The Argentine peso
Currency · ARS · $ · 1 country
Argentina's peso dates from 1 January 1992, when it replaced the austral at 10,000 australes to one peso. The Banco Central de la República Argentina launched it as the peso convertible, one peso to one US dollar, and held that parity until January 2002. Three earlier pesos and the austral came before it, each after the one before had lost its value.
The sign
Argentines write the peso with the $ sign before the amount, the way many peso and dollar currencies do, and Arg$ where it has to be told apart. Earlier pesos carried marks of their own: m$n for the peso moneda nacional, $ ley for the peso ley and $a for the peso argentino. The austral used ₳.
The same sign stands for 28 other currencies, among them the US dollar and the East Caribbean dollar.
- ISO code
- ARS
- ISO number
- 032
- Subunit
- centavo, 1/100
An amount, written out
$1,234.50
- $1,234.50English
- $ 1.234,50SpanishArgentina
The sign in code
HTML, CSS, JavaScript, UTF-8
- HTML
$$$- CSS
content: "\0024";- JavaScript
"\u0024"- UTF-8
0x24- UTF-16
0x0024- UTF-32
0x00000024
Where the Argentine peso is the official currency
Argentina is the single user, and the Banco Central de la República Argentina its sole issuer.
About the Argentine peso
Which currencies came before the Argentine peso
Law 1130 of 1881 ended a period since described as monetary anarchy. It set a gold peso, the peso oro sellado, and a paper peso moneda nacional that replaced the old peso moneda corriente at 25 to 1. The paper peso was convertible into gold off and on, with its gold value shrinking, until 1929. Then the link went for good.
From then on the country changed its money by striking zeros. Law 18.188, passed on 5 April 1969, created the peso ley from 1 January 1970 at 100 pesos moneda nacional. The peso argentino followed on 1 June 1983, at 10,000 pesos ley. Decree 1096 brought in the austral on 15 June 1985, worth 1,000 pesos argentinos. Hyperinflation in 1989 forced emergency austral notes of 10,000, 50,000 and 500,000. The Casa de Moneda printed the first peso argentino notes from the plates of withdrawn issues, with the text changed from Pesos to Pesos Argentinos.
The central bank has demonetised every austral coin and note. None can be exchanged. Counted back through each change, one peso of 1992 equals ten trillion pesos moneda nacional.
Why the peso was pegged to the dollar
The Convertibility Law, number 23.928 of 27 March 1991, tied the austral to the dollar. The peso inherited the tie. Decree 2128 of 10 October 1991 set it at one peso for each dollar, and for every peso in circulation the central bank held a dollar in its foreign reserves. Notes of that period bore the words Convertibles de curso legal.
After the financial crisis of 2001 Argentina abandoned the fixed rate in January 2002. Law 25.561 removed the word convertible from notes printed after 2002, and the currency's name shrank to peso.
Who prints and strikes Argentine money
The Casa de Moneda was created by Law 733 on 29 September 1875 and started work in 1881, after the unification law, in a mint in the San Telmo district. Coins came first. In 1897 the state made it responsible for printing banknotes, and it printed the first line of peso moneda nacional notes in 1899. The 1-peso note that circulated from 1952 was the first the Casa made entirely itself, from design to print.
It moved in 1944 to the building it still uses in Retiro. In 1994 it bought two Schuler MRH 150 coining presses, each rated at 750 coins a minute. It has also struck coins for other states: a peso for Paraguay in 1889 and a silver 50-cent piece for Uruguay in 1916.
What the Argentine peso looks like in the hand
The first notes of 1992 came in 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50 and 100 pesos. A coin replaced the 1-peso note in 1994. The central bank ended legal tender for the 1-peso note on 1 May 2018, for the 2-peso note on 31 August 2018 and for the 5-peso notes on 30 June 2022.
In 2016 the central bank began a series with animals on the notes, and in May 2022 it announced a series that replaced the animals with historical figures. On 11 January 2024 it said it would issue 10,000-peso and 20,000-peso notes. The 10,000 came out in May 2024, with Manuel Belgrano and María Remedios del Valle, and the 20,000 in November 2024, with Juan Bautista Alberdi.
Coins of 1, 5, 10, 25 and 50 centavos arrived in 1992. The one-centavo coin was last minted in 2001. A newer series of 1, 2, 5 and 10 pesos came in 2017 and 2018. These coins are still legal tender, yet shops and bank branches do not accept them, because their value is negligible and they are awkward to store.
Common questions
Questions about the Argentine peso
Why has Argentina changed its currency so often?
Inflation. Argentine money has gone through severe inflation since the middle of the twentieth century, with bouts of hyperinflation, and each time a currency lost too much value the state replaced it with a new one at a rate between 100 and 10,000 old units to one new. The peso ley arrived in 1970, the peso argentino in 1983, the austral in 1985 and the present peso in 1992. Worked back through all four, one peso of 1992 is worth ten trillion pesos moneda nacional.
Was the Argentine peso once worth one US dollar?
Yes, from its launch on 1 January 1992 until January 2002. Under convertibility the central bank fixed the rate at one peso to one dollar and kept a dollar in its reserves for every peso in circulation. The notes said so: Convertibles de curso legal. The government dropped the fixed rate after the financial crisis of 2001.
Are centavo coins still used in Argentina?
They remain legal tender, but they no longer circulate. Coins of 1, 5, 10, 25 and 50 centavos first appeared in 1992, and the one-centavo coin was last minted in 2001. Shops and bank branches turn the small coins away, since their value is negligible and storing them is a nuisance.
What was the austral?
The currency Argentina used between the peso argentino and today's peso. Decree 1096 introduced it on 15 June 1985 at 1,000 pesos argentinos to one austral, and its sign was ₳. During the hyperinflation of 1989 the state issued emergency notes of 10,000, 50,000 and 500,000 australes. The peso replaced it on 1 January 1992 at 10,000 to one, and the central bank has since demonetised every austral note and coin, so they cannot be exchanged.