Last updated: September 2026

What currency does Chile use?

Chile uses the peso, issued by the Banco Central de Chile. The unit was called the escudo from 1960 until 1975, when the peso returned. Five banknotes circulate today, from 1,000 to 20,000 pesos, and they were introduced one at a time between September 2009 and May 2011 as a single new family.

The family was deliberately tied to an anniversary. The first of the new notes, the 5,000 pesos introduced on 24 September 2009, launched what was presented as a family of five to commemorate two hundred years of independence, with three denominations printed on polymer by Note Printing Australia and two on cotton paper by Crane AB, which designed every note in the series (BanknoteNews). Every note carries the same two motifs on the front, a stylised sun in red to gold optically variable ink and a stylised corazon del copihue, the heart of the Chilean bellflower.

The theme running through the backs is the country's protected land. Torres del Paine, Reserva Nacional Nalcas, Parque Nacional La Campana, Parque Nacional Alberto de Agostini and the Salar de Surire each get one denomination, with a signature animal: guanacos, a choroy parrot, an owl, an Andean condor and Chilean flamingos. It is one of the most coherent national banknote programmes issued anywhere in the last twenty years.

Who issued Chile's first banknotes?

Private banks did. Chile's financial system developed from the middle of the nineteenth century with the appearance of the first banks, each of which performed both a credit function and an issuing function, producing its own banknotes and notes of credit. Their practice was unregulated until the first banking law was decreed in 1860.

The results were not orderly. The Biblioteca Nacional de Chile records that even after the War of the Pacific brought tighter state control, uncontrolled note issue, usury and the rivalry between the oreros, who wanted convertible money, and the papeleros, who did not, kept the country in constant monetary crisis (Memoria Chilena, Biblioteca Nacional de Chile).

The catalog record follows the same arc. Paper money appeared in Chile shortly after the peso itself, out of necessity when gold and silver were scarce; a general banking law of 1860 allowed private banks to issue currency; an inconvertibility act followed bank runs in 1878; convertibility returned briefly between 1895 and 1898; and in 1898 the banks were prohibited from issuing notes, leaving the Chilean state as the sole issuer (PMG, History of the Chilean Peso and its Paper Currency).

Why was the Banco Central de Chile created in 1925?

Because an American advisory mission told Chile to create one. In February 1925, with Arturo Alessandri back in the presidency, Chile's ambassador in Washington approached Edwin Walter Kemmerer, a professor at Princeton University, about a financial mission to reform the whole system. The resulting Kemmerer Mission proposed three bills, and all three became law that year.

The three were a new banking law, a new monetary law and a law establishing the Banco Central. The monetary law put Chile on the gold standard, the second created the central bank charged with issuing convertible notes and discounting credit, and the third ended the monetary freedom of the private banks. A Superintendencia de Bancos was created at the same time to supervise the system (Memoria Chilena, Biblioteca Nacional de Chile).

Two features of the new bank matter to collectors. It held the sole right to issue banknotes, which is why every Chilean note after 1925 carries the same imprint, and every bank operating in Chile, national or foreign, had to subscribe ten per cent of its capital to the new institution (Memoria Chilena, Biblioteca Nacional de Chile). The single-issuer model is the same one traced in our guide to who prints the world's money.

What was the Chilean escudo, and why did the peso come back?

The escudo was Chile's monetary unit between 1960 and 1975. It replaced the peso in 1960, and in 1975 the peso replaced it again (PMG, History of the Chilean Peso and its Paper Currency). Both changes left a trail of collectable paper, because the first notes of each new unit were old notes overprinted rather than new designs.

The 1960 changeover is the more interesting of the two for a collector. The catalog lists a provisional issue of 1960 to 1961 in which existing Banco Central de Chile notes were overprinted in red with the new escudo denomination. The 1 escudo on 1000 pesos, cataloged as P-129, is an overprint on the earlier note carrying Manuel Blanco Encalada at centre, with a watermark of Diego Portales and the signature titles Presidente and Gerente General, and it was printed by the Casa de Moneda de Chile (PMG World Paper Money Price Guide, read September 2026).

The peso returned in 1975, and the notes that followed ran for a very long time. The 500 pesos of 1977 to 1994, cataloged as P-153, carries Pedro de Valdivia at right and the founding of Santiago on the back, and the price guide lists eleven signature varieties for that one denomination alone (PMG World Paper Money Price Guide). Chasing signature pairs is what a Chilean specialist collection actually looks like. Our list of currency redenominations puts both Chilean changes in a wider context, and neighbouring hubs for Peru, Argentina and Bolivia show how differently the region handled the same decades.

Chilean banknote series at a glance

The table sets the main periods side by side. Dates, printers and designs for the current family are those reported by BanknoteNews from the Banco Central de Chile's own announcements; catalog details for the older issues are from the PMG World Paper Money Price Guide.

The five current notes also step up in size, from 120 mm long on the 1,000 pesos to 148 mm on the 20,000, with every note 70 mm deep. That graduated format is one of the quiet accessibility features of the series.

Which Chilean banknotes are polymer?

The three lowest denominations. The 1,000, 2,000 and 5,000 peso notes are printed on Guardian polymer by Note Printing Australia, while the 10,000 and 20,000 peso notes are printed on cotton paper by Crane AB. The split follows circulation: the notes that change hands most often are the ones that need to survive longest.

The polymer notes and the paper notes carry different security. The two paper notes have a solid security thread plus a windowed Motion thread containing Antu, an indigenous Mapuche weaving design symbolising the sun and fertility, and a portrait watermark with an electrotype reading 10 MIL or 20 MIL (BanknoteNews on the 10,000 pesos; BanknoteNews on the 20,000 pesos). The polymer notes have no watermark at all and instead use a simulated solid security thread with demetalised text giving the denomination.

The 20,000 peso note shows how the two systems combine in practice. Intaglio printed by Crane AB, 148 by 70 mm, coppery orange, with an Andres Bello watermark and electrotype 20 MIL, two security threads of which one is a windowed Motion thread carrying the Antu icon that moves across the note as it is tilted, and the denomination printed in green to orange optically variable ink. Our polymer versus paper page explains the trade-off that pushed Chile to split its family in two.

Who is on Chile's current banknotes?

Five figures, one per denomination, each paired with a protected landscape on the back. Ignacio Carrera Pinto is on the 1,000, Manuel Rodriguez Erdoiza on the 2,000, Gabriela Mistral on the 5,000, Arturo Prat Chacon on the 10,000 and Andres Bello on the 20,000.

The order of issue was not the order of denomination. The 5,000 pesos came first, introduced on 24 September 2009 with Gabriela Mistral on the front and Chilean palm trees and an owl in Parque Nacional La Campana in the Valparaiso region on the back, in red on Guardian polymer at 134 by 70 mm. The 10,000 pesos followed on 3 March 2010, light blue on cotton paper at 141 by 70 mm, with Captain Agustin Arturo Prat Chacon in navy uniform and, on the back, an Andean condor soaring above the Cordillera Darwin and the ice fields of Parque Nacional Alberto de Agostini in Tierra del Fuego.

The 20,000 pesos arrived on 28 July 2010 with Andres Bello, from a portrait based on a painting by the French artist Raymond Monvoisin belonging to the University of Chile, and the Salar de Surire in the Arica y Parinacota region with two Chilean flamingos in flight. The 2,000 pesos was unveiled on 6 October 2010 and issued on 17 November 2010, purple polymer at 127 by 70 mm, carrying the lawyer and guerrilla leader Manuel Rodriguez Erdoiza and, on the back, the Lonquimay volcano and a choroy parrot in Reserva Nacional Nalcas in the Araucania (BanknoteNews). The 1,000 pesos completed the family on 11 May 2011, green polymer at 120 by 70 mm, with Ignacio Carrera Pinto in military uniform and two guanacos on a rocky mountain in Parque Nacional Torres del Paine (BanknoteNews).

What are old Chilean banknotes worth?

Most circulated twentieth century Chilean paper is inexpensive, and the interest lies in varieties rather than scarcity. The catalog values below are in US dollars, from the PMG World Paper Money Price Guide, read in September 2026.

Read that first row carefully, because it is the shape of the whole Chilean market. A provisional overprint that survived in worn condition is a pocket-money note, while the same overprint in Fine is worth twenty five times as much. Condition, not rarity, is doing the work. Catalog values are a reference point rather than a quote, and what determines banknote value explains the rest. The catalog numbers are Pick numbers, covered in our guide to Pick numbers.

How do you start collecting Chilean banknotes?

Start with the bicentenary family. Five notes, five figures, five landscapes, three of them polymer, all issued between 2009 and 2011 with published dates and printers. It is one of the few complete modern sets a beginner can finish in uncirculated condition without hunting for anything scarce.

Two deeper routes follow. The first is the escudo interlude of 1960 to 1975, which is short, self-contained and full of provisional overprints that reward careful reading of the catalog. The second is the signature chase: an eleven variety denomination like the 500 pesos of 1977 to 1994 gives a specialist years of work at low cost, and teaches the habit of reading signatures before prices.

Learn the grading ladder before you spend. Grades run from Uncirculated down through AU, XF, VF, F, VG and G, and the certified market uses a 1 to 70 scale: our banknote grading guide explains it, and graded versus raw banknotes covers when third party certification earns its cost. The banknote glossary defines overprints, prefixes and optically variable ink, and how to store banknotes is worth reading before you sleeve polymer, which behaves differently from paper.

Where can you buy Chilean banknotes?

Buy from an established dealer that authenticates every note, documents where it came from, and stands behind it in writing. Prices far below every other seller, vague sourcing and no returns are the signals to walk away from.

Planet Banknote sources notes direct from mints, central banks and authorized distributors rather than reselling anonymous lots. Browse the current selection through the banknotes by country directory, where availability changes with what has been sourced, and see third-party certified pieces in the graded banknotes selection. Our guide to buying world banknotes safely and how to collect world banknotes cover the rest.

Planet Banknote is a family-owned dealership in Sarasota, Florida, founded in 2021. Every note is sourced direct from mints, central banks, and authorized distributors, inspected through our Planet Banknote Verified process, and ships with a free Certificate of Authenticity. US orders ship free via USPS Priority, and every order includes a free bonus gift.