Ukrainian Hryvnia (UAH)

About the Ukrainian Hryvnia

The Ukrainian Hryvnia (UAH) is the official currency of Ukraine, issued by the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) and written with the symbol ₴. One hryvnia divides into 100 kopiikas, and ISO 4217 assigns the currency the alphabetic code UAH and numeric code 980. The name derives from the medieval Kyivan Rus term hryvnia, a unit of weight and payment used in the 8th and 9th centuries, revived for Ukraine's modern national currency in 1996.

Ukraine's exchange-rate regime has changed sharply since the full-scale invasion began. The NBU fixed the hryvnia's rate on 24 February 2022 and imposed strict foreign-exchange restrictions to stabilise the economy, then moved to a "managed flexibility" regime in October 2023, letting the hryvnia weaken or strengthen with the market's structural shortage of foreign currency while it continues to intervene and smooth excessive swings. The NBU describes this as a transitional step toward a fully floating exchange rate.

Before the war, the NBU ran a full inflation-targeting regime with a floating exchange rate from 2015, adopted after the 2014–2015 currency crisis, using its key policy rate as the main monetary tool and a public inflation target. Martial law forced a temporary shift to an exchange-rate peg and then to "flexible inflation targeting" in 2024, under which the NBU pursues a 5% inflation target over a policy horizon of up to three years, longer than its pre-war 9-to-18-month horizon, while relying more heavily on exchange-rate tools alongside interest rates.

Ukraine's modern currency history began with the karbovanets, introduced as reusable coupons on 10 January 1992 and declared the sole legal tender, alongside Soviet roubles at first, on 12 November 1992. The National Bank of Ukraine, established under the Law on Banks and Banking of 20 March 1991 as successor to the Ukrainian Republic's branch of the USSR State Bank, replaced the karbovanets with the hryvnia in a currency reform carried out between 2 and 16 September 1996, issuing banknotes from 1 to 100 hryvnias and coins from 1 to 50 kopiikas.

Cash today spans four hryvnia banknote generations. Third-generation 20-, 50-, 100-, 200- and 500-hryvnia notes from 2003–2007 are being phased out in favour of more secure fourth-generation notes and coins, and on 2 March 2026 the smaller 1-, 2-, 5- and 10-hryvnia notes from that series lost legal-tender status altogether, leaving those values represented only by steel coins issued between 2018 and 2020. Coins in circulation now run from the 50-kopiika piece to 10 hryvnias, and banknotes from 20 up to 1,000 hryvnias; the 10-kopiika coin has been gradually withdrawn since 1 October 2025.