Last updated: September 2026

What currency does New Zealand use, and who issues the notes?

New Zealand uses the New Zealand dollar, ISO code NZD, divided into 100 cents and issued by the Reserve Bank of New Zealand. The Bank was set up by the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act 1933 and has issued every New Zealand banknote since 1934. Every note in circulation today is printed on polymer.

The 1933 Act did two things at once. It created a national institution with the sole right of note issue, and it took that right away from the trading banks, which were also required to hold minimum balances with the new Reserve Bank (New Zealand Official Yearbook 1970, Statistics New Zealand). The Bank began as a privately owned institution with shares held widely across the country, and became a State-owned institution in 1936, with the whole Board appointed by the Government.

Collectors number the Reserve Bank's families of notes Series 1 through Series 7. The numbering is a collector convention rather than a legal one, but it is used by New Zealand institutions: the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa catalogs the current notes as the Bank's Series 7 (Te Papa Tongarewa).

Who issued New Zealand's banknotes before 1934?

Trading banks did, with one government interruption. Several commercial banks printed and circulated their own notes through the nineteenth century and into the twentieth, and between 1847 and 1856 the New Zealand Government ran a Colonial Bank of Issue set up specifically to issue banknotes. Private issue resumed afterwards and ran until the Reserve Bank arrived.

Te Papa Tongarewa puts the sequence plainly in its record of a Colonial Bank of Issue five pound note: the Colonial Bank of Issue ran between 1847 and 1856, and before and afterwards trading banks issued their own banknotes until the Reserve Bank of New Zealand was established in 1934 (Te Papa Tongarewa). The cataloged private issuers include the Bank of New Zealand, the National Bank of New Zealand, the Union Bank of Australia, the Bank of Australasia, the Bank of New South Wales, the Commercial Bank of Australia and small regional banks such as the Bank of Otago, founded in 1863 and absorbed by the National Bank ten years later.

When did New Zealand switch to decimal currency?

New Zealand adopted decimal currency on 10 July 1967 under the Decimal Currency Act 1964, with the dollar as the monetary unit. The Reserve Bank issued notes for 1, 2, 5, 10, 20 and 100 dollars on the changeover. There was no $50 note in the first decimal family; it did not appear until the 1980s.

That list comes from the official statistical record of the period, which notes that the new notes and coins carried distinctive New Zealand designs (New Zealand Official Yearbook 1970). The catalog record confirms the shape of the series: the 1967 notes carry Queen Elizabeth II on the front with a New Zealand bird and native plants on the back, a Captain James Cook watermark, and the imprint of Thomas De La Rue, with the pied fantail on the $1, the New Zealand pigeon on the $20 and the takahe on the $100 (PMG World Paper Money Price Guide, read September 2026).

The pound notes they replaced had run almost unchanged for a generation. The 1940 family carried Captain James Cook at lower right and the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi on the back, watermarked with the portrait of a Māori chief, and it is collected by signature: T. P. Hanna from 1940 to 1955, G. Wilson for barely a year, and R. N. Fleming from 1956, first without a security thread and then with one from 1960. New Zealand's decimal changeover ran a year after Australia's, and the two are natural companion collections: see our Australia banknotes hub.

When did New Zealand switch to polymer banknotes?

New Zealand replaced its paper notes with polymer in 1999, seven years after Australia proved the technology and eleven years after the world's first polymer note. The 1999 family kept the portraits of the 1992 paper series and changed the substrate, the printer and several colors underneath.

Note Printing Australia, the Reserve Bank of Australia's banknote subsidiary, records that after Australia issued the world's first polymer banknote, New Zealand moved to polymer immediately and issued a new series printed by NPA, and it still lists the Reserve Bank of New Zealand among the currency issuing authorities it has supplied with polymer notes (Note Printing Australia). The catalog agrees: it attributes the 1999 New Zealand issues to NPA, printed without an imprint, where the 1992 paper notes carried Thomas De La Rue and the 1981 family carried Bradbury Wilkinson.

Polymer changed what condition means for a New Zealand collector. Plastic notes resist the soft folds and grubbiness that wear paper down, so circulated polymer often grades higher than circulated paper of the same age, and the premium moves toward first prefixes, low serial numbers and uncirculated examples instead. Our comparison of polymer versus paper banknotes covers the trade-offs in full.

What is the Series 7 Brighter Money series?

Series 7, marketed as Brighter Money, is New Zealand's current family of banknotes and the first redesign since 1999. The $5 and $10 went into circulation from 12 October 2015, and the $20, $50 and $100 followed in 2016. The notes are printed on polymer by the Canadian Bank Note Company and carry holograms among their security features.

Te Papa Tongarewa records the issue date and the printer in its collection entries for the notes, which were gifted by the Reserve Bank in 2018, and describes the series as the first redesign of New Zealand's banknotes since 1999, keeping the pattern of depicting the reigning monarch, eminent New Zealanders and indigenous flora and fauna (Te Papa Tongarewa). The museum also holds a numismatic set of all five Series 7 denominations sharing the serial number AA15001706.

The new $5 then won an international prize. The International Bank Note Society named the New Zealand $5 its Banknote of the Year for 2015, announced in April 2016, ahead of a field of about twenty nominated notes that included Sweden's 20 kronor, Russia's 100 ruble, Kazakhstan's 20,000 tenge and the Clydesdale Bank's polymer £5 (CoinWeek). The IBNS gives the award annually to a note issued to the public that year with artistic merit or innovative security features (International Bank Note Society).

New Zealand banknote series at a glance

The table sets out the Reserve Bank's seven families, the denominations in each, the main portraits, and what the notes are printed on. Issue groupings and design details are from the PMG World Paper Money Price Guide, read in September 2026.

Two commemorative notes sit outside the series. A 1990 $10 marked the sesquicentennial with the White Heron and a 1990 Commission logo beside the Queen and the treaty signing on the back, using the BBB, CCC and DDD serial prefixes. A 2000 millennium $10 carried the Earth, a map of New Zealand and a ceremonial boat, with five sporting scenes on the reverse, in two varieties distinguished by black or red serial numbers.

Which women appear on New Zealand banknotes?

Kate Sheppard is the woman on the New Zealand $10, and she has held that place since 1992. She appears with camellia flowers on the 1992 paper note, on the 1999 polymer note and on the current Series 7 note of 2015. Queen Elizabeth II appears on the $20 as head of state.

The catalog records her on all three: the 1992 issue lists camellia flowers at left with K. Sheppard at center right, the 1999 polymer issue repeats the design with blue ducks on the back, and the 2015 Series 7 $10 lists camellias and Kate Sheppard beside a star pattern (PMG, Pick 178; PMG, Pick 192).

Te Papa Tongarewa describes Sheppard, who lived from 1847 to 1934, as at the forefront of the suffrage movement that succeeded in gaining votes for women in 1893 (Te Papa Tongarewa). Three consecutive New Zealand families have now carried her, across two substrates and three printers, and she is one of the notes our survey of women on banknotes returns to. The Queen's long presence across the New Zealand series is part of a wider Commonwealth pattern covered in Queen Elizabeth II banknotes.

What are New Zealand banknotes worth?

The pound notes carry the value and the modern notes mostly do not. The table gives catalog values in US dollars from the PMG World Paper Money Price Guide, read in September 2026, at Very Good 8, Very Fine 20 and Uncirculated 60.

Read it sideways and the market is obvious. The 1934 ten shillings note is a serious purchase in any grade, the 1940 family is priced almost entirely by which Chief Cashier signed it, and everything from 1967 onward is affordable unless it is a specimen or an early prefix. The catalog numbers are Pick numbers, explained in our guide to Pick numbers, and what determines banknote value covers the rest.

How do you start collecting New Zealand banknotes?

Choose one era, learn its signatures, then decide whether you want raw notes or certified ones. New Zealand is one of the tidiest world collecting fields there is: a single issuer since 1934, seven families, and twelve denominations across the whole run, from the ten shilling note to the hundred dollar.

Three lanes work well. The 1940 pound family gives you five denominations and a signature puzzle that rewards study without demanding a large budget. The 1967 decimal series gives you a clean set of six notes, the Queen Elizabeth II portraits and a gallery of native birds. The polymer route gives you the 1999 conversion and the award-winning Series 7, both still findable in uncirculated condition, which is the best value entry point for a new collector.

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 certification is worth paying for. The banknote glossary defines prefixes and replacement notes, and how to store banknotes has advice specific to polymer.

Where can you buy New Zealand 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.