Trip Cost Calculator

How should a trip budget be structured?

Split it into costs that do not move with the length of the trip and costs that do, then price each half separately. That single division is what makes a budget adjustable, because when you add or remove three days only one half of the sheet changes.

The fixed half is everything you pay once regardless of duration: return transport, entry authorisations and visas, the insurance premium, vaccinations and antimalarials, airport transfers at both ends, and any kit you have to buy. The variable half is priced per night or per person per day: accommodation, the accommodation tax charged on top of it, food, local transport, and the things you do.

Build the variable half from a real per-unit rate rather than a country average:

• Accommodation: price per room per night, not per person, then divide. A room for two is rarely twice a room for one, which is why solo travel is disproportionately expensive and why a group budget cannot be scaled linearly.
• Food: price per person per day, built from a real pattern for that trip. Two supermarket meals and one restaurant meal is a different number from three restaurant meals, and it is a number you can check against a supermarket's own online prices before you go.
• Local transport: price the day ticket or travel pass from the operator's own fare page, then decide how many days need one.
• Activities: price individually from each institution's own admission page. This is the line where averages are worthless, because it is the line that varies most between two people on the same trip.

Then apply a contingency deliberately rather than by habit. A contingency covers the things you know will happen but cannot yet price: a taxi when the last bus has gone, a replacement item, a paid ticket to skip a queue. It does not cover a missed flight or a hospital bill, which are insurance questions rather than budget questions.

Convert once, at the end. Keep each line in the currency it will actually be paid in, total each currency separately, then convert. Converting line by line as you build hides how much of the trip is exposed to an exchange rate you have not fixed.

Which costs get left out of a travel budget?

The ones charged by somebody other than the airline and the hotel. Fares and room rates are the two numbers everyone remembers, and the omissions cluster around entry permissions, taxes collected at the destination, and unbundled extras.

Entry authorisations. These are per person, non-refundable, and payable before you fly. A United Kingdom Electronic Travel Authorisation costs GBP 20 and lets the holder travel to the UK, Jersey, Guernsey or the Isle of Man for up to six months; gov.uk states you also need one if you are passing through UK border control before continuing an onward journey. A United States ESTA has risen twice. Section 100014 of Public Law 119-21, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, took it from USD 21 to USD 40 and CBP began charging that on 30 September 2025. The law then requires an inflation adjustment every fiscal year, and the first one has already happened: the Federal Register notice at 90 FR 52085 of 19 November 2025 sets the fiscal year 2026 fee at USD 40.27 per travel authorisation, charged from 1 January 2026. It is built from three statutory components: USD 17, a cost recovery fee of USD 10.27, being USD 10 plus a USD 0.27 inflation adjustment, and USD 13. The cost recovery component is charged on every application whatever the outcome, so a refused ESTA still costs USD 10.27. Because the adjustment is annual, treat the figure as a fiscal year number and check CBP before you budget. For the European Union, the Commission announced on 17 July 2025 that the ETIAS travel authorisation fee will be EUR 20 rather than the EUR 7 originally set, with people under 18 and over 70 exempt from the fee, and stated that ETIAS is expected to start operating in the last quarter of 2026 with the fee taking effect once the system is operational. As of 5 September 2026 the EU's own ETIAS site still states that the system is not in operation and that no applications for travel authorisations are being collected, so nothing is payable yet and any site charging you for one now is not the official service. Confirm the current position on the EU's own ETIAS pages before budgeting for it.

Departure and tourist taxes. Some are collected in the fare and some are collected at the destination. Japan's is the clearest documented example of a change worth catching, and it is a rise in an existing tax rather than a new one. The Japan Tourism Agency's own leaflet is headed "the International Tourist Tax will be increased to JPY 3,000" and gives the rate as JPY 3,000 per departure from Japan from 1 July 2026, tripling the previous JPY 1,000. A transitional measure keeps the JPY 1,000 rate for departures on eligible tickets issued on or before 30 June 2026, infants under the age of 2 are exempt, and the agency states that as a general rule air and sea carriers collect the tax from departing passengers, typically by adding it to the ticket price, and remit it to the national government. So the charge is usually invisible inside the fare rather than payable at the airport.

The accommodation tax charged at the property. This is the line that most often turns up as a surprise at check-out, because it is not part of the rate you booked. France's taxe de sejour is the model: service-public.gouv.fr sets out that it is owed per person and per night, is paid by the guest to the accommodation provider or to the online booking service acting for them, who remits it to the commune, and that the amount must be displayed at the accommodation and appear on the invoice. Exemptions go wider than most travellers expect: children under 18, seasonal workers employed in the commune, people in emergency accommodation, and people in certain subsidised lettings below a council-set threshold. Rates are set by the individual commune and vary with the type and classification of the accommodation, so the figure has to be looked up for the specific commune rather than for France. There is also a flat-rate version, the taxe de sejour au forfait, where the operator is assessed on capacity instead of on the guests who actually stay. Many other countries and cities run comparable per-person, per-night schemes under their own names.

The unbundled extras. Checked baggage, cabin bag allowances above a personal item, seat selection, priority boarding, airport transfers at both ends, resort or facility fees, city transport from an airport that is not near the city, and the security deposit or card hold taken at hotels and car hire desks. That last one is not a cost, but it is money you cannot spend while it is held.

Why is the exchange rate you get worse than the one you looked up?

Because the rate you looked up was never a price. The published mid-market rate is a reference number, and the central bank that publishes the most widely quoted one says so in terms.

The European Central Bank's euro foreign exchange reference rates are, in the ECB's own words, "based on the daily concertation procedure between central banks across Europe, which normally takes place around 14:10 CET", and are "usually updated at around 16:00 CET every working day, except on TARGET closing days". The ECB then states plainly that the rates "are published for information purposes only" and that "using the rates for transaction purposes is strongly discouraged".

Read that carefully. It is a daily snapshot, published once, not continuously, and not intended as a dealing rate. If you cite an exchange rate in a budget, cite a central bank and treat it as a planning benchmark, not the rate you will receive.

Between that benchmark and your bank statement sit three separate deductions, and it is worth knowing which is which:

• The card scheme rate. Visa and Mastercard each set their own conversion rate for a transaction, which moves with the wholesale market but is not identical to a central bank reference rate.
• Your issuer's foreign transaction fee. A percentage charged by the bank or card issuer on top, sometimes split into a scheme fee and an issuer fee on the statement. It varies by product, it is disclosed in the account terms, and it is the one thing here you can change by choosing a different card before you travel.
• Cash acquisition charges. A cash advance fee on a credit card, an operator fee at an ATM, or the spread at a bureau de change, where the buy and sell rates on the board are the actual price and the mid-point between them is not available to anyone.

Budget with the reference rate, then add a margin for the fees you have identified in your own card terms. Do not budget with a rate a currency conversion screen offers you at the moment of payment, for the reason in the next part.

What is dynamic currency conversion, and should you accept it?

Dynamic currency conversion is the offer, at a card terminal or an ATM abroad, to bill you in your home currency rather than the local one. Decline it. The conversion is then performed by the merchant's payment provider at a rate it sets, instead of by your own card issuer.

European law makes the size of that choice visible, which is the useful part for a traveller anywhere. Cite the current instrument, not the one most articles quote. The rules were inserted into Regulation (EC) No 924/2009 as Article 3a by Regulation (EU) 2019/518, and applied from 19 April 2020 for paragraphs 1 to 4 and from 19 April 2021 for paragraphs 5 and 6. Regulation (EC) No 924/2009 was then codified and repealed by Regulation (EU) 2021/1230 on cross-border payments in the Union, which has applied since 19 August 2021. The card-based currency conversion rules now sit at Article 4 of that regulation, with credit transfers at Article 5.

What Article 4 requires: total currency conversion charges on card-based transactions must be expressed as a percentage mark-up over the latest available euro foreign exchange reference rates issued by the European Central Bank, and that mark-up must be disclosed to the payer before the payment transaction is initiated. Anyone providing currency conversion at a cash machine or at the point of sale must give the customer, clearly and before the transaction, the total charge as a percentage mark-up, the amount payable in the payee's currency and in the payer's own currency, and the fact that they may choose either. Payment service providers must also publish the mark-up in a comprehensible and easily accessible form on a widely available electronic platform, which means you can look up your own provider's figure in advance.

Two practical consequences follow.

First, the comparison the law forces into the open is exactly the comparison to make: the mark-up over the reference rate. If the screen shows a mark-up, that is the price of accepting the offer, and your own issuer's foreign transaction fee is the price of declining it. One is usually much larger than the other.

Second, this transparency is a European obligation on European payment service providers. Outside that scope the offer still appears on terminals worldwide, often as a pre-selected option or as a question phrased to sound helpful, and there may be no requirement to show you the mark-up at all. The safe default everywhere is the same: always choose to be charged in the local currency, and check the receipt, because the choice is sometimes made for you and can be corrected at the till while you are still standing there.

How do you build a daily spend figure you can actually rely on?

By pricing three or four real, checkable anchors for your specific destination and building up from them, rather than accepting a single average daily figure for a whole country. A national average blends a capital city with a rural region and a peak week with a quiet one, and your trip is none of those things.

The anchors worth pricing, each from a source that publishes its own prices:

• One night of the accommodation you would actually book, on your actual dates, including any tax shown separately.
• The public transport day ticket or travel pass, from the transport operator's own fare page, plus the specific airport transfer fare.
• Admission to the two or three places you are certain to visit, from each institution's own ticketing page, noting any timed-entry or advance-booking requirement, since booking late is often what costs more.
• A day of food, built as a pattern rather than an average: what a supermarket basket costs, what a mid-range restaurant main costs, and how many of each you will realistically have.

Then handle the parts that averages hide. Seasonality moves accommodation far more than it moves food, so a peak-season budget should inflate one line heavily rather than everything evenly. Group size changes the shape of the sheet: rooms, taxis and guided tours are shared costs, admissions and meals are not. Trip length has a floor, because the fixed half of the budget is spread across more days, so a longer trip is usually cheaper per day and more expensive in total.

Two figures are worth writing down separately from everything else, because they behave differently. The non-refundable outlay, meaning everything already paid that you would lose if the trip did not happen, is the number your cancellation cover has to match. And your daily cash requirement, meaning what genuinely cannot be paid by card at your destination, is the number that decides how much cash to carry and how many withdrawal fees you will pay.

When does a trip cost estimate stop being useful?

When the trip stops resembling the average the estimate was built from. These are the cases where the number should be rebuilt from real prices rather than adjusted.

• Any trip in peak season, or across a major event. Accommodation prices in a city hosting something can bear no relation to the same week a fortnight later.
• Very short trips. The fixed half of the budget dominates, so a per-day figure derived from a two-week trip badly understates a three-day one.
• Solo travel. Single occupancy, single supplements on tours and unshared taxis push the per-person figure well above a couple's.
• Multi-country routes. Each border can bring a new entry authorisation fee, a new accommodation tax regime, a new currency and another set of card charges.
• Trips with a fixed obligation at the far end. A wedding, a course, a race entry or a permit changes what is discretionary, and the discretionary part is the only part a budget can flex.
• Anywhere with a volatile currency or high inflation. A figure priced three months ago in a currency that has moved is not a budget, and a figure quoted in a foreign currency at a domestic business may not track the official rate at all.

The authoritative thing a trip cost calculator cannot tell you is what you will be charged. Fees are set by named authorities and they change on their own schedules: entry authorisation fees by the government issuing them, departure and tourist taxes by that country's tax authority, accommodation taxes usually by the municipality rather than the state, fares by the operator, and exchange rates by the market with a reference published by a central bank. Every figure on this page is as stated by those bodies on 5 September 2026. Every one of them should be re-checked against the issuing authority's own page before you commit money, because a budget built on last year's fee schedule fails in exactly the places that are non-refundable.

At a glance

Frequently asked questions

What costs do people forget when budgeting a trip?

Entry authorisation fees, taxes collected at the destination, and unbundled extras. Entry permissions are per person and non-refundable, such as a UK ETA at GBP 20 or a US ESTA at USD 40.27 for the 2026 fiscal year, of which USD 10.27 is kept even if the application is refused. Departure and tourist taxes may sit inside or outside the fare. Accommodation taxes are frequently charged per person per night at the property rather than in the booked rate. Then baggage, seat selection, transfers at both ends, and card foreign exchange charges.

Why is the exchange rate on my statement worse than the rate I looked up?

Because the rate you looked up is a reference, not a dealing price. The European Central Bank publishes its euro reference rates once each working day, based on a concertation procedure around 14:10 CET and updated around 16:00 CET, and states that they are for information purposes only and that using them for transaction purposes is strongly discouraged. Your actual rate is the card scheme's rate, less your issuer's foreign transaction fee, less any cash or ATM charge.

Should I let the card machine charge me in my own currency?

No. That offer is dynamic currency conversion, and it moves the conversion from your own card issuer to the merchant's payment provider at a rate that provider sets. Under Article 4 of Regulation (EU) 2021/1230, which codified and replaced Regulation (EC) No 924/2009, European providers must express the charge as a percentage mark-up over the latest ECB euro reference rate, disclose it before the transaction is initiated, and show you the amount in both currencies, so you can see the cost of accepting. Outside that scope no such disclosure may exist. Choose the local currency and check the receipt.

How much contingency should a travel budget carry?

Enough to cover the costs you know will occur but cannot yet price, which is a judgement about the trip rather than a fixed percentage. A city trip with pre-booked accommodation and a transport pass needs less than an overland route with unbooked nights and unknown connections. Keep the contingency separate from your non-refundable outlay, and remember it is not a substitute for insurance: a medical bill or a curtailed trip is a cover question, not a budgeting one.