Credit and Debit Card 
Acceptance in Ireland

Irish money and currency exchange rates
 

In service establishment listings in this website, we use the following abbreviated codes to indicate acceptance of the card in question:    
 

Acceptance of credit and debit cards in Ireland

Acceptance of Visa, MasterCard, and Eurocard is almost universal for retailing and most services, including supermarkets, accommodation, railways, restaurants, gas stations, department stores, payment of parking tickets, airport parking charges, etc. American Express and Diners Club cards are also accepted by some service establishments.  Very few if any establishments accept The Discover Card.
 

Be sure to know your PIN!

It is important to have the PINs for your credit, debit and ATM cards when travelling.  This is particularly true for chip cards - don't assume that because some retailers in your home country allow you to sign for purchases that you won't be required to use a PIN with the same card when travelling.

European Debit Card / Maestro

Retailers who accept Visa and MasterCard usually also accept the Maestro and EDC (European Debit Card).

Note: All EuroCard/MasterCard ATMs also accept Visa, Plus, and Eurocheque cards.

Laser Card

The National Debit card - Laser is generally accepted at all locations where credit cards are accepted - with the exception of some self-service machines.

Bank Cards and ATM Networks
 

Airport ATMs: Bank of Ireland ATMs available at Dublin, Cork and Shannon Airports


Cheques

Cheques drawn in Euro on banks located outside IRL are subject to special handling and surcharges.   Such cheques are not generally accepted in the retail environment as there is no European cheque clearing system to process them.
 

Reliability of Payment Networks

It is inadvisable to rely solely on a plastic card when travelling in any country. The risks include:
 

Beware when travelling anywhere that the Visa and MasterCard organizations and their member banks have a poor record in communicating and enforcing standards, and card rejection problems can arise with cards that work perfectly well "back home" - due for example, to manufacturing tolerance variations affecting readability of the magnetic stripe, security features, the use of PINs at point of sale, etc. The ideal is to bring at least two cards, (preferably issued by different banks - with one a Visa or Visa Plus and the other a MasterCard, Cirrus or AmEx), with some travellers cheques and/or cash for emergencies. Credit cards are slightly more reliable than debit cards because they can be used for over the counter (ie offline) cash advances at bank branches, whereas debit cards usually can only be used in ATMs. Over the counter cash advances often require additional identification (eg national ID card or passport) and frequently cost more than ATM withdrawals using the same plastic. Be sure to know your PINs!

*While the Dublin area is reasonably well served with ATMs, the same can't be said for smaller towns and villages where there may be at most one ATM in the locality.

Calls to 1-800 numbers are free and do not require a coin deposit or card at payphones, within IRL. Calls to 0800 numbers are free within Northern Ireland and do not require a coin deposit or card at payphones. *=toll call.   Some payphones operators bar calls to 1-800 numbers, in which event you are advised to locate an "eircom" payphone.

Exchange Controls

There are no exchange controls in Ireland.

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