Do I need cash in Delhi, or will my card and UPI work?
A market stall in Delhi displaying a UPI QR code next to a stack of small rupee notes
You need cash — around ₹2,000-₹3,000 a day in small notes — because Delhi runs on UPI and coins at the bottom and cards only at the top, with almost nothing in between accepting a foreign tap.
The three-tier payment city
Delhi splits payments into three tiers and your foreign card only reaches one of them. Tier one is hotels, malls, chain coffee shops, airline counters and any restaurant with tablecloths: Visa and Mastercard work, Amex is patchy, and contactless goes through without a PIN up to ₹5,000. Tier two is the enormous middle — auto drivers, dhabas, chaiwallahs, market stalls, barbers, the man selling SIM cards — which runs almost entirely on UPI QR codes scanned from an Indian phone. Tier three is cash, which everyone still takes and nobody refuses.
The trap is assuming tier two will accept a card because there is a machine on the counter. There usually is not a machine at all; there is a laminated QR code, and it is linked to an Indian bank account you do not have. A visitor with only a card ends up making a ₹40 chai into a problem. Carry cash for tier two and three, use the card for hotels and big restaurant bills where it saves you carrying ₹8,000 in notes, and the whole system stops being annoying within a day.
ATMs: which ones, what they cost, how much they give
Use ATMs attached to a bank branch, and prefer HDFC, ICICI, Axis, SBI or Kotak. These accept foreign cards reliably, sit under a camera with a guard, and are restocked properly. Most charge ₹150-₹250 per foreign-card withdrawal on top of whatever your home bank levies, which is why you should take the maximum rather than dribbling out small amounts. Per-transaction caps vary by bank: SBI and HDFC often stop at ₹10,000, while Axis and ICICI machines frequently allow ₹15,000-₹20,000. If one machine caps you low, try another brand two doors down.
Avoid the standalone kiosks in Paharganj, Mahipalpur and outside railway stations — they are the ones that run empty, eat cards and occasionally carry skimmers. Withdraw in daylight, cover the keypad, and never accept help from a passerby who suddenly appears at your shoulder. Good clusters: Connaught Place's inner circle has a dozen bank ATMs within a five-minute walk; Khan Market, Greater Kailash M-Block, Nehru Place and both airport terminals are equally dense. At Terminal 3, take out ₹10,000 on arrival so you are not negotiating a taxi with an empty wallet at 03:00.
UPI for foreigners: worth it, with conditions
UPI is India's instant bank-to-bank QR system, and it normally needs an Indian bank account and Indian phone number. Visitors have a workaround: a prepaid tourist wallet issued against your passport and visa, available at counters including Delhi airport arrivals, which you load with cash and then spend by scanning exactly the QR codes locals use. Unspent balance is refunded when you close it. It is genuinely useful if you are staying three weeks, shopping in markets daily or splitting bills with Indian friends, because it removes the change problem entirely.
For a five-day trip it is more admin than it is worth. The faster move is a local prepaid SIM — Airtel or Jio at the airport arrivals hall, roughly ₹1,000-₹1,500 for 28 days with generous data — because that unlocks Uber, Ola, Rapido autos, Zomato and Swiggy, all of which will happily take cash or your foreign card at the end of the ride or delivery. Getting a functioning Indian number matters more than getting UPI. Bring your passport, visa and a passport photo to the SIM counter, and expect activation to take a couple of hours.
The small-notes economy, and why ₹500 is a problem
The largest note in circulation is ₹500, and it is close to useless at street level before noon. Auto drivers, chai stalls and paratha shops open the day with no float; hand over ₹500 for a ₹60 fare and you will be sent to buy something you do not want in order to break it. The ₹2,000 note was withdrawn in 2023 and, while technically still legal, will simply be refused — do not accept one as change from anybody. Coins in ₹1, ₹2, ₹5, ₹10 and ₹20 denominations circulate constantly and you should hoard them.
Run a two-pocket system. Big notes stay in your money belt or hotel safe; a working float of ₹1,500 in ₹10, ₹20, ₹50 and ₹100 notes lives in a front pocket. Break ₹500 notes deliberately at places that always have change: Metro ticket counters, chain supermarkets, petrol pumps, mall food courts and hotel receptions. Typical demands on that float in one day — Metro ₹40, two autos ₹180, chai and samosa ₹60, shoe minder at a mosque ₹20, public toilet ₹5, tips ₹150 — and none of them can be paid any other way.
Card traps: dynamic conversion, PINs and skimmers
The single most expensive mistake is accepting dynamic currency conversion. When a terminal or a hotel bill offers to charge you in your home currency instead of ₹, decline it every time and insist the transaction is processed in ₹ — the alternative bakes in a markup of roughly 3-6 percent that your own bank would never have charged. Some hotel front desks will present the choice as a courtesy. It is not. The same applies at ATMs when the screen offers a guaranteed conversion rate: choose the option that continues without conversion.
Otherwise, keep the card in sight. Indian restaurants bring a portable terminal to the table as standard practice, so if someone wants to walk away with your card, walk with them. Chip-and-PIN is the norm, magnetic stripe is effectively dead, and contactless above ₹5,000 will ask for a PIN. Notify your bank you are travelling, carry a second card from a different network in a separate bag, and screenshot your bank's international lost-card number before you fly — Indian toll-free numbers do not work from a foreign SIM, so you need the direct international line.
Paying for transport specifically
The Metro takes cash at counters for a paper QR ticket, the DMRC smart card, which gives roughly a 10 percent fare discount and is reloadable in cash, or QR tickets bought in the DMRC app if you have an Indian number for the payment step. The Airport Express has accepted contactless bank cards straight at the gate since 2022, which is the smoothest option on arrival: tap in at Terminal 3, tap out at New Delhi, around ₹60, done, with no queue and no change needed.
Autos are cash unless you book through Uber, Ola or Rapido, where the fare is fixed on screen and you can still pay cash at the end. The metered rate is ₹30 for the first 1.5km and about ₹11 per kilometre after, with a legitimate 25 percent surcharge between 23:00 and 05:00; app pricing usually lands within ₹20 of that and removes the argument. App cabs take cards or cash — set cash as the default if your card keeps failing 3D Secure checks against a foreign phone number, a very common and very frustrating failure at 05:00 outside a hotel.
How much cash to carry, and where prices actually sit
A realistic mid-range day runs ₹3,500-₹5,000 excluding your room: breakfast at a local place ₹120-₹250, a Metro day of hops ₹60-₹120, two or three app autos ₹300-₹450, a proper sit-down lunch ₹500-₹900 for two, monument entries ₹550 each at the big ASI sites for foreign nationals, evening drinks ₹600-₹1,200, dinner ₹1,200-₹2,500 for two. Of that, roughly ₹2,000 has to be physical cash and the rest can go on plastic. Street-food days in Old Delhi cost a fraction of it: ₹400 feeds two people generously.
Carry ₹2,000-₹3,000 on you and leave the rest in the room safe. Do not exchange money at the desks in Paharganj offering suspiciously strong rates — the notes counted back at speed will be short, and the recount happens after you leave. Airport exchange counters are poor value but safe for a small first amount; bank ATMs beat them every time thereafter. Keep ₹500 tucked in a shoe or phone case as a genuine emergency fare home, because a dead phone plus an empty wallet in Nehru Place at 22:00 is the only version of a Delhi money problem that actually matters.
Before you book
What people ask before booking Paharganj.
Only if you stay inside hotels and malls. Autos, chai, street food, shoe minders at mosques, public toilets, market bargaining and tips are all cash or Indian UPI, and none of those accept a foreign card. Budget at least ₹1,500-₹2,000 a day in small notes even on a card-heavy itinerary.
Use ATMs at bank branches. Rates are effectively interbank, the fee is ₹150-₹250 per withdrawal, and you skip the paperwork and short-counting risk of exchange desks. Bring a small emergency reserve in foreign notes for the one day both your cards decide to fail, and change it at an airport or hotel counter.
Only where there is no printed price. Markets like Sarojini Nagar, Janpath and Chandni Chowk expect it — open around 40 percent below the asking figure and settle near 60. Restaurants, shops with barcodes, Metro fares, ASI tickets and app-booked rides are all fixed, and pushing on those just marks you out.
Frequently, and it usually means that machine's international routing is down rather than a problem with your card. Try a different bank's ATM before calling home — HDFC and Axis machines are the most consistently foreign-card friendly, and branch machines outperform the standalone kiosks in Paharganj and Mahipalpur by a wide margin.
