How much is a quid in dollars?
One quid = one pound = the dollar figure in the rate box above. “Quid” is British slang for the pound sterling and nothing more — it is not a different currency, a different denomination, or an old unit. Fifty quid is £50. Twelve hundred quid is £1,200. The exchange rate is identical either way, because it is the same money.
So if you have been quoted a price in quid and want to know what it costs in dollars, multiply the number of quid by the live GBP/USD rate. At a rate of 1.27, 25 quid is $31.75 and 500 quid is $635. The calculator below does it for any amount.
Quid to dollars calculator
Type any amount in either box — the other updates instantly using the live reference rate.
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Quid to dollars table
Common quid amounts converted to US dollars at the current live rate.
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Where “quid” comes from
The word has been in use for the pound since at least the late seventeenth century, and its origin is genuinely unsettled. The most commonly repeated explanation derives it from the Latin quid pro quo — “something for something” — which fits a word meaning a unit of exchange. A rival account points to Quidhampton in Wiltshire, the site of a Royal Mint paper mill that supplied banknote stock. Neither has been established, and dictionaries generally record the etymology as uncertain.
Quid is always singular
This is the one rule worth knowing: quid does not take a plural s. It is “ten quid”, “a hundred quid”, “I paid forty quid for it” — never “ten quids”. The word behaves like “sheep” or “fish”. Getting this wrong is the fastest way to mark yourself out as a non-native speaker in a British shop.
Quid, fiver, tenner, grand
British money slang layers on top of the pound in a fairly consistent way:
- Quid — one pound. Any amount: “three quid”, “nine hundred quid”.
- Fiver — a £5 note, or £5.
- Tenner — a £10 note, or £10.
- Score — £20, though this is now dated.
- Ton — £100.
- Grand — £1,000. “Ten grand” is £10,000. Unlike quid, this one is shared with American English.
None of these change the conversion. Convert the underlying pound figure and you have your dollar amount.
What about “sterling” and “Cable”?
Where quid is informal, sterling is the formal name of the currency — you will see “pound sterling” on official documents and “GBP” as its three-letter code. Cable is a third register again: it is trading-floor shorthand for the GBP/USD pair specifically, and it comes from the Victorian transatlantic telegraph cable that carried pound-dollar quotes between London and New York. The full story is in why GBP/USD is called Cable, and the formal codes are covered in ISO 4217: GBP and USD.
American equivalents
The dollar has its own slang, so a conversation about converting quid to dollars can end up entirely in nicknames. A buck is one dollar — and unlike quid, it does pluralise: “twenty bucks”. Greenback refers to the dollar as a currency rather than a unit, usually in market commentary about dollar strength. A grand is $1,000, same as in Britain.
Getting the actual dollars
The figures on this page are mid-market — the wholesale benchmark. Whether you asked in quid or in pounds, the rate a bank, card or bureau gives you will be a little worse, because each adds a margin. For a holiday, travel money tips covers cards versus cash; for a transfer, see sending money UK → USA. For the plain-English conversion without the slang, use pounds to dollars.