Money in Addis

Practical Travel Info: Money in Addis

It is quite easy to get money in Addis, but like everything else, there are some quirksJ

We have a Mastercard debit card and our bank does not issue Visa debit cards, so we knew that we were limited to only using Dashen Bank in Addis.  If you have a Visa debit then you have more options.  Fortunately, there are two Dashen Bank ATMs and an actual Dashen branch in the Getu building right up the street from the Weygoss.  Unfortunately, there are usually lines as everyone in Addis seems to prefer Dashen ATMs--they can be used with Mastercard or Visa, you don’t have to have a Dashen account to use them (you have to have an account with many of the banks in Addis in order to use their ATM machines), and they don’t charge extra fees.  More unfortunately, the ATM computer network has issues and individual machines frequently break-down or are out of service, so there is a pretty high likelihood (I’d say about 40%) that the ATM won’t be working.  The Dashen ATM on the outside of Getu seems to work better than the one on the inside of Getu.  There are several more Dashen ATMs around Addis, including at the Hilton and the Sheraton. ATMs dispense 100 birr bills.

We tried not to let our birr completely run down, but sometimes it did.  We brought about $400 US in $20 bills as our emergency stash for the 9+ weeks we were in Addis and are so glad we did!  You can change money at most banks, the Hilton, and occasionally in very small amounts at the Weygoss front desk in a pinch—we had to do this several times!

With the exception of our guesthouse bill, we operated on a cash-only basis in Addis.

Laundry at the Weygoss is quite expensive but was the best price we could find.  It was exponentially higher at the various laundry/dry cleaners we visited in person.  Having one week’s worth of clothes washed (keep in mind we wore everything at least twice and often more and B was pretty neat and had no intestinal issues or accidentsJ) was about 400 Birr.

We budgeted $170/week for food, water, laundry, and internet as well as $50/week for transportation and $25/week for souvenirs.  Our estimates were pretty accurate. We under spent on drivers and over spent on souvenirs it was basically a wash in the end J

***Be careful walking around with large sums of money (US or Birr) as pickpockets are rampant. Especially watch for the kids with boxes (of gum, tissues, whatever) they will use that as a ruse to pick your pocket.  We were never pick pocketed, but we often surprised kids by pulling their hands out of our pockets.  Many of our fellow guests who were not quite so street smart/observant were pickpocketed.  We kept our USD in a belt we bought for Ababa (looks like a regular leather belt, but has an interior zipper where you can put folded money) and in my wallet which was inside our diaper bag which was inside our backpack which had the zippers locked with a small combination lock***