page_title: South African rand
section_title: Banknotes
hierarchical_section_title: South African rand / Banknotes
caption_attribution_description: English: An ATM withdrawal of South African money (R50 and R100s)
context_page_description: The rand is the official currency of South Africa. It is subdivided into 100 cents.
  The rand is legal tender in the Common Monetary Area between South Africa, Eswatini, Lesotho and Namibia, although the last three countries do have their own currencies pegged at par with the rand. Before 1976, the rand was legal tender in Botswana. The Botswanan pula replaced the rand at par in that year.
context_section_description: The first series of rand banknotes was introduced in 1961 in denominations of 1-, 2-, 10-, and 20-rand, with similar designs and colours to the preceding pound notes to ease the transition. They bore the image of what was believed at the time to be Jan van Riebeeck, the first V.O.C. administrator of Cape Town. It was later discovered that the image was not in fact Van Riebeeck at all, a portrait of Bartholomeus Vermuyden had been mistaken for Van Riebeeck. Like the last pound notes, they were printed in two variants, one with English written first and the other with Afrikaans written first.
  In 1966, a second series was released with designs which moved away from the previous pound notes. Notes with denominations of 1-, 5- and 10-rand were produced with predominantly one colour per note. A smaller 1-rand note with the same design was introduced in 1973 and a 2-rand note was introduced in 1974. The 20-rand denomination from the first series was dropped. All notes bore the image of Jan van Riebeeck. The practice of having an English and an Afrikaans version of each note was continued in this series.
  The 1978 series began with denominations of 2-, 5-, 10- and 20-rand, with a 50-rand introduced in 1984. This series had only one language variant for each denomination of note. Afrikaans was the first language on the 2-, 10-, and 50-rand, while English was the first language on the 5- and 20-rand. The 1-rand note was replaced by a coin.
  In the 1990s, the notes were redesigned with images of the Big Five wildlife species. 10-, 20- and 50-rand notes were introduced in 1992 & 1993, retaining the colour scheme of the previous issue. Coins were introduced for the 2- and 5-rand, replacing the notes of the previous series, mainly because of the severe wear and tear experienced with low-denomination notes in circulation. In 1994, 100- and 200-rand notes were introduced.
  The 2005 series has the same principal design, but with additional security features such as colour-shifting ink on the 50-rand and higher and the EURion constellation. The obverses of all denominations were printed in English, while two other official languages were printed on the reverse, thus making use of all 11 official languages of South Africa.
  In 2010, the South African Reserve Bank and commercial banks withdrew all 1994 series 200-rand banknotes due to relatively high-quality counterfeit notes in circulation.
  In 2011, the South African Reserve Bank issued 100-rand banknotes which were defective because they lacked fluorescent printing visible under UV light. In June, printing of this denomination was moved from the South African Bank Note Company to Crane Currency's Swedish division (Tumba Bruk), which reportedly produced 80 million 100-rand notes. The South African Reserve Bank shredded 3.6 million 100-rand banknotes printed by Crane Currency because they had the same serial numbers as a batch printed by the South African Bank Note Company. In addition, the notes printed in Sweden were not the correct colour, and they were 1 mm short.
  On 11 February 2012, President Jacob Zuma announced that the country would be issuing a new set of banknotes bearing Nelson Mandela's image. They were entered into circulation on 6 November 2012. These contained the same denominations of 10-, 20-, 50-, 100- and 200-rand.
  In 2013, the 2012 series was updated with the addition of the EURion constellation to all five denominations.
  On 18 July 2018, a special commemorative series of banknotes was released in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of Nelson Mandela's birth. This series includes notes of all denominations, 10-, 20-, 50-, 100- and 200-rand. These notes will circulate alongside the existing notes. The notes depict the standard face of Nelson Mandela on the obverse, but instead of the Big Five animals on the reverse, they show a younger Mandela with different iconic scenes relating to his legacy. These scenes comprise: the rolling hills of the Eastern Cape, featuring Mandela's humble birthplace of Mvezo (10-rand); the home of Mandela in Soweto, where he defined his politic
caption: South African ATM showing R 50 and R 100 banknotes.
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