How are foreigners handling everyday payments in Buenos Aires?

[AleksKarl]

Adding a current snapshot for anyone reading this later (Nov 2026). Rates on 7 Nov, 9:00 (dolarapi), pesos per USD: official 1,520 buy / 1,570 sell, blue 1,535 / 1,555, MEP 1,560 / 1,588. With blue and official this close, there is little reason to hunt for special cash deals: a foreign card for daily spending, some clean USD notes for a casa de cambio, and a Western Union transfer to yourself as a backup cover most situations. If you move money in crypto, USDT to pesos is quoted by exchangers at roughly 1,530 to 1,600 right now, so get two or three quotes and confirm the final amount before handing anything over. Disclosure: I work on ArgHub, a directory of exchanger quotes.

 

[SlowWalker]

Adding a current snapshot for anyone reading this later (Nov 2026). Rates on 7 Nov, 9:00 (dolarapi), pesos per USD: official 1,520 buy / 1,570 sell, blue 1,535 / 1,555, MEP 1,560 / 1,588. With blue and official this close, there is little reason to hunt for special cash deals: a foreign card for daily spending, some clean USD notes for a casa de cambio, and a Western Union transfer to yourself as a backup cover most situations. If you move money in crypto, USDT to pesos is quoted by exchangers at roughly 1,530 to 1,600 right now, so get two or three quotes and confirm the final amount before handing anything over. Disclosure: I work on ArgHub, a directory of exchanger quotes.

I would suggest setting up an account with Balanz. Looking on infobae
Official 1570
MEP 1584
CCL (contado con liqui) 1682

To get the CCL rate you need to use a broker. There commission is about 1%. So you'll get about 1665. Still quite a bit higher than MEP.

However to get it you need to wire the dollars too the broker. Them you'll have a balance of US cable dollars. And you convert during market hours when you want.

If you transfer to a bank account in country first, then the dollars will be considered as MEP.

 

[simongs]

If you want to get the dollar crypto rate and be able to do qr payments and local pesos transfers you can use directly CacaoCash app, worked very smooth for me with Euro and USD deposit