Legal tender

Europe's lawmakers agree on the principle that cash must be accepted as legal tender. The argument is over the exceptions — machines without staff, merchants claiming security risks. Together, those two exceptions would apply exactly where people have no other way to pay. And neither exception, on the evidence, holds up.

On March 8, 2026, Swiss citizens will vote on a constitutional amendment to enshrine cash as a fundamental right.

"Are banks still ‘where the money is’? Globally, legislation increasingly recognises the right to access to cash and the obligation to accept it—but fails to guarantee the infrastructure. Without binding obligations, cash risks disappearing by default, not by choice. Time to rethink financial inclusion, economic resilience and territorial equity?

Swiss lawmakers voted in March in favour of enshrining cash in the country's constitution.

France's National Payments Committee urges immediate action to secure future payments sovereignty amid rising geopolitical tensions. Cash is crucial for economic resilience, industrial autonomy and national sovereignty.

Latest YouGov findings reveal 71% of the British public would support making it a legal requirement for businesses to accept cash.

The European Commission has put forward two proposals to ensure that euro-area citizens and businesses can continue to access and pay with cash, and to set out a framework for a possible digital euro.

Paying taxes in cash is arduous, time-consuming and discouraged, but it is possible. For the unbanked, alternative ways to pay are costly.

Queen Elizabeth II’s passing marked the beginning of a complex redesign and updating of banknotes and coins in the United Kingdom and many countries worldwide.

Bitcoin became legal tender in El Salvador in September 2021. Since then, its volatility has worsened the country's precarious financial situation.

A new bill would preserve the right of Americans to pay cash and would prevent merchants from rejecting it. It is gaining bipartisan support in Congress.

Glitches marred the adoption of bitcoin as legal tender in El Salvador, causing anger and anxiety to customers and retailers.