Money in Panama

What is the currency in Panama?  

Why, it's U.S. dollars!  (Although, apparently locally, they call them "Balboas").  That's rather convenient.

The bills all look the same as in the U.S., but Panama mints some of its own coins.

Five Balboas (worth $1 each)
and three Panamanian quarters. 

An aside: Making cents:

The New York Times recently published an article on how bizarre the continued use of pennies is in the U.S.  Here in Panama, I hardly ever use cash, so I'm not sure if pennies are a thing here.  The farmers market I found lists all foods in denominations that are multiples of $0.25 (or rather, I guess, B/0.25), and there doesn't seem to be tax on food.

Cash and Credit on the Ground in Panama

From the Embassy Handbook:  

The official currency of Panama is the Balboa (PAB), and its symbol is B/. 

In fact, the Balboa is structured in a similar manner as the US dollar.

People traveling to Panama are not required to acquire the local currency, 

as American dollars are preferred by local people. 

American dollars are accepted everywhere, as long as smaller denominations are used for payment; 

many of the local establishments do not accept the $50 and $100 bills. 

At times, you may be asked for identification when you use these denominations.

ATM fees are between $4.50 and $5.50 for out-of-country ATM cash withdrawals. 

$500.00 is the maximum withdrawal pre event in most of the banks. 

This foreign transaction fee will be debited to your home bank account, 

and will appear on your home bank statement, 

unless you have the type of account that waives foreign transaction fees. 

Check with your bank.

Neither our credit union nor TIAA Bank (now called "Everbank") have reciprocity agreements with Panamanian banks to help avoid ATM fees, sigh.  Other Fulbrighters recommended getting a letter of recommendation (?) from our bank so that eventually we can set up a bank account in Panama, avoiding ATM fees.  

Mostly, we've been doing okay so far with the cash we brought with us and with credit cards.  Of course, it's early days yet, so we'll see if we actually decide to set up an account with a local bank account someday.  I'll need my immigration/temporary resident paperwork to go through first, though.  (That's a whole other story, and a long one!)

A helpful article I read a few months before going suggested that we check with our credit cards and our banks about overseas transactions:

• Between the two of us, we have five credit cards. American Express and the credit union Visa charge fees (the credit union one is 1%). 
• Chase and Discover do not charge fees, but of course Discover is not as widely accepted overseas as other places.  Apparently, though, it's accepted where Diner's Card is accepted?
• Update: we got yet another credit card, a MasterCard from CitiBank; it seems to work just about everywhere here and doesn't charge fees.

Retirement withdrawals while overseas

Apparently, TIAA does not allow people who are overseas to set up transactions.  If I hadn't figured that out this past June, before we headed overseas, it could have been a bit of a financial pickle, having money in my retirement accounts that I couldn't access! It's okay to have those transactions take place while I'm overseas, but I have to actually initially approve them while I'm stateside, apparently.

 I don't want to go into too much detail for privacy reasons, but fortunately, before I left for Panama I did get to talk with my TIAA folks and set up appropriate financial arrangements, some of which will take place in the fall, and some of which won't start until January 2025. All of the things I wanted to get in motion start within 180 days from now; otherwise I'd have to come back to the U.S. to make it happen.