Money & Banking

The Nepali currency is called rupees, written NRs.  1 USD is equivalent to approximately NRs. 110. Nepal Rastra Bank updates the currency rate every day. Nepalese currency comes in the denomination of 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 500 and 1000. Coins are rarely in use these days.

You can easily exchange your dollars or pounds or yen for Nepali rupees in money exchange centers or banks. You can pay in cash or use credit cards in hotels, restaurants and travel/trekking agencies. Keep in mind that a 4% charge is levied for every credit card transaction. Bank transfer is also promoted by travel and trekking agencies and hotels for payment.

There are ATM machines in all the major cities and tourist towns in Nepal. Major banks like Standard Chartered, Himalayan Bank, Nepal Investment Bank, Nabil Bank and many others have branches and ATM centers in all prominent cities and towns in Nepal.

Of late, there has been an increase in online banking and payment in Nepal for flight and bus ticketing, restaurant and hotels. So you can easily make payment through such ‘digital wallet’ apps like e-sewa, khalti, connectIPS etc.