy duty-free flying to mainland Spain?
Yes, and it surprises people. Because the islands sit outside the EU VAT and excise area, the airside shops at Canary airports sell genuine duty-free on alcohol, tobacco and perfume even to passengers flying on to Madrid, Barcelona or elsewhere in the EU. No mainland Spanish airport can do that. Allowance limits apply, so check current thresholds before buying in quantity.
Is my Bank of America card useful in the Canaries?
No more than anywhere else in Spain. There is no Global ATM Alliance partner in Spain, the Canaries included, so a BoA debit card pays BoA's own 3 percent non-network fee at every machine on the islands. A Wise card gives the interbank rate with no markup, and a Charles Schwab card charges no FX fee and refunds ATM operator fees, which is worth real money on an archipelago this full of surcharging machines.
Go deeper: Canary Islands guides
This overview is the starting point. For terminal-by-terminal ATM locations, exact bus fares and what each arrivals bureau charges, follow the airport guides. For the wider Spanish picture, including Bizum, chip-and-PIN habits and mainland card acceptance, start with the Spain guide.
Hero photo: Teide and the Roques de García, Teide National Park, Tenerife, by Diego Delso, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.