British VS Scottish pounds

I was in Scotland May 2025. I withdrew cash once and got a combination of Scottish pounds and British pounds. Almost all transactions can be done by credit card, even at the laundromat.

First, you can use British pound currency easily in Scotland. But, using Scottish pounds in UK is not easy.

On our 2 1/2 week Scotland trip in 2023 we spent about £20 cash. Almost everywhere took cards, even for small purchases. You may come across an honesty box in the countryside selling treats.

Choose a bank ATM for the best exchange rate and don't withdraw a large amount. Hopefully your card has no fees.

A few points:

-You rarely need cash anywhere in the UK these days, but I would withdraw something like £50 just to have in case. You can pay for most things on card or phone (eg Apple Pay).

-In Scotland, some cash machines will give you Scottish notes and some will give you British notes. If the bank is based in Scotland (Bank of Scotland, Royal Bank of Scotland, Clydesdale) you will get not only Scottish notes but notes particular to one of those three banks- each bank prints its own notes. If you go to a cash machine from a bank based elsewhere in the UK or a global brand, like HSBC, you'll get British notes.

-While it's true you may have a harder time spending Scottish notes outside Scotland, it is legal tender and they are meant to accept it. It's the same "pounds," just the notes are different. An exception would be a machine- e.g. the machines to put money on your Oyster card in London won't accept Scottish notes.

-It shouldn't make a difference where you get cash out- most cash machines don't charge here (tho of course your bank would charge you for the conversion etc).

I think £50 Scottish pounds is way too much. There are many places in the UK that will not accept cash.

Yes, as Cat says, Scottish notes are legal tender throughout the UK. Getting a shop clerk to accept them is a different story. (Anyone try to give a US clerk a $2 bill in America, lately. They think it's funny money.)

I don't know about the Glasgow airport, but the machines at London Heathrow were all Travelex with an extortionist exchange rate. We passed and never needed cash in London.

Do you have the ability to use ApplePay or GooglePay on your phone? In my last visit to Scotland for a month last summer which included Orkney and Shetland I used ApplePay for nearly every transaction. I had some old leftover Scottish pounds from a prior trip and tried to use them up before I dug into any other GBP's I had left. I had to work to spend the cash. Even the honor boxes with cakes took contactless transactions!

In the last two years, I spent about six months in Scotland.

I went all over Scotland and only used cash in Dundee--for a haircut and for some taxis. That's it.

If you should have Scottish pounds left over when you are ready to leave ask your hotel to exchange them for Bank of England pounds (commonly known as British pounds.) I do it all the time.

Merchants in Scotland accept both.

Pedant alert, but Scottish notes are not legal tender https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/explainers/what-is-legal-tender.

There is no such thing as Scottish pounds. It is the pound sterling everywhere in the UK. Banks in Scotland and Northern Ireland can issue their own notes.

Pretty much everywhere across the UK, even in the smallest shop in the remotest part of the country will take cards so not much reason to worry about getting cash. If you need cash just go to an ATM.

To have this all sorted, you could get British pounds before you leave home. Then you have some cash for Scotland that you can also easily spend in England.

British pounds (ie Bank of England pounds) are accepted in Scotland. They are common there, whereas Scottish notes are very rarely seen in England unless you live close to the border. Shops don’t like to accept them as they don’t feel secure in judging whether they’re fake or not.

I know that I'm in nearly rural England, and not Scotland, but I will say as resident I have used less than a total of £70 cash since 2019. Absolutely everything is Apple Pay or contactless. Except buying fuel at Costco which only accepts chip and pin at their unattended pumps - no cash or contactless.

The one or two person sellers on the canals selling cheese or cakes or cups of coffee from their narrowboats all take contactless cards and Apple / Google Pay. Don't even need a tap pad anymore - there is an app they and I use which lets you tap the vendors' phones.

The only time I've used those notes was to spend them before they were recalled when they changed to polymer notes.

I still have £50 in the wallet. I've thought for a while I should find a place to use some and just keep a fiver or a tenner. Maybe one day. I finally got rid of my coins a few weeks ago, just have 5p now. Don't carry the coin purse anymore.

Just relating how the day by day goes.

I was in England, September 2025. When I was in Scotland in 2023 I accidentally brought 80 pounds back with me. I had absolutely no problem spending that Scottish money in the UK. Small shops had no problem.

Spending the odd Scottish 20 on a return to London after a Scottish trip has never been a problem for me.

I'd pick up £50 from an ATM (cash machine) and not worry too much about whether it's Scottish or English notes. If you want to increase your chances of getting English notes, use a city centre ATM tied to a branch of an English Bank; Bank of England, Natwest or Barclays machines have a better chance of dispensing Bank of England notes than any of the Scottish banks.

Firstly, there are no 'British' notes of the pound sterling. There are NI, Scottish, and English ones. Though the Bank of England is also officially the Central Bank of the UK, the coins are the currency and exactly the same. Notes are 'promises'.

Notes issued in pounds by Gibraltar, Jersey, Guernsey, the Isle of Man, St Helena, and the Falkland Islands are, however, officially different currencies. Though if you get one of their notes and coins they are good souvenirs. Though you can use the coins in machines.

The notes are of the same size and colour schemes across the issuing banks. The best are the current RBS ones. Which replaced the worst series of notes! Their twenty has red squirrels on it!

In terms of cash, it is good to have a float of cash. And to cash in some to get £1 and 50p coins for parking or similar. But paying by cash is the minority now, but there are businesses that still are cash only.

I live in Skye - about as rural as you can get in Scotland. I have an 'emergency £20 note' in my wallet but have not used cash for several years. The only place you might want to use cash is if you buy something from one of the roadside honesty boxes, but many of them take PayPal!