Banknotes of the Ukrainian hryvnia

The National Bank of Ukraine has issued four banknote series since 1996. All banknotes in denominations of ₴1, ₴2, ₴5, ₴10, ₴20, ₴50, ₴100, ₴200, ₴500 and ₴1,000 issued after 2003 (of the third and fourth series) are considered legal tender. All of them depict an important person in Ukraine's history on the obverse and a landmark place on the reverse. The lowest four denominations are no longer issued in banknotes and are intended to be gradually substituted by coins, though they remain common. There have been four commemorative banknote issues.
In Ukraine's history, banknotes denominated in Ukrainian hryvnias (Ukrainian: гривня; ISO 4217 code: UAH, symbol: ₴) have been issued during two periods. The first of them took place in 1918 and 1919, when the Central Council of Ukraine decided to transition to hryvnia from karbovanets, another currency that circulated in various periods of the country's history. In practice, the currencies were interchangeable. It became obsolete as the army of the Ukrainian People's Republic lost control over its claimed territory as a result of the defeat in the Ukrainian War of Independence.
This article covers all hryvnia banknotes issued, or planned to be issued, by government authorities as well as some local issues. Shah (Ukrainian: шаг) stamps as subdivisions of hryvnia and interest coupons denominated in hryvnias and shahs are covered here because they were also printed on paper.
The second period when Ukrainian hryvnia banknotes appeared was in the times of post-Soviet independence. In 1991–1996, karbovanets, a successor of the Soviet ruble, also known in Ukrainian as karbovanets, was circulating in newly independent Ukraine, but the currency experienced hyperinflation. The first post-independence hryvnia banknotes were printed in Canada and Malta in 1992. In September 1996, they entered circulation, following their replacement [ru] by hryvnia at a rate of 100,000:1. All issues of hryvnia banknotes that have been printed in 1994 and later were made in Ukraine.
Notes issued in Ukraine, including hryvnia notes, can be viewed at the Museum of Money of the National Bank of Ukraine in Kyiv.
During the later half of 1917, the Central Council of Ukraine sought to gain more autonomy from the Russian Republic, which was ultimately asserted at the Third Universal, establishing the Ukrainian People's Republic (UNR). With the creation of a new state entity, the country's need for its own currency became urgent. In December 1917, the UNR introduced karbovanets as a stopgap measure, until hryvnia were installed as an official currency according to the law of 1 March 1918. The exchange rate was 2 hryvnias to 1 karbovanets issued in 1917 (i.e. 25 and 50 karbovanets). It was defined by law to be convertible to gold at a rate of 1 hryvnia = 8.712 dolya (0.383328 grams, or about 0.0123243 oz t).
Hryvnia were subdivided into 100 shah. Since karbovanets were circulating at par with the Russian ruble/Soviet ruble until late 1918, it could not be worth more than them, and these were depreciating due to hyperinflation. Legislative efforts to limit or outright ban the usage of Russian currencies in Ukraine had limited success. Aggravating the situation was a lack of gold reserves. This meant that the hryvnia was losing value very rapidly. Even though Ukrainian currency was spared from the worst of the hyperinflation, maintaining the gold standard proved unfeasible.
The law of 1 March 1918 envisaged printing denominations of 2, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 500 and 1000 hryvnias, which were to be called State Credit Notes (Ukrainian: Державний кредитовий білет). On 24 March 1918, the UNR signed an agreement to print banknotes via the Reichsdruckerei, the German state banknote printer. There were some problems with the contractor. Despite ordering 16,000,000 5-hryvnia notes and 9,000,000 20-hryvnia notes, these were not printed. 50-hryvnia notes were not contracted at all.
All of the submitted designs of Ukrainian hryvnia banknotes were tampered with in Germany, changing colours without designers' or government's permission. Heorhiy Narbut, who drew the design of the 500-hryvnia note, lamented their poor quality. The Ukrainian State decided to forego 5-hryvnia and 20-hryvnia bills in favour of a new denomination of 2,000 hryvnia, which the Ukrainian government was formally not authorised to issue.
All banknotes contain the following text on the reverse: "State Credit Notes of the Ukrainian People's Republic are guaranteed by all property of the Republic. ~ State Credit Notes of the Ukrainian People's Republic circulate alongside golden coinage. ~ Counterfeiting of State Credit Notes is punished by disfranchisement and prison", as mandated by law (here referred to as "State Credit Note notice"). The gold standard notice was also printed, which read: "(One) hryvnia contains 8.712 dolya of pure gold" (Ukrainian: (Одна) гривня містить 8,712 долі щирого золота). All banknotes had anti-counterfeiting protections, such as a watermark and guilloche pattern.
On 30 March 1918, the Central Council of Ukraine approved a release of 100 million karbovanets worth of State Treasury Notes (Ukrainian: білєт Державної Скарбниці). The sum was increased to 500 million karbovanets on 12 May, which was doubled on 9 July 1918. Yakiv Zozulya attributes such rapid increases to a seemingly clientelist agreement with Austria-Hungary and German Empire, whereby Ukraine granted a 200 million karbovanets "unlimited-term loan" to each of these countries. On the other hand, Pavlo Hay-Nyzhnyk said the money was needed to revive the country's economy anyway.
In essence, State Treasury Notes were 4-year treasury bonds issued in denominations of 50, 100, 200 and 1,000 hryvnias. They yielded 3.6% simple interest per annum paid every six months, on 1 July and 2 January. They had a unified design prepared by Heorhiy Narbut, with a roughly square centre, where the value of the bond was written, plus four coupons on either side of the note, worth respectively 0.90, 1.80, 3.60 and 18 hryvnias each. The only feature that was different between each of these bonds was colours. Due to the enormous size of the notes, as well as due to the location of coupons, they were nicknamed "airplanes" (Ukrainian: аероплани).
The coupons and the notes were not formally intended to be legal tender in the sense that the possibility to redeem them at banks was limited by the dates in coupons. In practice, due to an acute shortage of small change, these pieces of paper were readily cut out and circulated as plain currency. Even government agencies accepted both the notes and the coupons for payments. The coupons and the State Treasury Notes were thus described as "surrogate banknotes".
Shahivky (шагівки) were named so after shah, the subdivision of hryvnia, and served as small change because of the strong deficit of metals to mint coins. On 18 April 1918, the government authorised to issue paper "coins" of 1, 2, 4, 6, 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 shahiv. The first four denominations have never been issued, nor are they known to have ever been printed. According to various estimates, the other five shahivky accounted for about 24-38 million hryvnia in circulation. Among those issued, the 30 shahiv stamp was rarer than the other denominations.
Shahivky were postage stamp-sized, and they were sometimes used as postage stamps due to the dearth of "real" postage stamps.
Unlike the postage staps, which were all imperforate, the five pieces of postage stamp currencies were usually Perf. 11 ½ stamps. 40 and 50 shahiv imperforate stamps are known to exist but are much rarer than the perforated versions. The currency was printed on thicker paper than the stamps, and the notice saying that the post stamps "circulate alongside metal coinage" appeared on the reverse, unlike in stamps, where the other side was blank. Due to their weak protections, shahivky were often counterfeited, particularly the top two denominations.
Due to their lightness and their propensity to be blown away by the wind, they earned a tongue-in-cheek nickname of "butterflies" (Ukrainian: метелики). They were also known as "postage stamps" (Ukrainian: марки) in reference to their size and appearance. The shops of the time were known to give out change in bundles qof hundreds of such stamp "coins".
In 1918, following the fall of the Ukrainian State and the return to the Ukrainian People's Republic, represented by the Directorate, the government tried to shift focus to either of the two concurrent currencies in Ukraine, and declared hryvnias to be the "national currency". However, many more denominations were issued in karbovanets than in hryvnia in 1919. The government only managed to issue a so-called State Treasury Exchange Note (Ukrainian: Розмінний знак Державної Скарбниці) worth 5 hryvnias with a hastily prepared primitive design. It was the only state-sanctioned banknote ever printed on the territory of West Ukrainian People's Republic (ZUNR), or, to be exact, in Stanislaviv, now Ivano-Frankivsk. The banknotes were mostly circulated in eastern Galicia.
In 1920, the circulation of the Ukrainian currency started to be curtailed. In January 1920, the Communists, who controlled most of Ukraine, ordered the banks to stop accepting all money issued by previous Ukrainian governments, including hryvnias, and removed the obligation to accept Ukrainian currency by private parties. At the end of 1920, they forbade circulation of all Ukrainian money. The last known issue of Ukrainian currency in 1917–1920, were State Credit Notes, denominated at 50 and 1,000 hryvnias, which were printed in Vienna. Few proofs (German: Muster) of these banknotes are known to exist. They became obsolete before they could be circulated, as Petliura dissolved the Directorate's government in November 1920 in light of the lack of control of Ukrainian territories.
Apart from state-issued banknotes, there were also hundreds of local currency paper currency units, notes, coupons etc., issued by municipal authorities. Over 300 municipalities within current Ukrainian borders once issued a total of over 1,500 variously named currency substitutes, mostly rubles, karbovanets and hryvnia. Some of the paper currency denominated in hryvnia is shown in the gallery below.
As Ukraine was nearing independence in 1991, the government of then Ukrainian SSR began preparations to introduce a new currency named hryvnia. In April 1991, Leonid Kravchuk, then leader of the Supreme Soviet of Ukrainian SSR, ordered the preparation of designs for the new national currency. It was initially planned to issue banknotes in denominations of ₴1, ₴3, ₴5, ₴10, ₴25, ₴50, ₴100 and ₴200, mimicking the denominations of the Soviet ruble. The decision for the design of the currencies was adopted on 11 September 1991. On that day it was decided to change a planned ₴3 note to ₴2, and ₴25 notes to ₴20, as well as to set aside ₴200 as a reserve denomination.
It was then that the general outline of banknotes was chosen, with a prominent person from Ukraine's history on the obverse and a landmark building on the reverse, in most cases directly related with the person displayed. The choice of the people portrayed met with some reservations, as Kravchuk feared that inclusion of Ivan Mazepa on the banknotes might incense Moscow. The candidacy of Mykhailo Hrushevskyi was also politically sensitive, but it was approved and stayed in banknote designs.
The first series was developed by Ukrainian artists Vasyl Lopata and Borys Maksymov, who used relatively uncommon depictions of Taras Shevchenko and the Kievan Rus' rulers. Lopata was drawing the portraits and the buildings, while Maksymov designed the rest of the banknote. Lopata proposed his versions of 500 and 1,000 hryvnias, with Hryhorii Skovoroda or Daniel of Galicia on the former denomination and Peter Mogila on the latter, but his idea was not supported.
As the preparations for the first series were made, it became apparent that Ukraine lacked appropriate domestic facilities to print banknotes. Therefore, banknotes of the first series of hryvnias were made by the Canadian Bank Note Company. 50, 100 and 200 hryvnias, which made part of the second series, after some problems connected with print quality and delays with the Canadian contractor, were eventually ordered from the Maltese branch of De La Rue, which was also producing karbovanets banknotes until the national banknote printing facility [uk] started operation in 1994.
By the time the banknotes arrived, the economic crisis became so deep and inflation so bad that the government decided to stick with the karbovanets. It was only on 2 September 1996 that the first series of hryvnia banknotes, up to 20 hryvnias, was introduced into circulation by the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU).
In 1996, the 1, 50, and 100 hryvnia notes of the second series were introduced. The 1 hryvnia note was already produced in Ukraine in the brand new printing factory, as would all subsequent banknotes, while the two higher denominations were still printed by De La Rue and had better security features in comparison with the first series. Most of the other denominations went into circulation in 1997. The 200 hryvnia note, which was seen at the time as worth too much, was released in 2001, just before the tenth anniversary of Ukraine's independence.
The second series was quickly found to have several drawbacks, so plans to replace it were approved as early as 1999. Serhiy Tihipko, then governor of the National Bank of Ukraine, noted that 2, 10 and 20 hryvnias were hardly distinguishable from each other. Artists have pointed to several design flaws and inaccuracies in the banknotes. Lopata was, for instance, not happy with the De La Rue banknotes, and the National Bank of Ukraine wanted to introduce new security features. In 2003, the ₴20 note became the first banknote of the third series of the Ukrainian hryvnia. Other denominations quickly followed suit. It was also then that the ₴500 bills, which became among the most common banknotes in Ukraine, were introduced into circulation.
Refurbished versions of these banknotes, with even more anti-counterfeiting techniques, were released starting from 2014 (₴100), followed by ₴500 regular issue and a ₴20 commemorative note in 2016, ₴20 regular bill in 2018 and the rest of the banknotes, including the new ₴1000, in 2019 and early 2020.
All descriptions taken from the site of the National Bank of Ukraine.
Since October 2020, all banknotes from the first and the second series were withdrawn from circulation and are only exchanged in banks. Banknotes from ₴1 to ₴10 are being substituted by a new set of coins. Like all the banknotes of the third and fourth series, these remain legal tender. The banknotes use cotton as a substrate. The ₴20 commemorative banknote was the first to use linen fibres. The ₴1000 banknote includes 20% linen.
As of 1 July 2021, almost 2.94 billion notes worth more than ₴580 billion are in circulation. Almost a quarter of all banknotes are in ₴200 notes, followed closely by ₴500 notes. ₴1 notes are also relatively common, even as these were initially circulating alongside big 1 hryvnia coins and, since 2018, are increasingly substituted by new smaller coins. Banknotes from ₴2 to ₴20 are relatively rare compared with other denominations, at about 5% of the total quantity of banknotes each.
The detected number of counterfeit hryvnia banknotes was hovering around 3 forged bills per 1 million genuine ones in 2015–2019. This sharply increased to 5.5 counterfeit banknotes per million in 2020, which the NBU attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic. The vast majority of forgeries (96%) occurred among the third series banknotes. The majority of the illicitly produced notes belonged to the two highest denominations of the series.
All descriptions taken from the site of the National Bank of Ukraine.