Bucharest

Currency budget Romania

Romania is in the EU but keeps the leu, and prices quoted to tourists in euros are always worse than paying in lei. Exchange houses (casă de schimb valutar) in the centre give near-interbank rates and must display the commission — walk away from any that will not. Skip the airport counters, and never change money with someone who approaches you in the street.

ATMs & cards

Use bank machines — Banca Transilvania, BCR, BRD, ING or Raiffeisen — and decline the machine’s offer to charge you in your own currency, every time. Euronet ATMs are all over the Old Town and the airport and cost several euros plus a bad rate. Cards work almost everywhere, including on buses and in village shops; Romania is closer to cashless than most of Western Europe.

Romania is close to cashless — cards work on buses, in markets and in village shops, so you may need very little cash at all.

Wherever you are: if the machine offers to charge you in your home currency, decline. That is dynamic currency conversion and the rate is set by the ATM's operator, not your bank.

Safety all of Romania

Very safe for violent crime, and safer at night than most Western European capitals. The risks are financial and traffic-related: take only a taxi you booked in an app (Bolt, Uber or Speed Taxi) rather than one that offers itself outside the airport or the station, watch your pockets on packed rush-hour trams, and treat pedestrian crossings as advisory — drivers do.

Our own assessment, not a sourced index.

Entry & visa Romania visa rules

Health & emergencies all of Romania

Required to enter

No vaccinations are required for entry from Europe or North America.

Orientation, not medical advice — entry rules change and what you need depends on your own history. Check with a travel clinic four to six weeks before you go.

Food tip

Eat one meal of ciorbă — the sour soups are the national dish in practice — and order mici with mustard at least once. The Old Town restaurants with menus in six languages are the ones to skip; the food is better and half the price around Piața Amzei and in the residential streets behind Calea Victoriei. A lunch menu of the day (meniul zilei) is around 35-45 lei.

Nightlife

The Old Town is wall-to-wall bars and terraces, cheap by European standards and busy every night of the week in summer.

• Centrul Vechi — the Old Town, and the concentration
• Strada Ion Brezoianu — a less touristy version, two streets over
• Control Club — live music, and the alternative crowd

Closing: 03:00 or later, and the terraces run until the weather stops them.

A beer in a bar: 10–18 RON

Getting around

• Metro — five lines, clean and quick; tap a contactless bank card at the turnstile, about 7 lei a journey
• Bus, tram and trolleybus (STB) — a separate system from the metro, about 3 lei for 90 minutes on a Card Activ
• Bolt and Uber — cheap enough that most visitors never bother with the buses; a cross-town ride is a few euros
• Walking — the centre is flat and compact, though pavements and parked cars fight each other
• Airport: the train to Gara de Nord takes about 25 minutes for 6.50 lei, or express bus 100 runs to Piața Unirii around the clock for 3 lei

Internet speedall of Romania

Getting online: Airalo or Holafly — a data eSIM for Romania, installed before you fly and working the moment you land.

Source: Ookla Speedtest Global Index · measured June 2026

Must-see

Nearby day trips

Say a few words

Romanian

• HelloBună ziuaBOO-nuh ZEE-wa
• Hi (informal)Salutsa-LOOT
• PleaseVă rogvuh ROG
• Thank youMulțumescmool-tsoo-MESK

A Romance language in a Slavic neighbourhood — with Italian or Spanish you will read the signs long before you can hear the speech. English is widely spoken by anyone under forty and in every hotel; French is more common with older people. The letters ș and ț are "sh" and "ts", and î and â are a sound English does not have, somewhere behind the vowel in "roses".

Religion

Romanian Orthodox

About four in five Romanians are Orthodox, and it is practised rather than nominal — churches are busy on ordinary weekday mornings and people cross themselves passing one from a bus. Visitors are welcome at services: stand, keep quiet, do not walk in front of the icons, and cover shoulders and knees. Easter, not Christmas, is the great feast, and the whole country slows down for it. Transylvania is the exception to all of this, with Catholic, Lutheran and Reformed churches in the same square as the Orthodox one — a legacy of Hungarian and Saxon settlement that the fortified churches still record.

Do's and don'ts

Do

• Take your shoes off when you enter someone’s home — slippers will be offered, and refusing them is the odd move
• Say bună ziua on entering a small shop, and la revedere on the way out
• Accept the țuică poured on arrival, or at least touch the glass to your lips
• Cover shoulders and knees in Orthodox churches, and stand rather than sit if the congregation is standing
• Bring an odd number of flowers if you are invited to dinner — even numbers are for graves

Don't

• Do not use "gypsy" as a synonym for Romanian. Roma are one of the country’s minorities and the conflation is the single fastest way to sour a conversation
• Do not open with Dracula and expect delight — Vlad Țepeș is a national figure here and the vampire is a Victorian novelist’s invention
• Do not photograph during an Orthodox service, or icons where a sign asks you not to
• Do not haggle in shops; markets are the only place where it is normal, and even there gently
• Do not expect the bill to be split to the last leu in company — one person tends to pay and it evens out over a trip