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What should I do if my business wants to accept payment in euro?
What should I do if my business
wants to accept payment in euro?
You are not obliged to accept payment in euro
– the euro is not legal tender in the UK. Some
people think that “not legal tender” means that
you are not allowed to accept euro. This is not
true. You are free to accept payment in euro if
you decide this is best for your business, just as
you are free to accept payment in another
foreign currency, such as the US Dollar or
Japanese Yen.
It is an option for any business to accept payment
in euro. This may be particularly valuable if your
business provides goods and/or services to
visitors from the euro area. Even if you have not
yet been asked to accept a payment in euro, you
may want to prepare for such requests in future.
Some businesses choose to trade within the UK
in euro because they either receive euro income
or have regular outgoings in euro. If your
business supplies goods and/or services to a UK
business that has a euro income stream, you may
want to consider accepting payment in euro,
particularly if your business has an outlet for that
foreign currency.
If a customer offers payment in euro, what
should you do? How can you convert prices in
sterling to prices in euro? How should you
display prices in euro? Are you and your staff
familiar with euro notes and coins? How should
you deal with euro income?
Converting sterling prices to euro prices
As with other foreign currencies, find out the
exchange rate between sterling and euro. You
can get this information from many places,
including the financial pages of newspapers, or
your bank. Multiply the sterling price by the
exchange rate. (Make sure you are using the rate
to convert from sterling to euro, £1 = €x. Some
sources print exchange rates in the form €1 =
£x.) You may wish to ensure that any additional
costs you could incur are reflected.
You may want to consider steps to manage your
foreign currency exposure if the exchange rate
moves significantly after you have publis