Revolut has become the unofficial financial standard for tourists and younger travellers across Europe. In cities where digital infrastructure functions seamlessly, the question “can I pay with Revolut?” never even surfaces. Bucharest is not one of those cities. It’s a place where modernisation exists but isn’t evenly distributed, where technology still collides with pockets of old systems. Because of this mix, foreign visitors repeatedly check Revolut compatibility before arriving. They notice inconsistencies between districts, types of businesses, and generations — and they quickly realise that Bucharest doesn’t operate on a predictable digital model. 

Bucharest operates, in practice, as an almost fully compatible Revolut city. Not because there is an official strategy behind it, but because the commercial infrastructure has been pushed in that direction by two simple forces: merchants who want fast payments, and customers who have stopped carrying cash. The result is a city where digital payments are the norm, not the exception.

Large retailers, supermarkets, central-area restaurants, youth-oriented cafés, and nearly all services that use POS terminals accept Revolut without hesitation. The terminals are the same for all banks, and the transaction process is identical. By 2025, a card refusal no longer signals a technical issue—it signals a business operating at the bare minimum.

There are, however, three pockets where cash still dominates: traditional food markets, a few old bars in the Old Town, and taxi drivers who don’t use ride-hailing apps. These pockets function as their own ecosystem, out of sync with the rest of the city, where digital payment is seen as an unnecessary complication. Foreign visitors interpret this as inconsistency: a city that feels modern in some areas and stuck in the early 2000s in others.

Local banks do not penalise the use of foreign cards, and merchants do not charge extra fees for Revolut. The only costs appear during cash withdrawals, which depend on the policy of each ATM, not the city itself. In places where a card is not accepted, the issue is the absence of a POS terminal, not incompatibility with Revolut.

Bucharest in 2025 is, effectively, a card-first city. Revolut works everywhere a POS exists, and where it doesn’t work, no card would. For visitors, this means freedom of movement. For the city, it reveals the direction it has been pushed into—modernised by necessity, not by intention.