Credit Card PIN Needed for Restaurants?

Credit cards are not debit cards, and you should never use a credit card to withdraw cash.

90% (my guess) of all US banks issue chip & signature cards. If you have not needed a PIN to make purchases with your credit card up to this point, you will not need a PIN in France. However, making purchases at unmanned locations, such as at kiosks or pay-at-the-pump fuel stations, may not be possible.

You think all of France is not going to want US dollars if the cards are not just like theirs? There is zero problem paying with a typical US credit card in a restaurant, a grocery, a shop or for tickets etc. Some places will want a signature, others will just waive you away on that. If you want to charge up a Navigo Decouvert on a machine you just ignore the request for a pin and the charge will process without it (there is a Euro limit but it is at least 75 Euros because I just charged up cards for a month at a time with no issues on the machines). I have also bought train tickets on machines with no issues although usually I buy them on line and just have the tickets on my phone.

Wherever there is a manned sales point, you can use the US card and for many machines. The times it has been an issue have been toll roads and gas stations. We got in the habit of gassing up at service islands o the freeways where there are always people who can process the card if the pumps won't.

When you use a debit card to withdraw funds from an ATM (or when making a charge at a shop) you may be offered the chance to pay in dollars instead of Euro -- this seems intuitively wise after all you will be paying off the card in dollars -- DO NOT DO THIS -- you will be absolutely hosed by an exchange rate and you may pay it twice. The bank rate when we were withdrawing cash from an ATM this May ws 1.12 dollar per Euro. The going rate at that time if we didn't let the bank do that conversion at withdrawal was 1.04.

No, you don't need a pin for restsurants.

Is there any benefit of using Apple Pay (or Google Pay) in France? Is it accepted widely there?
I am thinking if the credit card is not contactless; it can be added to Apple Pay on the Phone and becomes contactless.

<<Just as important, does your CC have Contactless Pay capability?>>

100%. Such a great convenience. I just loved using carte sans contact in Paris. Tap and go. It's a great replacement for carrying cash and so widely accepted for small purchases. (Up to €50 I believe). Waiting for my local businesses to catch up - here "non contact" usually still means a PIN, which isn't quite contactless..

Also, no -- never asked to use a PIN with a card in any restaurant.

Thank you for the help! My credit cards have chips, I was just worried they will ask for PIN instead of a signature when paying. I won't use a credit card to get cash, just my debit card which I know the PIN for. I signed up for Google pay, etc and I will make sure my cards are NFC.

Paying with a CREDIT card (the typical US chip and signature) at restaurants in France (almost always) and those occasional times in Germany, I never had to indicate the PIN. The transaction went through.

Only buying train ticket from a DB machine did I have to punch in the PIN, without which the transaction was canceled.