Yes, take some cash. Most of the 90-odd chalets on Place Rihour accept cards, but contactless stops at €50 per payment and some stalls set a card minimum. The nearest cash machine is on the square itself, at 28 Place Rihour, with seven more on the first 60 numbers of Rue Nationale. The real cost, though, is not the walk: it is the 3 to 8% a UK card can lose to the wrong button on the screen.
Do you really need cash at the Lille Christmas market?
The Village de Noël runs from 18 November to 30 December 2026, Sunday to Thursday 11am-8.30pm, Friday and Saturday 11am-10pm. Entry is free. Gift chalets nearly all have card terminals. Food and drink stalls are where the limits appear: a handwritten “CB à partir de 10 €” sign, or a queue that moves faster for a €10 note.
Planning your visit? Read our complete guide to the Lille Christmas market for opening dates, chalet locations, festive attractions and practical tips to make the most of your trip.
French law protects cash, not cards. Refusing euro notes and coins is an offence under article R642-3 of the Code pénal, punishable by a fine of up to €150, whereas a trader may refuse cards or set a minimum as long as it is displayed. The big wheel on the Grand-Place, open until 16 January 2027, takes both: €7 for adults, €5 for children under 1.40 m, for a ride 50 metres up in one of its 36 gondolas.
Which cash machines are closest to Place Rihour?
The distributeurs (as ATMs are called in France) below are all within five minutes of the main entrance on Rue Jean-Roisin.
| Address | Bank network | Walk from the market | Useful when |
|---|---|---|---|
| 28 Place Rihour | Crédit du Nord (now Société Générale) | On the square | Queues at the chalets, no time to spare |
| 6 Place du Général-de-Gaulle | BNP Paribas | 2 min | Before the big wheel or a waffle at Méert |
| 1, 13, 17, 28, 31, 38 and 56 Rue Nationale | Nord de France, La Banque Postale, Société Générale, LCL, Crédit du Nord, CIC, Nord France Europe | 1 to 4 min | The machine on the square has a queue |
| 9 Rue Esquermoise | Crédit Mutuel | 3 min | Heading into Vieux-Lille afterwards |
| 41 Rue Neuve | Nord France Europe | 3 min | Coming from the Rue de Béthune side |
With seven machines in 300 metres of Rue Nationale, a queue on Place Rihour on a Saturday evening is never a problem: the next one is a minute away. For other districts or a particular bank, this list of cash machines in Lille gives addresses across the city and its suburbs.
Can you withdraw on the way from Lille-Flandres station?
Lille-Flandres is a 5-minute walk from Place Rihour, and Lille-Europe, where the Eurostar from London stops, is 2 minutes further. The obvious route runs down Rue Faidherbe, which has cash machines at numbers 1, 29 and 33, all on your path to the Grand-Place. Withdrawing there before 4pm puts you ahead of the evening rush, when machines around the square empty fastest. By metro, line 1 stops at Rihour, a few steps from Rue Nationale.
How do you avoid fees on a UK card?
French bank machines do not add their own charge for a foreign card. What you pay is set by your bank: many high-street debit cards apply a non-sterling transaction fee of around 2.75 to 2.99%, plus a cash fee that is often about £1.50 or a percentage. App-based travel cards often waive both.
The bigger trap is dynamic currency conversion. The screen offers to charge you “in GBP”. Accept, and the operator sets the rate, typically 3 to 8% worse than the reference rate. Since Regulation (EU) 2019/518, that mark-up must be shown, but it sits in small print.
Our advice: always choose euros, at the cash machine and on chalet terminals. On a €100 withdrawal, the “pay in pounds” button can cost £3 to £7 more than your bank’s own rate.
How much cash should you take, and in which notes?
For a day on Place Rihour, €40 to €60 per adult covers the food and small gifts you are likely to pay for in cash. Rough prices on the chalets:
- Mulled wine (vin chaud): around €4 to €5, plus a cup deposit of €1 to €2 refunded when you return it, or kept as a souvenir.
- Waffle or crêpe: €3 to €6.
- Hot dish such as tartiflette or carbonade flamande: €8 to €12.
French machines mostly dispense €20 and €50 notes. Ask for an amount like €70 or €90 rather than €100, which forces the machine to include €20 notes. In France the buyer is expected to have the right change, and no trader is obliged to accept more than 50 coins in one payment under EU rules. Keeping a few €10 notes and €1 or €2 coins makes stall purchases easier.
Two dates catch visitors out: the market closes at 6pm on 24 December and stays shut on 25 December. Bank branches are shut that day and on Sundays, so a card swallowed by a machine then stays inside until the next opening.
Check the tourist office’s practical page before you travel, as hours can change. Leftover euros will not go to waste: Bruges is about 90 minutes away by road, Brussels and Ghent an hour.
Delphine was born and raised in the Lille metropolitan area — close enough to hear the “Mongy” tram rattle past her childhood home. After more than 20 years promoting the Nord department to British visitors, first through press trips, trade shows and tour operator partnerships, then as a digital marketing consultant specialising in tourism, she’s spent her career building bridges between her home city and the UK.
Along the way, she’s picked up a genuine soft spot for both sides of the Channel: London’s Spitalfields market and a good bagel from Brick Lane are as close to her heart as the passageways behind Lille’s cathedral or a plate of Merveilleux from her favourite bakery. She was even honoured at the British Guild of Travel Writers’ dinner at the Savoy for her work bringing Cambrai’s Tank 1917 museum to life.
On Tour de Lille, Delphine writes as the local who never left — sharing the quiet corners of her city and the stories behind them, for visitors who want to see Lille the way a Lilloise does.
