Money in Manila.

The currency is the peso (PHP, ₱), split into 100 centavos, though you'll rarely touch anything below a peso. Notes run ₱20, ₱50, ₱100, ₱200, ₱500 and ₱1,000, with coins for the small change. Two designs circulate together, the older paper notes and the newer polymer (plastic) ones, and both are valid, so don't be thrown when you're handed a mix.

To get your eye in on Manila prices: a carinderia meal runs about ₱80 to ₱150, a jeepney ride starts around ₱13 to ₱15, a bottle of water is ₱20 or so, a San Miguel from a store ₱40 to ₱70, and a Grab across town anywhere from ₱200 to ₱500 depending on traffic. US dollars won't buy any of it, so treat foreign cash as something to change, not to spend.

In the business districts your card does the heavy lifting. Visa and Mastercard are taken across the malls (SM, Ayala's Glorietta and Greenbelt, Robinsons), supermarkets, hotels and mid-range and upmarket restaurants in Makati, BGC, Ortigas and the tourist parts of the old city. Step into a jeepney, a tricycle, a wet market, a carinderia or a sari-sari store and it's cash only. American Express is accepted in far fewer places, so carry a Visa or Mastercard as your main card.

Watch for the odd surcharge. Malls and reputable hotels generally don't add one, but a small independent shop or tour desk sometimes tacks on a few percent for paying by card to cover the processing fee. It's rarely worth a row, so keep some cash for those places and put the rest on the card. Separately, your own bank may charge a foreign-transaction fee on every payment abroad, which is exactly what the calculator below helps you dodge with the right card.

Contactless is spreading but not universal. Tap-to-pay on a Visa or Mastercard works at many of Manila's malls, supermarkets and chain stores, and where the terminal takes it, a phone wallet works too (Google Wallet, if your card is loaded into it), handing over a one-time token instead of your real card number. Apple Pay isn't officially available in the Philippines, so don't plan around it. The bigger point: the everyday local rail is QR through GCash and Maya, not card tap, so treat a phone wallet as a handy extra in the cities rather than something to rely on.

Carry more cash than you would in a card-first city, but you don't need a brick, since Manila has ATMs and malls on every other corner. Cash is for the day's real spending: jeepney and tricycle fares, market food, sari-sari stores, tips and anywhere off the mall grid. One Manila-specific tip that saves both cash and hassle: pick up a beep card for the trains. It's the tap-and-go stored-value card for the LRT and MRT lines and a growing number of modern jeepneys and city buses, sold at any station booth for ₱100 (₱20 for the card, ₱80 of travel), and it means you're not scrambling for exact coins at the turnstile.

An ATM is the simplest way to get pesos, but if you've brought cash from home or want to change a larger sum at once, a city money changer usually beats the banks and the airport. Two things decide whether you get a fair deal in Manila: where you change, and how you handle the count.

Locals pay for almost everything by scanning a QR Ph code, the national standard the central bank (BSP) runs through wallets like GCash and Maya. If you've used QR payments elsewhere in the region, don't assume Manila works the same way, because how easily you can pay by QR here comes down to where you bank.

Most visitors never need this, but if you're paying a hotel or tour deposit or supporting family, watch the exchange rate rather than the advertised fee, since that's where a few hidden percent usually sits. Specialist services like Wise and Instarem land close to the real Google (mid-market) rate and pay out in pesos to a Philippine bank account or straight to a GCash wallet, usually fast, while a high-street bank wire tends to cost more once the rate markup and correspondent fees are counted.