The Austrian currency

The Euro (symbol: €) became the official Austrian currency on January 1st, 2002. One Euro is made up of 100 cents. At the time of writing, one Euro is worth about 1.54 US dollars and 0.79 British pounds.

The currency is, of course, shared with numerous other European countries: Belgium, Cyprus, Germany, Greece, Spain, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia and Finland.

The Euro coins
© European Community

Austria uses the full range of Euro coins (one cent, two cents, five cents, 10 cents, 20 cents, 50 cents, one Euro, two Euros) and notes (five Euros, 10, 20, 50, 100 and 500).

Tip: ATMs tend to chuck out 100 Euro notes where they can. Small shops and street vendors may not have change for such a big note, so withdraw a sum like 190 Euros or 290 Euros to get plenty of smaller notes.

Also, always carry a few 1 and 2 Euro coins with you - they're ideal for shopping trolleys, buying newspapers from street vendors etc.

Between 1925 and 2002, Austria had the Schilling (symbol: ATS) which replaced the Krone used in the time of the monarchy. There was a small break between 1938 and 1945 when the German Reichsmark became official currency, for reasons which are both obvious and unfortunate.

You'll still hear people using the Schilling in conversation, especially older folk. However, the transition to the Euro went relatively smoothly, though it wasn't helped by an exchange rate of 13.7603 Schillings to 1 Euro. People simply don't have the right number of fingers for that calculation.