Currency Exchange in Auckland

Auckland has more places to change money than the rest of New Zealand combined — and that is the problem

Roughly a third of New Zealanders live in Auckland, and the city handles the large majority of the country's international arrivals through Auckland Airport. That volume supports something no other New Zealand city has: a genuinely competitive cluster of independent money changers, most of them within a few hundred metres of each other on Queen Street. Add the mall bureaux in Newmarket, Manukau, St Lukes, Sylvia Park, Albany and Takapuna, and Auckland has something like twenty-plus counters that will hand you foreign banknotes over the desk. The catch is that the rate you get varies enormously between them, the airport is the most expensive option in the city by a wide margin, and the single biggest brand — Travelex — does not have a Queen Street shop at all. This page names the actual operators, gives the addresses and the hours we could verify, and shows what the spread genuinely costs you on a NZ$2,000 exchange.

We earn a commission if you open an account with some of the providers listed on this page. It never changes the rate or fee you pay, and it never changes our rankings — our comparison figures come from each provider's published pricing.

Where to exchange cash in Auckland: named branches and hours

One thing worth knowing before you set out: Travelex has no branch in the Auckland city centre. Its own New Zealand store list shows Auckland locations at Albany, Takapuna, Botany, Sylvia Park, Northwest and Orewa, plus the airport — but nothing on Queen Street. If you are in the CBD and looking for a familiar brand, the ones you will actually find are No1 Currency, Travel Money NZ, Lotus Foreign Exchange, City Forex and several independents.

Auckland CBD — the Queen Street and Customs Street strip

This is the densest concentration of money changers in the country. The stretch from the bottom of Queen Street near Britomart up past Aotea Square holds most of them, and because they can see each other's boards, they compete on rate in a way suburban bureaux do not. Ask for the rate on the exact amount you are changing, not the board rate — several will improve on the posted number for anything over about NZ$1,000, and some charge a separate commission on top of the spread, which is where a good-looking board rate quietly stops being good.

Operator	Address	Hours
No1 Currency (Queen Street Upper)	175 Queen Street, Auckland Central 1010	Hours vary — check before you travel
No1 Currency	238 Queen Street, Auckland Central 1010	Listed by third parties as Mon–Sat 8:30am–6:30pm, Sun 9:00am–7:00pm — not operator-confirmed
No1 Currency / Prosegur Change	11 Customs Street East, Auckland CBD 1010 · +64 9 558 8376	Hours vary — check before you travel
Travel Money NZ	Unit G3, 239 Queen Street, Auckland 1010	Listed by third parties as Mon–Fri 9:00am–6:00pm, Sat–Sun 9:30am–6:00pm — not operator-confirmed
Lotus Foreign Exchange	115 Queen Street, Auckland CBD 1010	Hours vary — check before you travel
Lotus Foreign Exchange	210 Queen Street, Auckland CBD 1010	Hours vary — check before you travel
City Forex NZ	Ground floor Shop 3, 44–52 Wellesley Street West (Mayoral Drive frontage), Auckland 1010	Hours vary — check before you travel
DP Money Exchange	263 Queen Street, Auckland Central 1010	Listed by third parties as Mon–Fri 9:30am–6:30pm, Sat 11:00am–5:00pm — not operator-confirmed
E-Trans Group	95 Queen Street, Auckland Central 1010	Listed by third parties as Mon–Fri 9:30am–5:30pm, Sat–Sun 10:00am–5:00pm — not operator-confirmed

A note on the Customs Street East site: it appears in Prosegur Change's own New Zealand branch list as its Auckland branch, and in several independent directories as a No1 Currency shop. Prosegur acquired the retail foreign exchange business The Change Group and has been expanding its New Zealand footprint, so signage on that corner may say either name. The address and phone number are consistent across both listings.

Newmarket

Newmarket is the most convenient option if you are anywhere on the isthmus east of the city centre, and it is a genuinely useful alternative to fighting for CBD parking. There is one dedicated bureau in the mall.

Operator	Address	Hours
Travel Money NZ Newmarket	Level 3, inside Flight Centre, Westfield Newmarket, 277 Broadway, Newmarket 1023 · (09) 978 9400	Mall hours, checked 8 August 2026: Mon–Wed and Sat 9:00am–7:00pm, Thu–Fri 9:00am–9:00pm, Sun 10:00am–7:00pm

Because the counter sits inside a Flight Centre store rather than operating as a standalone kiosk, it can close earlier than the mall itself. If you are cutting it fine on a Thursday or Friday evening, phone ahead.

Manukau and South Auckland

South Auckland is where a large share of the country's outbound remittance traffic starts, and the bureau network reflects that — the counters here handle Pacific and Asian currencies routinely rather than as a special order. If you need Fijian dollars, Philippine pesos or Indian rupees in note form, you will generally have better luck here than in a mall on the North Shore.

Operator	Address	Hours
Travel Money NZ Manukau	Level G, near Spark, Westfield Manukau City, cnr Great South Road & Manukau Station Road, Manukau 2104 · 0800 447 524	Mall hours, checked 8 August 2026: Mon–Wed and Sat 9:00am–6:00pm, Thu–Fri 9:00am–9:00pm, Sun 10:00am–5:30pm
Lotus Foreign Exchange Manukau	Westfield Manukau City, 1 Leyton Way, Manukau City Centre 2104	Hours vary — check before you travel
Lotus Foreign Exchange Hunters Corner	166B Great South Road, Papatoetoe 2025	Listed by third parties as Mon–Fri 9:00am–5:00pm, Sat 10:00am–4:00pm — not operator-confirmed
No1 Currency Ōtāhuhu	8 Gordon Road, Ōtāhuhu, Auckland · +64 9 270 2205	Hours vary — check before you travel

North Shore

The Shore is the one part of Auckland where Travelex is the dominant name rather than an absent one, with counters at Westfield Albany and inside the Paper Plus in Takapuna. Note the Takapuna difference: because it operates inside a bookshop, it keeps standard retail hours and closes at 5:30pm on weekdays, while the Albany store runs to 9:00pm on Thursdays and Fridays.

Operator	Address	Hours
Travelex Albany	Store K15, Westfield Albany, Auckland 0632	Mon–Wed 9:00am–6:00pm, Thu–Fri 9:00am–9:00pm, Sat 9:00am–6:00pm, Sun 9:00am–5:30pm
Travelex Takapuna	28 Hurstmere Road, inside Paper Plus, Takapuna 0622	Mon–Sat 9:00am–5:30pm, Sun 10:00am–4:00pm
No1 Currency Takapuna	Level Two, Shore City Shopping Centre, Takapuna	Mon–Wed 9:00am–6:00pm, Thu 9:00am–7:00pm, Fri–Sat 9:00am–6:00pm, Sun 9:00am–5:00pm
Lotus Foreign Exchange Browns Bay	45 Clyde Road, Browns Bay 0630	Hours vary — check before you travel
Global Forex	Unit 6/5 Oracle Drive, Albany 0632	Hours vary — check before you travel

Other Auckland suburbs worth knowing

If none of the four areas above is convenient, there are further counters at Westfield St Lukes (Travel Money NZ on Level 1 opposite 2degrees, 80 St Lukes Road, Mount Albert 1025, (09) 978 6000, plus a Lotus Foreign Exchange in the same centre), Sylvia Park (Travelex and Travel Money NZ, 286 Mount Wellington Highway, Mount Wellington 1060 — the Travelex store there runs 9:00am–7:00pm most days and to 9:00pm Thursday and Friday), Botany Town Centre (Travelex, 588 Chapel Road, Botany 2013, Mon–Wed 9:00am–6:00pm, Thu–Fri 9:00am–9:00pm, Sat 9:00am–6:00pm, Sun 10:00am–6:00pm), Westfield West City in Henderson and NorthWest at Westgate (both Travel Money NZ), LynnMall and Pakuranga Plaza (Lotus), and Dress-Smart Onehunga (Travel Money NZ, Kiosk K10, 151 Arthur Street). Mount Roskill has two independents on Stoddard Road. If you are searching more broadly, our currency exchange near me guide covers how to sanity-check a bureau's rate before you hand over cash.

Banks and ATMs in Auckland

Every major New Zealand bank has branches across Auckland, but branch foreign-cash service has thinned out sharply. ANZ, ASB, BNZ, Westpac and Kiwiblank branches will generally not hand you foreign banknotes across the counter on demand — where the service exists at all it is usually order-and-collect, taking two to five business days, and often restricted to account holders. If you want US dollars this afternoon, a bureau is your answer, not a bank.

Where the banks matter is the transfer side, and there they are expensive. Third-party comparison data on a NZ$5,000 transfer from New Zealand to the United States puts BNZ at NZ$77.46, ASB at NZ$84.58 and Kiwibank at NZ$108.39 in total cost, against NZ$16.37 for Wise. That gap is mostly hidden in the exchange rate rather than shown as a fee, which is why the fee schedule on a bank's website tends to understate what the transfer actually costs you. We break the numbers down bank by bank in our NZ bank international transfer fees comparison.

ATMs are dense across the Auckland CBD, Newmarket, Manukau and every mall listed above, and the airport has both bank ATMs and Travelex ATMs that dispense several currencies. One warning on the multi-currency ATMs: dispensing foreign notes from a machine typically carries a worse rate than the same operator's staffed counter, so they are a convenience option, not a value one.

What a cash exchange in Auckland really costs

Bureaux almost never describe their pricing as a fee. They quote you a rate, and the money comes out of the difference between that rate and the real mid-market rate — the one you see on Google or Reuters. Here is what that looks like on a NZ$2,000 exchange to US dollars.

Where you change it	Typical spread off mid-market	What NZ$2,000 costs you
Queen Street bureau, rate negotiated on the amount	~4%	~NZ$80
Typical Auckland mall bureau, board rate	5–7%	NZ$100–140
Bureau charging spread plus a commission	5–7% + NZ$8–10	NZ$110–150
Auckland Airport terminal desk	8–12%	NZ$160–240
Wise, converting at the mid-market rate	0.25–0.6% conversion fee, no rate markup	~NZ$7–13

The airport line is the one that catches people. Changing a NZ$2,000 holiday budget at the terminal instead of on Queen Street can cost you an extra NZ$100 or more for the convenience of doing it twenty minutes before you fly — and you were going to walk past three bureaux in the CBD anyway. If you want the fuller national picture, see the cheapest way to exchange money in New Zealand.

Online alternatives, compared on the numbers

If what you actually need is money in an overseas account or on a card rather than notes in your hand, the online providers are not in the same price bracket as a bureau. These are total costs on a NZ$5,000 transfer from New Zealand to the United States, from third-party comparison data.

Provider	Total cost on NZ$5,000	Rate used
Wise	NZ$16.37	Mid-market, no markup
XE	NZ$30.18	Marked-up rate
OFX	NZ$39.02	Marked-up rate
CurrencyFair	NZ$41.56	Marked-up rate
TorFX	NZ$50.51	Marked-up rate
Currencies Direct	NZ$60.73	Marked-up rate
BNZ	NZ$77.46	Marked-up rate
ASB	NZ$84.58	Marked-up rate
Kiwibank	NZ$108.39	Marked-up rate
PayPal	NZ$226.85	Marked-up rate

Be clear about the trade-off, because it is real: none of these will hand you banknotes in Auckland today. Wise moves money between accounts and onto a card. If you need a physical US$100 note in your wallet this afternoon, walk to Queen Street. If you need spending power overseas next month, the card route is roughly ten times cheaper.

The split strategy: a small cash float plus a card at the real rate

The approach that costs Auckland travellers the least is not choosing between cash and card. It is deliberately splitting them. Take NZ$150–300 of cash from a CBD bureau for the things that genuinely need notes — airport taxis, tips, a rural market, a country where cards are patchy — and put the remaining 90% of your budget on a card that converts at the mid-market rate. You get the safety net without paying a 5–7% spread on your entire trip.

Worth being straight about the regulatory position, because it is the question Auckland readers ask most: Wise Payments Ltd operates in New Zealand as a foreign entity and is not licensed by a New Zealand regulator. It is supervised by the Department of Internal Affairs for anti-money-laundering and counter-terrorism-financing purposes. That is a genuine difference from banking with ANZ or ASB, and you should weigh it. Our Wise review for New Zealand goes through the safeguarding arrangements in detail, and best card to use overseas from NZ compares it against the bank travel cards.

Sending money overseas from Auckland

Auckland generates most of New Zealand's outbound personal transfers — to family in Suva, Manila, Mumbai, Guangzhou, Sydney and London. If that is what you are doing, a Queen Street bureau is the wrong tool entirely; you want a transfer service, and the price differences are large. Our guide to sending money overseas from New Zealand covers the corridors, and sending money to Australia is worth reading separately because the AUD corridor is the cheapest and the most competitive.

One accuracy point that matters for a lot of Auckland families: Wise does not support transfers to Samoa, Tonga, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea or the Cook Islands. Fiji is supported. If you are sending to one of those five destinations you will need a different provider, and a South Auckland remittance counter may genuinely be your best available option. Do not let anyone tell you otherwise.

Auckland Airport currency exchange

Auckland Airport's international terminal is served principally by Global Exchange, which operates multiple counters — check-in Zones A and B, the level 1 departures food court, after security in the duty-free area, the arrivals hallway, baggage claim and the arrivals exit. Published hours are 04:00–23:00 for most counters, with some points staffed 24 hours; look for the "FX" icon on the terminal map. Travelex also operates at the airport, including a domestic terminal desk.

Convenience is the whole proposition and you pay for it. Airport rates in Auckland typically sit several percentage points worse than the Queen Street boards, which on a NZ$2,000 exchange is the difference between roughly NZ$100 and roughly NZ$200. Treat the terminal as a backstop for the NZ$100 of local currency you forgot, not as where you buy your trip money. Full detail, including which counters open for which flights, is on our Auckland Airport currency exchange page.

Frequently asked questions about currency exchange in Auckland

Where is the best exchange rate in Auckland?

The Queen Street strip between Customs Street and Aotea Square consistently beats both the malls and the airport, because the bureaux there are within sight of each other and compete openly. Compare boards at No1 Currency (175 and 238 Queen Street), Travel Money NZ (239 Queen Street) and the Lotus Foreign Exchange shops at 115 and 210 Queen Street, and ask each for the rate on your specific amount rather than accepting the posted one.

Is there a Travelex in the Auckland CBD?

No. Travelex's own New Zealand store list shows Auckland branches at Westfield Albany, Takapuna, Botany Town Centre, Sylvia Park, NorthWest and Orewa, plus Auckland Airport — but no Queen Street or city-centre shop. In the CBD you will find No1 Currency, Travel Money NZ, Lotus Foreign Exchange, City Forex and several independents instead.

How much does it cost to exchange NZ$2,000 in Auckland?

Roughly NZ$80–140 at a CBD bureau, NZ$100–150 at a mall bureau or one that adds a commission on top of the spread, and NZ$160–240 at an Auckland Airport counter. Converting the same NZ$2,000 through Wise at the mid-market rate costs about NZ$7–13, but gives you card and account balances rather than banknotes.

Can I get foreign cash from an Auckland bank branch?

Usually not on the spot. ANZ, ASB, BNZ, Westpac and Kiwibank have largely withdrawn over-the-counter foreign cash service; where it exists it is order-and-collect, typically two to five business days, and often limited to existing customers. For same-day foreign notes in Auckland, use a bureau.

Where can I exchange money in Auckland on a Sunday?

The mall bureaux are your most reliable Sunday option — Travelex at Westfield Albany (to 5:30pm), Sylvia Park and Botany Town Centre, Travel Money NZ at Newmarket, Manukau and St Lukes, and No1 Currency at Shore City Takapuna (to 5:00pm) all trade on Sundays. Several Queen Street independents open Sundays too, but hours are less consistent, so phone ahead.

Where do I exchange money on Auckland's North Shore?

Travelex at Store K15, Westfield Albany, open to 9:00pm Thursdays and Fridays; Travelex inside Paper Plus at 28 Hurstmere Road, Takapuna; No1 Currency on Level Two of Shore City Shopping Centre in Takapuna; Lotus Foreign Exchange at 45 Clyde Road, Browns Bay; and Global Forex at 5 Oracle Drive, Albany.

Which Auckland bureau handles Pacific and Asian currencies?

The South Auckland counters are generally your best bet for Fijian dollars, Philippine pesos, Indian rupees and similar — Travel Money NZ and Lotus Foreign Exchange at Westfield Manukau City, Lotus at Hunters Corner in Papatoetoe, and No1 Currency at 8 Gordon Road, Ōtāhuhu. Less-traded currencies may still need ordering a day or two ahead anywhere in Auckland.

Should I take cash or a card from Auckland?

Both, deliberately split. Change NZ$150–300 at a Queen Street bureau for taxis, tips and cash-only situations, and carry the remaining 90% of your budget on a card that converts at the mid-market rate with no foreign transaction fee. That avoids paying a 5–7% spread on your entire trip while still leaving you with notes when you land. See should I pay in NZD or local currency for the related trap at overseas card terminals.