Euro Exchange When Moving

People often treat these as one, and a plan built on that assumption goes wrong in small ways. The euro area is the 21 countries above. The EU has 27 members. The Schengen area is about open internal borders and has 29 countries: 25 EU members and four that aren’t (Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland), according to the European Commission’s Schengen page (opens in a new window).

The overlaps are uneven. Ireland uses the euro but does not apply the Schengen rules, and Cyprus uses the euro and takes part in Schengen cooperation, but the Commission’s page, dated 27 May 2025, says its internal border controls have not yet been abolished by the Council. Czechia, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Sweden are in Schengen with currencies of their own. Switzerland and Norway are in Schengen but outside the EU and the euro. Montenegro and Kosovo use the euro and are outside the EU. The UK is on none of the three lists.

Why it matters to a mover: the cash rules below follow the EU line, the bank charge rules follow the EU and payment-area lines, and your right to live in a country follows your own immigration status, not the currency. GOV.UK’s guidance on moving, living or retiring abroad (opens in a new window) tells you to meet the visa and entry requirements before you travel and says you may need to register as a resident. This page deals with money only.

Most moves into the euro area need a local account sooner or later, for rent, bills and wages. Your Europe (opens in a new window) says that if you are legally resident in an EU country you are entitled to open a basic payment account, and that banks cannot refuse your application just because you don’t live in the country where the bank is established. Banks in some countries may also ask you to show a genuine interest, for example if you live in one country but work in another.

A bank can still refuse if you don’t meet the EU rules on money laundering, which is why identity and address documents come up. Your Europe’s page doesn’t list the documents, and banks may ask for different things, so ask the bank for its list before you travel. The right covers a basic account only; savings accounts are outside it.

Your Europe ties the right to a basic account to legal residence, and GOV.UK says you may also need to register as a resident, so ask early which comes first in your country. Until a euro account is open, a deposit or the first bills may have to be paid from your UK account, and that is the moment a transfer’s cost and arrival date matter.

Euro accounts are identified by an IBAN, an international bank account number, rather than the sort code and account number you’re used to. The SEPA Regulation, (EU) No 260/2012, defines an IBAN as an international payment account number identifier that unambiguously identifies an individual payment account, with its elements specified by the International Organisation for Standardisation (Article 2, as published on legislation.gov.uk (opens in a new window)). When you pay a landlord or a utility in the euro area you’ll be asked for their IBAN, and an employer or landlord who pays you will ask for yours.

SEPA, the Single Euro Payments Area, is the set of scheme rules that lets euro payments between its member countries be made like domestic ones. The ECB’s SEPA page (opens in a new window) says the area has 41 countries (status 22 May 2025), a wider list than the euro area, including non-EU countries such as Monaco and San Marino, and adds that EU rules such as equal charges for euro payments do not apply outside the EU and EEA. Whether your UK bank sends a euro payment over SEPA, and how long it takes, is for the bank to say, so ask it for the expected arrival date as well as the fee.

Your Europe (opens in a new window) adds one protection: for SEPA credit transfers and direct debits, an account cannot be refused because it is in a different EU country, provided the other side accepts such payments from accounts in its own country. The wording is about accounts in EU countries. Whether a given landlord or utility accepts a UK account is for them to say, so check before you rely on it.

A euro payment can pick up charges at three points: your UK bank, a bank in between, and the bank at the euro end. The UK’s Payment Services Regulations 2017 (regulation 66) (opens in a new window) say that when the paying bank and the receiving bank are both in the UK, each side pays its own bank’s charges. That rule does not cover a payment to a bank in a euro country.

Inside the EU the rule is firmer on price. Your Europe says a bank must charge the same for a euro payment to another EU country as for an equivalent domestic one. That rule is about banks in the EU, so it is relevant once you hold a euro-area account. For a payment that starts at your UK bank, ask the UK bank what it charges. The ECB says the same: its SEPA page notes that equal charges for euro payments do not apply outside the EU and EEA.

The FCA’s review of international payment pricing (opens in a new window) found that fees from intermediary banks were often not shown up front, and lists as poor practice not telling customers that intermediary or recipient bank fees may affect the final amount. So ask a second question as well as “what is your fee?”: how many euros will arrive in the account.

The converter on this page uses the euro foreign exchange reference rates (opens in a new window) that the European Central Bank publishes. They are usually updated at around 16:00 CET on every working day except TARGET closing days, so over a weekend the figure is from the last working day, and the page shows its date. The ECB says it publishes them for information purposes only and that using them for transactions is strongly discouraged.

The ECB states the pound as a figure per euro, so the converter turns that round to show euros for pounds. That is a calculation on a published figure, not a rate anyone is offering you.

A provider’s own rate is a separate thing. The FCA’s review of international payments lists it as good practice for a firm to explain when its conversion rate includes a markup over a reference rate and to present that markup as a cost to the customer. When a bank or provider quotes you for pounds into euros, the figure to look at is the number of euros that arrive after every fee, for the same sum on the same day. Neither this page nor the converter can tell you that figure.