The island's unit of currency is the Eastern Caribbean dollar (EC$) , divided into 100 cents. It comes in bills of US$100, $50, $20, $10 and $5 and coins of US$1, $0.50, $0.25, $0.10, $0.05 and $0.01. The rate of exchange is fixed at EC$2.70 to US$1.

In tourist-related business, the US dollar is often used as an unofficial parallel currency, and you'll often find prices for hotels, restaurants and car rental quoted in US dollars (a policy we have adopted in this guide). Bear in mind, though, that you can always insist on paying in EC$ (and the exchange rate usually works out slightly in your favour).

If you are using US dollars or travellers' cheques to pay a bill, check in advance whether your change will be given in the same currency (it usually won't).

Banking hours are generally Monday to Thursday 8am-2pm and Friday 8am-4pm. Most of the banks are in St John's and include Antigua Commercial Bank, Barclays, ABIB and Bank of Antigua. (The latter has a branch in Nelson's Dockyard.) Bank of Antigua and ABIB in St John's are also open on Saturday morning.

Most hotels and restaurants automatically add a service charge of 10 percent and government tax of 7 percent. It's always worth asking if it's included in the quoted price or will be added on later.