Can I track expenses in different currencies on a trip?

Yes. Photograph each receipt as you go; ReceiptIQ AI reads the currency printed on the receipt itself, converts it to your home currency at that day's rate, and keeps the printed amount visible alongside the converted one so your trip's spending lands in one currency without losing the original.

Does a receipt scanner app convert foreign currency automatically?

ReceiptIQ AI does, when the receipt gives it enough evidence - a currency symbol, a currency word, or a script/format that clearly belongs to a country. When the evidence is thin, it asks you once, rather than converting on a guess.

What receipt scanner works for Japan, Korea and Taiwan?

ReceiptIQ AI reads Japanese, Chinese and Korean receipts, tells Taiwanese and Hong Kong receipts apart despite sharing a script, and knows that Korean duty-free shops charge in US dollars rather than won.

How does it handle a receipt with no currency symbol at all?

Most unmarked receipts are genuinely in the local, expected currency, so it doesn't ask about every one. It only asks when something else on the receipt - a foreign script, a foreign address, or the phone being in a different time zone than the home currency - gives it a reason to doubt the assumption. The currency can always be corrected by hand afterward.

Is there a receipt app that handles Colombian or Argentine pesos?

Yes. ReceiptIQ AI recognises the peso style of writing amounts (a bare dollar sign, no cents, comma thousands separators) so a receipt like "$ 46,435" is read as forty-six thousand pesos rather than misread as decimal dollars.

Do I need a data connection or a bank account for this to work?

ReceiptIQ AI never links to a bank account or reads email. Scanning and currency conversion need a data connection to fetch that day's exchange rate; offline, the receipt is saved and converted the next time the phone is back online.

Can I use ReceiptIQ AI for business travel expense reports?

Yes. Scan each receipt as you go, then export a PDF (a summary, a receipt index and every scanned receipt on its own page) or a CSV for the dates of the trip. Foreign receipts keep both the printed amount and the converted amount.

What can I do on a trip with no internet?

You can type expenses by hand, browse what you have saved and export. Scanning, voice entry and the exchange rate need a connection, so scan the receipts you collected once you have signal; currency conversion is applied when the phone is back online.

How do I log a cash expense that has no receipt while travelling?

Type it or say it in one of the app's 16 languages, for example "Business dinner in Tokyo, eighty dollars". Typed entries are free and never count toward the 30 free AI scans.

Which currencies can I use as my home currency?

You can pick from 25: USD, CAD, AUD, NZD, GBP, EUR, JPY, HKD, TWD, MOP, SAR, TRY, SGD, MYR, PHP, PLN, BRL, SEK, DKK, NOK, CHF, CZK, KRW, CLP and GTQ. Receipts can be printed in a wider set of currencies and are still detected and converted.

Which exchange rate does ReceiptIQ AI use for a foreign receipt?

The rate for the day you scan the receipt, not the date printed on it. The receipt is stored with the printed amount, the rate and the rate's date, and the detail view shows both amounts. If you change your home currency, foreign receipts are converted again at today's rate.

Scanning Receipts Abroad: Tracking Expenses in More Than One Currency

Updated November 6, 2026

A receipt from another country is a different problem than a receipt from home. The currency isn't yours, the decimal comma might be where you expect a dot, and half the words on the page aren't in a language your budget app was built for. This page is about how ReceiptIQ AI handles that: what it reads automatically, what it asks you about, and what it still gets wrong.

How currency detection works

ReceiptIQ AI does not assume a receipt is in your home currency just because your phone is set to one country. It looks at the evidence printed on the receipt itself — currency symbols, currency words, tax-authority identifiers, and the script the receipt is written in — and decides the currency from that. A yen receipt is recognised as yen because it looks like a yen receipt, not because you happened to be in Japan when you scanned it.

When it finds a foreign currency, it converts the total and every line item to your home currency at that day's exchange rate, and shows both the printed amount and the converted amount side by side — so you can always see what was actually on the paper, not just the number that landed in your budget.

When it asks instead of guessing

Not every receipt prints a currency mark. About a third of receipts in our own testing don't — and most of those really are in the local, expected currency, so ReceiptIQ AI doesn't ask about every blank receipt; that would mean a question on nearly every third scan, which is worse than just getting it right most of the time. It only asks when there's a specific reason to doubt the assumption: a foreign script or a foreign address on the receipt, or your phone's time zone being outside your home currency's country. In that case it saves the receipt first, then asks once which currency it was actually in, and remembers your answer for that store so it doesn't ask again next time you're there. It never assumes just because nothing is printed — a Korean duty-free shop, for example, prices in US dollars, not the local currency, so "no symbol printed" and "which country you're in" are both the wrong signal on their own.

Country by country

Japan

Japanese receipts mix kanji, kana and yen amounts, and an app tuned for English text can misread the whole thing — item names coming out as barcodes, totals read wrong. ReceiptIQ AI reads Japanese, Chinese and Korean receipts as such rather than forcing them through an English-only reading. Yen is a home currency you can choose, so a Japanese user's own receipts aren't quietly converted to dollars.

South Korea, including duty-free

Korean duty-free shops at the airport price in US dollars, not won — a detail that's easy to get wrong if you assume "the shop is in Korea" means "the money is won." ReceiptIQ AI knows the difference and handles Korean duty-free receipts as US-dollar receipts.

Taiwan and Hong Kong

Taiwan and Hong Kong both print Traditional Chinese, so a receipt scanner that only looks at language sees one country. They're two different currencies — New Taiwan dollars and Hong Kong dollars — and mixing them up puts the wrong amount into your budget. ReceiptIQ AI tells them apart by what's actually printed: Taiwanese receipts almost always carry a business tax number the law requires, and Hong Kong receipts print their own currency mark. Where a receipt has neither, it's left in your home currency rather than guessed.

Colombia and Argentina

Colombian and Argentine pesos are usually printed with a plain dollar sign, no cents, and a comma marking thousands — so "$ 46,435" on a Colombian receipt means forty-six thousand pesos, not forty-six dollars. Read the wrong way, a receipt like that would be stored as a home-currency amount a thousand times too small. ReceiptIQ AI recognises that style of amount and the local evidence (tax-authority names, "u$s" style dollar-equivalent lines on Argentine receipts) that points to pesos rather than dollars.

Europe

European receipts commonly write amounts with a comma where you might expect a decimal point (16,50 rather than 16.50), and the total isn't always the first number under a label that says "total." ReceiptIQ AI reads both comma and dot decimals, and looks past tax-breakdown tables and tender lines to find the actual total rather than the first number that happens to be nearby.

Thailand, and Arabic-, Hindi- or Cyrillic-script receipts

ReceiptIQ AI works out which script a receipt is printed in before reading it, so a Thai, Arabic, Hindi or Russian receipt is read with the matching text recognition instead of an English one. Item names come through in their own language. The currency is still taken only from what the receipt prints; when that isn't enough, the app asks.

On a business trip: before, during and after

Everything above is about what the app reads. This part is the routine that keeps a work trip's expenses together, wherever the trip goes.

Before you leave

Set your home currency, so foreign receipts convert to it automatically.
Create a category for the trip or the client, so the report is easy to filter when you are back.
Turn on Tags (Settings) and “Tag new entries”, named for the trip. Charts then shows the trip’s total on its own page (how it works).
Export a PDF or CSV of your records and keep a copy somewhere safe, in case the phone is lost on the road.

On the road

Scan right after you pay. Receipts get lost fastest in a foreign country. Scanning needs a connection, so if the hotel Wi-Fi is poor, scan the receipts you collected once you have signal.
Cash with no receipt: type it or say it, in any of the app's 16 languages, for example "Business dinner in Tokyo, eighty dollars" or “タクシー、2500円”. Typing works without any connection, and typed entries never count toward the 30 free AI scans. Voice entry needs a connection.
Without a connection you can still add expenses by hand, browse everything you have saved and export. Currency conversion is applied the next time the phone is online.

Example: three days in Tokyo

Day 1. Hotel Wi-Fi is weak. The Shinkansen ticket receipt waits until you have a connection; then it is read in Japanese whatever language the app is set to, and the yen amount is converted at that day's rate.

Day 2. A client dinner. Photograph the Japanese receipt; the restaurant name, the itemised costs and the tax lines are read for you, and both the yen and the converted amount stay visible.

Day 3. Taxi receipts pile up. Type “タクシー、2500円” during the ride and tidy it up later.

Back home. Export a PDF (a summary, a receipt index and every scanned receipt on its own page) or a CSV for the period of the trip, and send it to whoever reimburses you.

Categories that suit a trip

Transport (flights, trains, taxis, car rental, parking and tolls), accommodation, meals (business dinners, client meals, conference meals), and conference fees and other business costs. Categories are editable, so rename or add whatever your employer's expense form uses.

Exchange rates, home currencies and limits

The rate is the one for the day you scan, not the date printed on the receipt. It comes from a public rate table and is stored on the receipt with its date, next to the printed amount, so you can check it. Budgets and charts add up the converted amount.
Both amounts are always visible. The detail view shows the printed amount, the converted amount and the rate. A switch in Settings, "Show foreign receipts in home currency", only chooses which amount the lists show. The CSV export has Currency, Original Amount and Exchange Rate columns.
Home currencies: 25 to choose from (USD, CAD, AUD, NZD, GBP, EUR, JPY, HKD, TWD, MOP, SAR, TRY, SGD, MYR, PHP, PLN, BRL, SEK, DKK, NOK, CHF, CZK, KRW, CLP and GTQ). The currency a receipt is printed in can be a wider set: Argentine and Colombian pesos, for example, are not home currencies but are detected and converted.
Change your home currency and the foreign receipts are converted again from their printed amounts at today's rate. A receipt stored with no currency is left alone. Item prices can move by one unit in the round trip; the total is exact.
One stray code does not decide. A currency code counts only when it is not glued to other letters or digits, and accumulated evidence beats a single token. If three or more different currency codes are printed (a duty-free shop's table of exchange rates, for example), the code scan says nothing. A bare "$" is read as your home currency unless the receipt's own evidence, such as a state and ZIP code, a GST number or a postal code, clearly points to one dollar country.
Mainland China: a receipt that prints a bare number and no currency is read as yuan when the text uses many characters that exist only in Simplified Chinese, unless a clearer signal such as Singapore or Malaysia wins.
Limits: a receipt with no evidence stays in your home currency or the app asks, and wrong guesses are possible. Change the currency any time in the edit screen ("Receipt Currency").

What this doesn't do

ReceiptIQ AI never links to your bank account and never reads your email inbox — it only sees what you photograph. That also means it can't look up a receipt for you; if a photo is too blurry or too small to read, or a currency truly can't be determined from what's printed, it says so and lets you fix it by hand rather than guessing silently. Family Sharing covers up to 4 devices on one subscription, syncing receipts phone to phone with no account and no server copy — useful if more than one person in a travelling family is scanning receipts on the same trip.

Curious how this is actually tested? See how ReceiptIQ AI is checked against real receipts from many countries before every release, including several of the exact currency bugs described above.

Frequently asked questions

Can I track expenses in different currencies on a trip?: Yes. Photograph each receipt as you go; ReceiptIQ AI reads the currency printed on the receipt itself, converts it to your home currency at that day's rate, and keeps the printed amount visible alongside the converted one so your trip's spending lands in one currency without losing the original.
Does a receipt scanner app convert foreign currency automatically?: ReceiptIQ AI does, when the receipt gives it enough evidence — a currency symbol, a currency word, or a script/format that clearly belongs to a country. When the evidence is thin, it asks you once, rather than converting on a guess.
What receipt scanner works for Japan, Korea and Taiwan?: ReceiptIQ AI reads Japanese, Chinese and Korean receipts, tells Taiwanese and Hong Kong receipts apart despite sharing a script, and knows that Korean duty-free shops charge in US dollars rather than won.
How does it handle a receipt with no currency symbol at all?: Most unmarked receipts are genuinely in the local, expected currency, so it doesn't ask about every one. It only asks when something else on the receipt — a foreign script, a foreign address, or your phone being in a different time zone than your home currency — gives it a reason to doubt the assumption. You can always correct the currency yourself afterward.
Is there a receipt app that handles Colombian or Argentine pesos?: Yes. ReceiptIQ AI recognises the peso style of writing amounts (a bare dollar sign, no cents, comma thousands separators) so a receipt like "$ 46,435" is read as forty-six thousand pesos rather than misread as decimal dollars.
Do I need a data connection or a bank account for this to work?: ReceiptIQ AI never links to a bank account or reads your email. Scanning and currency conversion need a data connection to fetch that day's exchange rate; if you're offline, the receipt is saved and converted the next time you're back online.
Can I use ReceiptIQ AI for business travel expense reports?: Yes. Scan each receipt as you go, then export a PDF (a summary, a receipt index and every scanned receipt on its own page) or a CSV for the dates of the trip. Foreign receipts keep both the printed amount and the converted amount.
What can I do on a trip with no internet?: You can type expenses by hand, browse what you have saved and export. Scanning, voice entry and the exchange rate need a connection, so scan the receipts you collected once you have signal; currency conversion is applied when the phone is back online.
How do I log a cash expense that has no receipt while travelling?: Type it or say it in one of the app's 16 languages, for example "Business dinner in Tokyo, eighty dollars". Typed entries are free and never count toward the 30 free AI scans.
Which currencies can I use as my home currency?: You can pick from 25: USD, CAD, AUD, NZD, GBP, EUR, JPY, HKD, TWD, MOP, SAR, TRY, SGD, MYR, PHP, PLN, BRL, SEK, DKK, NOK, CHF, CZK, KRW, CLP and GTQ. Receipts can be printed in a wider set of currencies and are still detected and converted.
Which exchange rate does ReceiptIQ AI use for a foreign receipt?: The rate for the day you scan the receipt, not the date printed on it. The receipt is stored with the printed amount, the rate and the rate's date, and the detail view shows both amounts. If you change your home currency, foreign receipts are converted again at today's rate.

See every feature on the Features page, or read how each release is tested against real receipts from many countries.

Download on the App Store