That handful of leftover foreign cash: don't let it rot in a drawer What to do with leftover foreign currency

01First, sort it into three piles by "amount + currency"

Before you do anything, spread the foreign cash out and split it into three piles. Each pile takes a different route from here:

• Big notes in major currencies: dollars, euros, yen, pounds and the like, enough to be worth changing. This pile is worth converting properly.
• Small notes plus all coins: not worth changing back, and coins often nobody will take at all. Repurpose this pile or hold on to it.
• Obscure currencies / ones likely to lose value: a wide spread to change back, and possibly worth even less if you keep it. Try to spend this pile down on the ground, don't bring it home.

Sort those three piles and the plan sorts itself out. The most common mistake is hauling all three to an airport counter at once, where the big notes eat a wide spread and the coins get flatly refused.

02Big notes: where to change back with the least loss

Big notes in major currencies are the only pile genuinely worth "changing back". But even changing back has a cheap version and a dear one, and the core of it is still the spread, same logic as changing money on the way out, with the airport counter usually carrying the widest spread on the way home too.

The better move: once you're home, go to a proper bank or bureau to change it back, compare how far its board sits from the mid-market rate, and only change where the gap is small. Don't change back on a whim at the arrivals airport, that eats the spread on both the outbound and the return. If you regularly visit the same currency's region, the "keep it for next time" option below may beat changing back. How to use the mid as a ruler to judge whether a place is expensive is covered in more detail in the exchange-timing piece.

03Small amounts and coins: barely convertible, so what now

The brutal truth: coins barely change back, and changing small notes back isn't worth it either. Bureaux find coins costly to handle and thin on margin, so most simply won't take them. Small notes, even if accepted, fall short of the minimum amount or get whittled down to a sliver by the spread. Rather than pinning hopes on changing back, do this instead:

• Spend it down before you leave. This is the best handling for coins and small notes. Buy a bottle of water at the airport, grab a snack, top up a transit card, clear the change out.
• Drop it in the donation box. Many airports have charity change boxes. Coins you can't change back and can't spend are better donated than left to lose value in a drawer.
• Keep it as a keepsake or for next time. For a country you visit often, keep the coins to use directly next time; for one you rarely visit, treat them as a travel keepsake and stop fretting over their "value".

Hold on to this one rule and you'll start, late in a trip, to spend coins and small notes first on purpose, rather than hoarding a handful to bring home.

04The envelope at the back of the drawer: old notes, and money that no longer exists

One kind of leftover currency behaves nothing like the rest of this page. It isn't from the last trip. It turns up mid-house-move, in an envelope, and the designs on the notes match nothing you remember about that country. The useful question here isn't where the rate is best. It's the blunter one underneath: is this still exchangeable at all?

Three quite different things get called “old”, and they lead to three different places:

The third row is where people assume and lose, so here it is in detail. Per the European Central Bank, former national notes and coins can in most cases still be exchanged for euro, but only the national central banks do it, and the ECB itself exchanges no banknotes or coins at all. Each country set its own time limit: Germany, Austria and Ireland are open-ended, while other countries closed the window years ago.

The detail that costs people an afternoon: coins and notes were given different deadlines. In several countries the window for old coins shut back in the mid-2000s while the notes stayed exchangeable for years after. So a jar of pre-euro coins is, more often than not, no longer money — it's a keepsake, and treating it as one saves you a round of hopeful phone calls. Which country, which cut-off: go by the ECB's page on exchanging national cash (checked 2026-09).

Outside the euro area the method is identical: go to the issuing country's central bank and find its page on withdrawn banknotes. Read whether it still takes them, whether there's a cut-off date, and whether you have to turn up in person or can post them in. Some central banks accept retired series indefinitely; others don't. One country's answer tells you nothing about the next.

05Posting notes away to be bought back: when that's worth it

There's one more route, and it exists for exactly the currency nobody on your high street will touch: outfits that let you post the notes in, count them, and pay you for them. Most of what's written about them argues over whether the rate is any good. Far less gets said about where the risk sits — and it sits with you, in the days after the money leaves your hands and before anything lands in your account.

The mechanics barely vary: a quote appears on the site, you post the cash as instructed, they count what arrives, they pay against that count. Watch the third step. The final figure is almost always subject to what they receive and count; the number on the site is an estimate. That isn't a trick — it's the only way the business can work — but you should know which of the two numbers you're looking at.

Four things worth settling before anything goes in the post:

1. Is the quote an estimate? Find the line saying the final amount depends on their count. Finding it is normal. Finding no such line anywhere is the odd result, not the reassuring one.
2. Who pays the postage, and who carries a loss in transit? Sending cash has its own risk. Check whether tracked or insured postage is required, and what the insured ceiling actually covers.
3. Do they take coins? Most take notes only, and where coins are accepted the rate is usually grim. Don't tip a bag of shrapnel into the envelope and hope.
4. How and when do you get paid? If the payout method and the timescale aren't spelled out, the uncertainty has quietly been handed to you.

It stacks up when three things are true at once: you're sending notes rather than coins, the amount is big enough that postage doesn't eat the gain, and the currency is obscure enough that nothing local will take it. Short of all three, it beats leaving the money to fade in a drawer and not much else. And if the amount is small, or it's coins, or that currency is already past its central bank's deadline — the section above — posting it changes nothing except that you no longer have the notes either.

The unglamorous summary: these services usually price better than an airport and worse than a bank. What you're buying isn't the rate. It's a way out of a currency your high street won't handle. Treat it as the last route, not the first one you try.

06Is keeping it for next time worth it?

"Keep it for next time" sounds like skipping a round of exchange, but it depends on the case.

If it's a major, relatively stable currency and you'll most likely return within a year or two, keeping it really does beat changing it round and round, sparing you both the change-back and the change-out spreads. But if it's a currency prone to losing value, or you're not even sure when you'll next go, keeping it is a gamble: the currency depreciates, you forget where you put it, the notes get worn. Any of those can make it worth less the longer you hold it. A simple test: stable currency and a definite return, keep it; unstable or no plan, deal with it while it's still worth something.

07A few ways to digitise or repurpose it

Beyond changing back and keeping it, there are a few more routes to stop foreign cash "losing value in a drawer", depending on what's convenient for you:

• Keep it digital within the trip. Some multi-currency / travel cards let you leave an unspent balance on the card, ready to use directly in the same currency's region next time, sparing you from withdrawing cash you then can't finish. Whether you can and how it works is covered in the multi-currency-card piece, and follows each card's live official page.
• Hand it on / settle it internally. If someone you know is about to visit the same country, pass it to them at the mid-market rate. That's better value for both of you than an exchange counter.
• Spend it down to near zero on the ground. The most painless "handling" is really to spend cash down to a token amount at the tail of the trip, cutting the leftover off at the source. How much cash to carry so you don't end up with leftovers is covered in more detail in the cash-or-card piece.

08How the options compare on value

Lay those routes side by side so you can see at a glance what each suits.

The value column above is a rough order-of-magnitude illustration; the specifics follow each bank, bureau and card issuer's live board and rules.

09The moves that lose you the most

10When to just not bother

11Common questions

12What to read next

Update note: First published 2026-06-19; two sections added 2026-09-08, on old and withdrawn currency and on postal buy-back. The value ratings and handling suggestions here are illustrative aids to understanding; whether a currency can be changed back, the change-back board, and whether coins are accepted all follow each bank, bureau and card issuer's live rules.
Sources: publicly stated bank cash change-back boards and minimum-amount rules, issuers' multi-currency-card balance documentation, and the author's years of hoarding foreign change, getting burned, and working out how to handle it.
Official references：Visa exchange-rate calculator；Visa travel guidance；Mastercard rate and support tools；Mastercard foreign-currency FAQ；ECB reference rates；CFPB foreign-fee disclosure rule。