Galápagos runs on US dollars, in cash, more than most travelers expect. Ecuador uses the dollar as its official currency, so there is no exchange rate to think about, but the card machine you assume will be there is not always there. This page covers where you can get cash, where cards work and how we would split your money between plastic and bills.
Cash first, plastic second
The islands are a cash economy at exactly the moments you need money: water taxis, ferries, small restaurants, tour payments, tips. Cards work in hotels, larger restaurants and dive shops in the main towns, but the failure mode is real: the terminal is down, the shop minimum applies, or the place simply takes cash only. Carry a cushion of small bills. Fives and tens do the daily work; twenties get you everywhere.
The park entry fee is collected in cash at the airport counters on Baltra and San Cristóbal when you arrive, and the TCT transit card is paid before your flight, so budget those two in paper, not plastic.
Where the ATMs are
Here is the practical map: Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz has two banks with ATMs plus an additional machine inside the Proinsular supermarket; Puerto Baquerizo Moreno on San Cristóbal has one bank with one ATM. Most island ATMs cap withdrawals around $300 per day, so budget multiple transactions for anything bigger. Isabela is the weak link, with no bank-run ATM, which is why everyone repeats the same advice: take out cash in Santa Cruz before you fly or boat over to Isabela. Withdrawals early in your stay beat emergency withdrawals on a Sunday.
Two ATM realities to expect: daily withdrawal limits that force multiple transactions, and machines that run dry on weekends or during local holidays when nobody refills them. Do not arrive in the islands planning to solve cash tomorrow. Solve it today.
Cards: which ones behave
Visa and Mastercard are the cards that work nearly everywhere cards work at all. American Express is patchier, and Discover is mostly theoretical here. Notify your bank before travel so foreign-transaction blocks don’t strand you, and assume dynamic currency conversion offers will appear in some terminals: pay in USD, always, because your home bank’s rate beats any terminal conversion.
Contactless payments exist in the modern hotels and restaurants of Puerto Ayora but should be treated as a bonus, not a system. If your entire trip depends on tap-to-pay, you are doing it wrong.
Paying for the big things
Cruises and land tours are almost always paid in advance, by transfer or card, through your operator, so the cash you carry covers what happens on the ground: the park entry fee in cash, the TCT, ferries and water taxis, meals in small places, tips in envelopes, and incidentals. Tour operators in town increasingly accept card deposits, but asking “cash or card?” before you commit to anything saves awkwardness at the pier.
A note on budgeting without inventing numbers: your two fixed entry costs, the TCT and the park fee, are published amounts that you can check against our guide to entry fees, and everything else scales with how many day tours you book.
Losing a card or getting robbed
Report a lost or stolen card to your bank from the app before anything else, then file a police report if you need it for the insurance claim. This is another reason the travel insurance question matters: a policy with a 24-hour assistance line turns a lost wallet from a crisis into a phone call.
The split we recommend
Enough cash to cover your first two days plus the airport payments, a Visa or Mastercard as the workhorse, a backup card stored separately from the first, and a small reserve of twenties taped into your luggage for the trip home. That combination survives every failure mode we have seen guests hit.
Last verified: September 2026