TPE Trip Tip: Where to Exchange Philippine Pesos to Taiwan Dollars

Taiwan has been amazing! Went there with my husband and stayed for four full days and we enjoyed it so much. The food, the weather, the sceneries, and the convenience of traveling -- these make us want to return soon. So to document our trip should we plan to return, I'll share here the preps I've taken prior to our trip to Taiwan. First off -- the currency exchange from Philippine Pesos to New Taiwan Dollars.

Currency photo from Stencil

By the way, it's written as NT$ as currency symbol or TWD as currency code. The Google rate during our trip was NT $1 = Php 1.76. This is my basis for all forex transactions I looked for.

These were the effective rates when I was looking for the best place to exchange money:

Per NT$1, I would need to sell in this bank/shop this amount of pesos:

BDO:                    Php 1.768
SANRY'S :           Php 1.95
PNB:                     Php 1.789
Taoyuan Airport:  Php 2.01

Therefore, the rate I need is the lowest rate. That means I'd get more TWD for less PHP. BDO would have been the best option but when I visited my home branch to finally reserve some, the banker said I must check in 2 weeks because that currency is not readily available.

It was less than 3 weeks before our flight and I thought I could still get them but no. So I had to go to the next shop which sells lowest and that is PNB. With PNB, I got our TWD just 3 days after I called for reservation. Just a heads up, BDO requires passport, plane ticket, and TIN. PNB only requires any valid ID card. But they charge 100php for the transaction fee.

Another important note, if you can, use your credit card in Taiwan for shops that accept cards. The rates are good; you can use your cash for the night markets instead. As you can see below, our hostel costs NT$ 2430 and I paid 4636.28 pesos which makes the exchange rate 1.795 only. That's pretty competitive.