Can I use British pounds in Australia? Or just Australian dollars?

No, you can’t use British pounds in Australia. Transactions are in Australian dollars only. The British pound to Australian dollar exchange rate is around 1.83.

No. The Australian dollar is the currency, and you’ll get short shrift trying to use anything else in the country. Yes, even you, Brits. You can’t use British pounds in Australia.

Where to change British pounds for Australian dollars

The good news is that getting hold of Australian dollars is pretty easy. Any bureau de change that doesn’t do Aussie dollars isn’t going to stay in business very long, and you can always use your debit card to get cash out on arrival in Australia. There are cash machines at the major international airports.

What you absolutely shouldn’t do is exchange money at the airport, either in the UK or Australia, as doing so is an invitation to get utterly fleeced on the exchange rates. The airport cash cowboys are reliant on people forgetting to get their foreign currency in advance, and being a captive audience.

You can’t use British pounds in Australia, but Australian dollars are helpfully colour coded.

In the past couple of decades, the exchange rate has flitted. But it has generally been between three dollars to the pound and 1.5 dollars to the pound. Recently it has hovered just under the two dollar mark. It was 1.83 dollars to the pound at the time of writing).

How expensive is Australia?

Unfortunately, that makes Australia pretty expensive to visit – not quite Scandinavian or Swiss levels of expensive, but certainly US levels. But, if you want to buy food in an Australian supermarket such as Coles, pay for a helmet-diving tour, get some beers from the bottle shop or buy a schooner in a pub, you’re going to have to exchange your money.