ATM withdrawals in Bolivia

i withdrawl us dollars regurlarly. the fee for me is 5 dollars for every withdrawl no matter the amount so youd be wise to take as much as possible at a time.

probably depends on your banks policy.

my particular US bank account has unlimited withdrawl which means i can take out the entire sum at any time if the machine has that much but because my bank is in the US and this is south america they have stopped transactions a few times and voided my card temporarily for security reasons so have ready a means to contact them and discuss it so you dont get trapped somewhere waiting on stars to align for you to get your money because very very very often there will be a reason for the entire city or country to shut down and you will be left stuck waiting for days to go by just to get any money anywhere. blockades mean banks dont get the money they need delivered to their branches and quickly the ATM will run out of cash and so nobody nowhere gets money unless you are in a major city at a main branch location but if one brach shuts down for this reason they all shut down. this is how it works and obviously forward progress is greatly hindered every time this happens when somebody throws up a blockade or any reason to celebrate a holiday comes up for that matter because the world should close as far as bolivia is concerned to honor whatever seems important at the time like wife day or dog day or father/saint so and so who stood up for good values when he was alive so now everyone remembers them by getting drunk and pissing in the street and you certainly will have to close up and wait with it all should you be caught unprepared.

other problems in bolivia include
-the atm will stop you at 300 dollars no matter how much you have in your account. some limit cash to 200 per transaction.
you'll have to discover which one uses which amount limit.
banco bisa lets you go to 300 but the atm will never have more than 1000 US dollars ever at any time and usually it depend on the location.

know that most companies hiring for the petroleum industry pay in dollars so many many people are using dollars here. you may have to drive around and hit a few if you need more dollars like to buy a ticket to escape by plane, perhaps.
all atms have bolivianos but the bank i use will only allow 500 bolivianos per transaction when you are converting dollars from your bank to bolivianos at the machine which is about 75 dollars and that transaction will also cost me 5 dollars so its better to get us dollars and exchange somewhere else. the bank will give you an honest exchange rate inside however if you dont have an account with them you cannot exchange anything and you have to have a bolivian id card to open an account along with several other things. exchange places will always have signs on the sandwich board outside on the sidewalk. dont hesitate to avoid all people in trenchcoats who whisper they have a good exchange rate for you. i assure you, they do not. the stores are everywhere and they should be fair and honest but if you dont ask and know the rate before you go, they certainly will not offer to explain anything to you and they will try to rip you off as a matter of custom.

also, a few bank atms will allow a larger than 300 dollar withdrawl at a time but usually the machine has less actual dollars inside it just because there isnt enough demand for that kind of transaction here.
most banks will limit your transaction amount to a daily limit regardless which in my case at the bolivian bank where i have an account is 4400 bolivianos per day from the machine but i can go inside and do whatever i wish because i have an active account.

i hope that answers your question.

ou can indeed withdraw $US but not every ATM offers this service.  Have a look for a bank in your own country that waives foreign withdrawal fees as this can save you a lot of money.

ATM's thankfully do not yet charge their own service fee for withdrawals from foreign cards, as they do in Argentina, Chile and Peru.