There is nothing worse than arriving at the cash register while out shopping and realizing you can’t pay for your goods.
We’ve all been there – either your credit/debit card fails to work, you’ve forgotten your wallet or your phone dies meaning you can’t use Apple or Google pay like you normally would.
We’ve also encountered issues with shops accepting $50 and $100 bills.
While $50 and $100 are legal tender, shops can, according to the US Treasury Department, devise their own policies on whether to accept $50 or $100 bills.
In our experience, most of the time shops simply refuse $50 and $100 bills because they can’t split them.
However, occasionally some retailers don’t accept $50 and $100 bills outright.
With this in mind, we’ve looked at whether the popular retailers – Best Buy, Home Depot, and Lowes will accept $50 and $100 bills.
To explore this we contacted 3 stores from each company to see what they had to say. We asked whether they accept them at the regular checkout and also at the self-service checkout.
Keep reading to find out more…
Does Best Buy Accept $50 and $100 Bills?
We contact 3 stores in 3 different states and they all confirmed that they accept $50 and $100 bills subject to there being adequate cash available to split them.
However, we were told that this would be unlikely and usually they can accept $50 and $100 bills without issue.
What About Best Buy Self-Checkouts?
We also enquired about whether they accept $50 and $100 notes at self-service and we were told that they do.
You can also pay with the following if you’d rather pay without $50 or $100 bills:
- Visa
- Mastercard
- American Express
- Discover
- Paypal (online store)
- Apple Pay
- Google Pay
- Personal or business checks
- Gift cards
- Smaller cash amounts
Clearly, their website won’t accept cash including $50 or $100 bills but it does accept most forms of electronic payment.
Does Home Depot Accept $50 and $100 Notes?
Again, we contacted 3 Home Depot stores to get the low down on whether they take $50 and $100 notes.
They all said that they generally do with one of the stores saying it depends on the amount of cash they have in the register and whether they can split it.
However, the other two stores didn’t mention this but we suspect it will be the same for them as well.
What About Home Depot Self-Service Checkouts?
We were told that some machines do accept them but then some machines only accept credit and debit cards.
However, the ones that do accept notes do generally accept $50 and $100 bills.
You can also pay at Home Depot using:
- American Express
- Discover
- Mastercard
- Visa
- Cash
- Paypal
Unfortunately, Home Depot doesn’t take Apple pay or other digital payment wallets according to our research.
Does Lowes Accept $50 and $100 Bills?
Out of the 3 stores we contacted they all confirmed that they do accept $50 and $100 bills.
All 3 again caveated this with that they sometimes can’t accept this size of note if there isn’t enough change in the register but this is apparently a rare event.
What About Lowes’ Self-Checkouts?
We were told that Lowes self-service checkouts do take $50 and $100 notes again subject to them having enough change in the machine
If you can’t pay with a $50 or $100 for whatever reason then we’ve researched the other payments they accept and these include:
- MasterCard
- Visa
- American Express
- Discover
- Gift cards
Lowes does not accept Apple or Google pay according to our research so you’ll need to use one of the other payment methods if digital wallets are usually your thing.
So in summary the results are:
| Store | Does it Accept $50 and $100 Bills? |
| Best Buy | Yes, subject to being able to split |
| Home Depot | Yes, subject to being able to split |
| Lowes | Yes, subject to being able to split |
Final Thoughts
There is no flat-out ban on accepting $50 and $100 bills at any of these three stores and they generally will oblige you providing they can split the bill.
We have encountered problems in the past where stores can’t split $50 and $100 bills but this is fairly rare and tends to be in smaller stores rather than huge nationwide retailers such as Best Buy, Home Depot, and Lowes.
Even if they won’t accept $50 or $100 bills there are still plenty of other payment methods you can use at these stores albeit Home Depot and Lowes do not accept digital payment wallets.
Check out our other posts about this topic – we’ve looked at whether McDonald’s and other fast food stores accept $50 and $100 bills.
We’ve also looked at whether 5 main retailers accept $50 and $100 bills.
