Can you pay cash at the Valley of the Kings? No — and since when

The announcement, precisely

On 18 June 2023, Egypt Independent reported the Assistant Minister for Digital Transformation on the rollout of cashless payment at archaeological sites. Nine Luxor sites were named, the Valley of the Kings among them, and the wording was that cash payments are “suspended in full”. That is an official announcement reported by a named publication on a named date, which is a firmer footing than most of what circulates about ticket practice in Egypt. It is corroborated separately by Ahram Online’s reporting on attractions going cashless.

Most mornings someone arrives at the window with a fold of notes and a plan built on a page written before 2023. There is no negotiating position in that conversation: the till does not take the money. Bring the card.

What still runs on cash, and why the absolute version is wrong

The same sources that establish the card rule also make plain what it does not cover. The tram from the visitor centre up to the tombs is EGP 20 per person round trip and wants cash. The ferry across from Luxor is roughly EGP 10 to EGP 20 per person each way, in small notes, with no fixed schedule. Tips are cash. Several of the smaller West Bank sites remain cash-only.

So “cash is never accepted in Egypt” is a sentence doing far too much work. It is right about this ticket window and wrong about most of the rest of the day, and a visitor who believes it strictly will be the one standing at the tram with a card in their hand. Carry both. What to bring puts it in a list.

What you are paying with the card

General entry is EGP 750 for a foreign adult and EGP 375 for a foreign student; EGP 60 and EGP 30 for Egyptian adults and students. On top of that sit four separate tickets: Tutankhamun at EGP 700, Seti I at EGP 2,000 with no student discount, Ramses V and VI at EGP 220, and Ay in the West Valley at EGP 200. None of them uses up one of the three tombs your entry ticket admits you to. The whole grid is on the price page, and the day’s total is assembled on the cost page.

Because you pay by card, the number that reaches your statement is converted by your own card issuer at whatever rate it uses that day. This site quotes about 50 EGP to the dollar — the mid-market rate read on 16–17 August 2026 — only to make US and Egyptian figures comparable. It is not a rate anyone is offered.

The one thing that is quoted in dollars

The Luxor Pass is priced in US dollars: US$130 adult and US$70 student for Standard, US$250 and US$130 for Premium, both valid five consecutive days. It is sold in person only, at the office beside Karnak’s main ticket office and at this valley’s visitor centre, and it cannot be bought online. No official Ministry page for it exists, so treat those prices as less firm than the entry prices above. The pass page does the arithmetic.

How current the prices are

Every entry figure on this site matches the Ministry’s own printed price list, dated 5 November 2024. That document is the newest official one that exists; no 2025 or 2026 replacement could be found. So these are current published rates rather than guarantees, and a revision would surprise nobody. What will not change quietly is the card rule: it came in by announcement and is the most firmly evidenced practical fact about the ticket window.

Before you leave the hotel

Check that your card works abroad, carry a second one if you have it, and carry notes small enough to pay a ferry fare without needing change. Then get to the gate early — the heat page explains why the queue you want is the first one, and the crossing page explains why the ferry cannot be timed to the minute.

Frequently asked questions