The Gibraltar pound

How a Gibraltar note is backed by sterling

Under the Currency Notes Act 2011 the Financial Secretary acts as Commissioner of Currency and issues notes to anyone who lodges sterling, at one pound for one pound sterling, and pays sterling back for notes handed in. A commission of up to 1% may be charged, and the sterling paid in for each new note goes into a Note Security Fund, held in short-dated securities of the British or the Gibraltar government, and the fund pays for notes that come back.

The Commissioner may also issue notes against securities of the Gibraltar government. The notes are legal tender in Gibraltar for any amount, and their designs need the approval of the minister for finance, and a note may carry the monarch's image only with the monarch's consent.

Why British money works on the Rock

Gibraltar's coins match British coins in weight, size and metal and differ only in design. British coins and Bank of England notes are accepted throughout Gibraltar and are interchangeable with the local issue. Gibraltar notes are denominated in pounds sterling, yet the reverse does not hold: they are not legal tender anywhere in the United Kingdom, though Gibraltar coins do turn up in British change. Across the border some businesses in La Línea, in Spain, take Gibraltar pounds as well.

What Gibraltar spent before its own pound

Until 1872 Gibraltar reckoned in reales, with British, Spanish and local coins mixed together; from 1825 a Spanish dollar was set at four shillings and four pence. In 1872 Spanish money became the only legal tender, until the Spanish-American War of 1898 sent the peseta down. Sterling coin replaced it as sole legal tender that year, although pesetas kept circulating until the Spanish Civil War.

The first Gibraltar notes were an emergency measure. At the outbreak of the First World War, under Ordinance 10 of 1914, the colony issued notes so that it would not have to pay out sterling or gold. A regular series followed in 1927, and the Currency Notes Act 1934 gave the government the right to print its own. Gibraltar decimalised in 1971, at the same time as Britain.

How the notes and coins have changed

Notes of £10 and £20 arrived in 1975 and the £50 in 1986, and the £1 note ended in 1988, the year the coins came in. A series of 1995 was the first to say pounds sterling instead of pounds. In December 2021 the government began a smaller series, sized close to Bank of England notes, with a £5 printed by De La Rue and the Windsor Bridge on its reverse.

The coins of 1988 ran from one penny to one pound, and a £2 coin followed in 1999 with a new Labour of Hercules each year. A £5 coin of 2010 called Elizabeth II Queen of Gibraltar, which drew protest in Spain, where the title King of Gibraltar historically belongs to the Crown of Castile. The Gibraltar National Mint struck a twelve-sided £1 coin in 2025. Reports at the time said demand from collectors ran high.