Chinese Currency
 

Hi there,

Sorry if this was asked before; I wold to know if its better to exchange USD/CAD to CNY in home country or once im china. which option is better in terms of rate.

Thanks in advance.

I generally just use ATMs in china. the rates are quite close to the published exchange rates I see on google/finance.

+1. For changing large (and very large) sums of money, the black market in Shenzhen is hard to beat though.

ATM's generally are the best option. Travelex and Hotel conversion rates are not in your favor.

A billion yuan per day cash crosses Zhuhai to Macao. ;)

Most of the time it is better to exchange in the country that you are visiting. One thing rare is that in China you will get a decent rate at the airport, better than back in the US or Canada.
But in the end, as said above, just use the ATMs. They are everywhere.

Most airport bank branches really do tack on a Y50 fee for amounts less than $5,000 (I researched this a bit after the last time this topic popped up, and was unable to identify a single arrival floor bank in BJ or SH that did not do this... feel free to correct me if you have evidence to the contrary).

You can research the rates. If you are in Canada, I'm pretty sure BOC and ICBC both offer RMB but the rates will be much worse that buying onshore.

@pandablood, @moondog, @sgw2124, @anacapamalibu, @JPDM, @johnathome.

THANK YOU ALL

given that the largest banknote china has is the 100RMB note, this is quite stunning, no? I have seen people with trash bags full of cash in china. (they like to make large purchases like cars in cash.) every business, large or small, has cash counting machines, partly because there of course are fake bills but mostly because they have to count so much cash.

My point was that it is still better than the rate that any bank in Canada will offer you.
However, it is not a bad idea to have Can$100 or so in RMB to get you going in case there are problems at the airport or you arrive late.

Agreed. I've arrived on the late (c. midnight) AA flight, with the ATMs broken and a long line for changing currency on one of my first visits to Beijing...a real pain to queue to change money for the taxi. It's worth taking a US$5 hit for piece of mind. But in general, best to use ATMs. Shame the BoA thing doesn't work anymore...

tb

Those 8.28 CNY/USD rates are long gone, TB.

ETA: Mistakenly mentioned mnredfox instead of TB.

I meant on the worse exchange rate one would get from the departing airport on $50-$100 of currency.

tb

The Chinese need to adjust the yuan, so we can be more competitive and bring back jobs to the US.;)