Budgeting for Syria: what costs what

Budgeting for Syria differs from other countries in one way, and that one way decides everything: foreign cards and ATMs do not work. The budget is therefore not something you adjust as you travel but a total you calculate before departure and carry in cash. This page is about building that total.

Why items and not prices

No record on this site carries a fixed price, and this page does not either. The reason is not laziness: the exchange rate moves several times a year, fees are set separately for foreigners and locals, and a written figure turns into wrong information within months. The reader arrives at the door with that figure and pays something else.

Instead this page gives three things: which items exist, which one drives the total, and where to get the current number. The only figure that can be verified is the exchange rate, and it is written with its date.

The rate and the cash reality

In January 2026 two zeros were dropped from the lira, so prices in older articles online look a hundred times today’s. On 28 August 2026 the market rate was around 131 lira to the US dollar and 152 to the euro, with the Central Bank’s official rate running about 8 per cent below that.

The day’s rate is published on sp-today.com, and the list of licensed exchange offices is on the Central Bank site. Build the budget in dollars or euros; lira only enters when you spend.

What you pay once

These can be worked out before departure and they make up most of the total.

The visa fee is set by reciprocity and varies by nationality: figures reported in mid-2025 were around 75 dollars for EU countries, 100 for Canada, 150 for the United Kingdom and Australia, and 200 for the United States. It is paid in cash, changing money at the border is not dependable, so keep the exact amount in a separate envelope. The flight or the overland ticket is the second item. The third is insurance, and here be careful: most policies exclude Syria, and one that covers it is markedly more expensive.

What you pay daily

On the daily side there are five items: accommodation, food, transport, entry fees and tips. All five are cash and all five vary.

Accommodation is largely invisible on booking sites, so you cannot lock the price in advance; it is agreed at the door or by phone. Food shows the widest spread: the distance between a street stall and a sit-down restaurant visibly changes the daily total. On entry fees there is a separate foreigner tariff and it is not open to bargaining.

What sets the daily figure

One item shapes the day: the car with a driver. A bus ticket is cheap and a minibus or shared taxi sits in the middle. A car with a driver is hired by the day, and it is in practice the only way to reach places public transport does not go — Krak des Chevaliers, Qasr Ibn Wardan, Palmyra, Saladin’s Castle.

So the budget question is really this: how many days will you hire a car. A day with a car and a day on buses are not in the same category. Before hiring, settle what is included: fuel, the driver’s meals and overnight stay, leaving the city, waiting hours. What is not agreed appears separately in the evening.

Two scenarios

Instead of numbers, here are compositions; you fill in your own figures from what you learn at the door.

An economical day: intercity bus or minibus, a room in a small family-run hotel, street food and a bakery, one paid entry, small change for tea and tips. In this pattern transport is a small share of the daily total.

A middle day: a room in a courtyard house, lunch in the street and dinner in a restaurant, a car with a driver two or three days a week, two paid entries a day. Here the car alone can approach the sum of everything else.

What is cheap and what is not

The general pattern runs like this. Cheap: bread, street food, tea, spices, soap, intercity buses, city taxis. Expensive: a car with a driver, petrol — about twice the price of diesel — anything imported, electronics, travel insurance that covers the country, and single occupancy.

That last item matters if you travel alone: a car and a room are priced per car and per room, not per person. Two people sharing the same itinerary bring the figure per head down noticeably.

The cash plan

Once you have the total, add a reserve: 20 per cent is a reasonable start. There is no withdrawing money in the country, and the reserve has real uses — a route that stretches, an extra night because a road closed, a pharmacy, a change of plan on the day you leave.

• Bring clean notes. Torn or older-series dollars can be refused.
• Mix in small denominations. In a taxi, a souq or a tip, nobody has change for a large note.
• Do not change it all at once. Accumulated lira is a problem on the way out.
• Keep every receipt. They are the condition for converting lira back at the border.
• Keep the visa money apart. Changing money at the crossing is not dependable.
• Divide the budget by day. Plan forward from the days, not backward from what is left.

Three questions when you ask a price

Which currency, what is the total, what is included. Ask all three at the start rather than at the moment of payment — in the hotel room, before getting into the car, before the goods are in your hand. In this country those three questions save far more than bargaining does.