How to Sell Foreign Currency: Rates, ID, and Reporting

To sell foreign currency, take your banknotes and a government-issued photo ID to a bank where you hold an account, a currency exchange kiosk, or an online mail-in service, and you’ll receive U.S. dollars at that provider’s buy rate. What you actually walk away with depends heavily on where you go: airport kiosks are convenient but expensive, banks give tighter rates to their own customers, and online platforms can work well if you’re willing to ship cash. Once the amount climbs past a few thousand dollars, federal identification, reporting, and tax rules start to shape the transaction as much as the rate does.

Where to Sell

Your Bank or Credit Union

Most large national banks and many regional banks buy back major currencies like euros, British pounds, and Japanese yen as a routine service. Nearly all of them require you to be an existing account holder first. Credit unions work the same way and generally restrict exchange to members. Opening an account just to unload a small pile of leftover travel cash rarely makes sense.

Smaller branches sometimes don’t stock less common currencies. If you’re selling Thai baht or South African rand rather than euros, call ahead. Larger downtown or regional hub branches are more likely to handle a wider range.

Airport and Retail Exchange Kiosks

Dedicated kiosks in international terminals and some shopping centers accept a broader mix of currencies than most bank branches, because that’s their whole business. The trade-off is cost. Airport kiosks charge the steepest markups of any option, since they know travelers have limited alternatives.

Some kiosk operators sell a buy-back guarantee at the time you originally purchase currency from them, which locks in a better sell-back rate for a set window (often around 180 days) in exchange for a small upfront fee. You need the original receipt to use it, and only the amount from that original purchase qualifies.

Online Mail-In Services

Online currency exchange platforms let you place a sell order on their website, ship the banknotes to a processing center, and receive an electronic deposit once the cash is verified. This can be a good fit if no nearby bank handles foreign exchange, but you are literally putting cash in the mail.

If you use the U.S. Postal Service, only Registered Mail insures cash, and the coverage limit is $50,000. Every other mail class caps indemnity for currency at just $15, so a lost package of banknotes would be almost entirely unrecoverable.¹ Private couriers set their own rules; confirm in writing that a shipment of foreign banknotes qualifies before sending.

What the Rate Actually Costs You

Every exchange provider makes money by giving you a rate worse than the mid-market rate, which is the wholesale rate banks use with each other. The gap between the mid-market rate and what you receive is called the spread, and it’s the true cost of the transaction. It’s often larger than any flat fee the provider charges, and a “zero commission” sign tells you nothing about it.

Airport kiosks and hotel exchange desks tend to charge the highest markups, sometimes 5% to 15% above the mid-market rate. Banks and credit unions offer tighter spreads for their account holders, though they still build a margin in. Online platforms vary. Before you sell, look up the current mid-market rate on a financial data site and compare it to the rate being offered. That single comparison tells you more about the real cost than anything posted at the counter.

ID and Records You’ll Need to Provide

Every currency exchange requires government-issued photo ID. A driver’s license or passport works for U.S. residents; non-residents need a passport or other official document showing nationality and home address.² The provider records the specific document number on the transaction, so being a “known customer” isn’t enough.

Dealers in foreign exchange must keep records for any transaction over $1,000. Those records include your name, address, passport number or taxpayer identification number, the date and amount, and the currencies involved.³ Even for smaller exchanges, expect to show ID. Most providers apply stricter internal policies than the regulatory minimum.

What Banknotes They’ll Accept

Most providers only take paper banknotes. Foreign coins are almost universally refused because they’re expensive to weigh, sort, and ship back to the issuing country. Realistic options for coins are donating them, saving them for a future trip, or dropping them in an airport charity bin.

Physical condition matters. Bills that are heavily torn, taped, or badly stained may be rejected by counting machines and human tellers alike. Minor wear is fine. Bring the cleanest notes you have and set damaged ones aside so they don’t hold up the transaction.

Obsolete or demonetized currency is a separate problem. When a country withdraws a banknote series, commercial providers stop accepting it. Your only recourse is the issuing country’s central bank, which may still redeem old notes for a limited window or indefinitely depending on its policies. That usually means mailing the banknotes internationally and waiting weeks. Check the central bank’s website before assuming old bills are worthless.

Federal Reporting on Larger Amounts

Any currency exchange over $10,000 triggers a mandatory Currency Transaction Report, filed electronically by the institution as FinCEN Form 112.⁴⁵ You don’t file it yourself, but you’ll be asked for your Social Security number or taxpayer identification number, your occupation, and the source of the funds.

A CTR is not an accusation. Banks file thousands every day. What is a serious federal crime is structuring: deliberately splitting a transaction into smaller pieces to stay under $10,000. Exchanging $15,000 as two $7,500 visits to different branches to duck the report is a felony punishable by up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.⁶ If the structuring is part of a broader pattern of illegal activity involving more than $100,000 in a 12-month period, the maximum jumps to 10 years and $500,000.⁷ The government can also seize any property involved.⁸

If You’re Bringing the Cash Into the Country

Selling currency you’re carrying into the United States has its own step before the exchange. If you enter the country with more than $10,000 in currency or monetary instruments (foreign banknotes, traveler’s checks, and money orders combined), you must file FinCEN Form 105 with U.S. Customs and Border Protection.⁹¹⁰ The threshold applies per group of travelers, not per person; a family of four with $3,000 each would exceed it collectively. There is no tax or duty on the money, and the form costs nothing, but skipping it can lead to seizure and forfeiture of the undeclared currency along with criminal exposure.⁸

Do You Owe Tax on the Gain?

When you sell foreign currency for more U.S. dollars than you originally paid for it, the difference is technically a taxable gain, and under federal tax law gains from foreign currency transactions are treated as ordinary income.¹¹ Most travelers owe nothing, because of a built-in exemption for personal transactions.

If you bought currency for a vacation and the rate moved in your favor, any gain under $200 is tax-free and doesn’t have to be reported.¹¹ Once the gain exceeds $200, the entire amount becomes taxable as ordinary income, not just the portion above the line. It’s a cliff, not a deduction.

Losses work differently. If the rate moved against you and you got back fewer dollars than you spent, you cannot deduct the loss on a personal transaction. Losses are only deductible when the currency was held for business or investment purposes. This is why your original purchase receipt matters: it establishes your cost basis and lets you calculate whether there was a gain at all.

How the Transaction Actually Goes

At the Counter

The teller or kiosk operator counts your bills, checks security features like watermarks and color-shifting ink, and quotes a payout based on the current buy rate. That rate already includes the provider’s markup, so there’s usually no separate commission to negotiate. Once you agree, you receive dollars in cash or as a deposit to your account.

Ask for the rate in writing before handing over the currency. Some kiosks post buy and sell rates on a board; others quote verbally. Multiply the foreign amount by the quoted rate yourself and confirm it matches what they’re offering. It takes 30 seconds and occasionally catches errors.

By Mail

Online platforms have you create an account, submit an exchange order for a specific currency and amount, and then mail the banknotes to a processing center. Package the bills in a tamper-evident envelope, ship via Registered Mail if you’re using USPS, and use tracking to confirm delivery.¹ After verification, the platform transfers the dollar equivalent to your bank account, typically within two to five business days. Some offer expedited transfers for a fee.

Keep the Receipt

Whichever route you take, keep the transaction receipt. It documents the rate, the amount, and the date. If the exchange triggers a CTR or if you later need to work out a gain or loss for taxes, the receipt is your primary record. Providers keep their own copy for exchanges over $1,000, but that doesn’t help you at tax time months later.

1
USPS. What Are the Limits for Insuring Cash and Checks
2
FFIEC BSA/AML Manual. Assessing Compliance with BSA Regulatory Requirements – Currency Transaction Reporting
3
Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. FinCEN Issues Ruling on Records to Be Made and Maintained by Dealers in Foreign Exchange
4
eCFR. 31 CFR 1010.311 – Filing Obligations for Reports of Transactions in Currency
5
Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. FinCEN Currency Transaction Report Electronic Filing Instructions
6
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 31 U.S. Code 5324 – Structuring Transactions to Evade Reporting Requirement Prohibited
7
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 31 U.S.C. 5322 – Criminal Penalties
8
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 31 U.S.C. 5317 – Search and Forfeiture of Monetary Instruments
9
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 31 U.S. Code 5316 – Reports on Exporting and Importing Monetary Instruments
10
CBP.gov. Currency Reporting
11
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 U.S. Code 988 – Treatment of Certain Foreign Currency Transactions