Money - Buenos Aires Gay Travel Guide

The most complete Buenos Aires Gay Travel Guide

Money Issues.

In my opinion, the best choice is to bring a not a very big amount of cash (no more than 500/1.000 U$S) if you are coming to Argentina, and extracting pesos using ATM´s from your bank account as you need. Dollars are not accepted everywhere, and when accepted in a disco or restaurant you will get a very bad exchange rate.

Using the ATM system is safer, and you will have a reasonable exchange rate from your bank. Also, major credit cards are accepted most of the restaurants, bars, etc. You will need dollars only to pay services that are priced in dollars like tours, some tango shows, etc.

Currency Exchange

The actual exchange rate of the argentine peso is floating around 3,84 argentine pesos per U.S. dollar. You can change your money in the numerous Bureaus Do Change ("Casas de Cambio" in Spanish) that sprawled in Buenos Aires after devaluation or many Banks also will change to non-customers. Most of the Bureau do change are located in San Martín St., Microcentro. But you can find also Bureaus in Districts like Recoleta. They don't charge commission, and the spread between sell and buy rate is about 10 argentine cents. Now you can exchange your dollars in banks, but most of them have U$S 300 minimum limits for non clients.

For an updated list of rates of the different Bureaus do change visit Dolarhoy.com. You also can find there the address of every Buerau, best & average rates, etc.

There are also, a lot of street exchange traders (people on the street offering to exchange dollars), they are called in Buenos Aires jargon "Arbolitos" (little trees). This activity is illegal, and very insecure. You do not know argentine currency to check it's authenticity. So my advice DO NOT EXCHANGE YOUR MONEY WITH THEM. You have a lot of Bureaus do Change, authorized by the Central Bank.

Argentine Currency - The Peso.

The current monetary line in the Argentine Republic is the CONVERTIBLE PESO LINE (Executive Power Decree Number 2128 of October 10th 1991 and Article 12 of Convertibility Law Number 23928 of March 27th 1991).

The peso was convertible one to one with the dollar until February 2002, when by Decree 214/2002 this convertibility was broken. Now the peso floats in the open market. The convertible denomination sound as a joke nowadays, but it lasted 10 years.

To check how the bills look like visit Argentina Central Bank website: http://www.bcra.gob.ar/