Mexico's currency is the Mexican Peso (MXN). There are one hundred Mexican cents (centavos) to every Peso.

The symbol for the Mexican Peso is $. To distinguish this from the Dollar, you sometimes see it presented as MX$ or e.g. $100 MN. The MN stands for Moneda Nacional, or National Currency.

Notes come in denominations of MXN 20, MXN 50, MXN 100, MXN 200, MXN 500 and MXN 1,000.

Coins come in denominations of 5, 10, 20 and 50 cents and MXN 1, MXN 2, MXN 5, MXN 10, MXN 20, MXN 50 and MXN 100. [More info here]

Foreign currency can easily be exchanged at the airport, hotels, banks or licensed money changers.

Making Small Change in Mexico

Getting change always seems to be a perennial problem in Mexico: try to make as much change as possible to use with independent traders by spending larger denomination notes in big stores; you will need the smaller notes for taxis, local buses and other small purchases where the traders often don't have the available change to hand.

Credit Cards

Major credit and debit cards are accepted (e.g. Mastercard, Visa and American Express) at hundreds of thousands of hotels, shops, restaurants and travel service providers in Mexico. Your purchases will be charged in pesos, and your bank will convert the amount back to the equivalent in the local currency where your account is held and charge it to your account.

Travelers' Checks

Travelers' Checks are a safe way to carry 'virtual cash' with you to Mexico, and will complement the use of a cash-machine card if you have one. Most exchange houses and banks do not levy additional fees to cash traveler's cheques in Mexico; you get the face value of the check multiplied by the day's rate of exchange. If the place you go to cash your traveler's checks does charge a fee, find somewhere else: it's NOT normal practice to levy commission charges or fees to cash traveler's checks (or foreign currency cash) in Mexico.

Note: Even if you have a cash-machine card, you may consider carrying traveler's checks as a back-up to your bank card, should it get lost, damaged or retained by an ATM for some reason.

Banking

Banking hours are Mondays to Fridays: 08.00 hrs to 16.00 hrs. Saturdays: 09.00 hrs to 14.00 hrs.

Most banks handle travelers' checks and change foreign currencies. However, some banks do not have foreign exchange dealings on Saturdays.

Passports are required when cashing in travelers' checks. A nominal commission may be charged.

Due national law, it's prohibited to use mobile phones and/or communication gadgets inside Banks, in order to protect the integrity and heritage of users and staff working in them.

Money Changers

Apart from banks and hotels, money can be changed wherever the sign "Licensed Money Changer" is displayed. Most shopping complexes have a licensed money changer. Visitors are discouraged from changing money with unlicensed money changers.