How Much Money Can I Carry in My Pocket?

How Much Cash Can You Have Without Risks?

In the collective imagination, cash has become synonymous with tax evasion, and people often fear having too much money in their wallet.
On the other hand, they are also afraid of keeping money in the bank because everything deposited in the current account or savings account could be subject to tax controls.

Legal Origin of Cash

It is not uncommon for a citizen to find themselves with a significant amount of cash.
Take the example of a mother who decides to save money for a major purchase (a car, new appliances, a study trip for her children).
Every day, she puts 5 euros in a container and saves, in this way 35 euros per week, 140 euros per month.
She prefers to physically set them aside because if she were to deposit them in the bank account, she would tend to use them when needed.

After two years, the woman finds herself with a tidy sum of 2,800 euros, but she decides it’s not enough and continues to save money, even more than 5 euros a day when possible.
At the end of the fourth year, she finds herself with almost 5,500 euros.

What to Do with the Cash?

Now the mother must decide how to use this money.
She cannot deposit it in the bank account: such a high deposit for which she has no documentary proof could raise the suspicions of the Tax Office and put her at risk of an investigation.

Can she keep it in her wallet to buy new appliances for the house and pay for them in cash?

Limit on Cash Possession

The law does not impose rules and limits on the money that can be kept at home or in the wallet.
The presumption of tax evasion only arises when there are suspicious transactions on the current account, such as non-modest deposits that are not justifiable.

Nothing prohibits any citizen from saving their money in cash and keeping it at home.
No law imposes limits on the amounts to be deposited in one’s current account, but in this case, it is necessary to prove that these are amounts not subject to taxation (e.g., donations).

The only way to use the cash you hold is to spend it, respecting the cash limit set by the regulation, which is, as mentioned, 5,000 euros.