The Guyanese dollar
Currency · GYD · $ · 1 country
Guyana has kept its accounts in dollars since 29 January 1839, when British Guiana took up the Spanish dollar as a bridge between the Dutch guilder and British silver. The Guyanese dollar itself came with independence in 1966: it replaced the East Caribbean dollar at par. The Bank of Guyana issues its notes and coins.
The sign
Guyanese prices use the ordinary dollar sign before the amount. Where the Guyanese dollar has to be told apart from other dollars, it is written G$ or GY$. The dollar name itself goes back to the Spanish silver dollar that British Guiana made its unit of account in 1839.
The same sign stands for 28 other currencies, among them the US dollar and the East Caribbean dollar.
- ISO code
- GYD
- ISO number
- 328
- Subunit
- cent, 1/100
An amount, written out
$1,234.50
- $1,234.50EnglishGuyana
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 Guyanaese dollar is the official currency
Guyana uses it on its own, having left the East Caribbean dollar in 1966 after about a year.
About the Guyanaese dollar
Why British Guiana counted in dollars
Essequibo, Demerara and Berbice were Dutch colonies until the British took them during the Napoleonic Wars. Ceded to the United Kingdom in 1815, they were joined as British Guiana in 1831, and the British first gave the colony a variety of the Dutch guilder. Between 1809 and 1839 Demerara and Essequibo used banknotes in guilders and joes, a joe being worth 22 guilders.
In 1839 the colony adopted the Spanish dollar as its unit of account, to ease the arrival of British sterling coins. Spanish silver dollars, the pieces of eight, already circulated beside the Dutch coinage and across the Eastern Caribbean, so the dollar served as a go-between. It was worth 4 shillings and 2 pence, or 3⅛ guilders; a pound came to $4.80 or 15 guilders. Spanish, Mexican and Colombian silver dollars stayed in use alongside sterling until they were demonetised in 1876.
Public and private accounts kept to dollars. Elsewhere in the Eastern Caribbean, dollar and sterling accounts ran side by side until 1951.
Why British Guiana kept the fourpenny groat
The 4-pence coin, the groat, matched the outgoing bit, a quarter of a guilder, and colonists liked it for that reason. Britain stopped using the groat in the second half of the nineteenth century. After a request in 1888, new groats for the British West Indies and British Guiana appeared in 1891. From 1917 to 1945 they were struck for British Guiana alone.
Who issued Guyanese paper money before independence
Two private banks issued dollar notes from the late nineteenth century. The British Guiana Bank issued them until 1907 and the Colonial Bank until 1917, in 5, 20 and 100 dollars, and after Barclays Bank took over the Colonial Bank it issued its own notes from 1926 to 1941. The Government of British Guiana added 1-dollar and 2-dollar notes in 1916, printed by Thomas De La Rue in London and reissued in 1929 and 1937. It stopped producing them in 1942.
Notes of the British West Indies dollar, from the British Caribbean Currency Board, took over from the local issues in 1951. The East Caribbean dollar replaced them in 1965 and circulated for about a year, until the new Guyanese dollar replaced it at par after independence in 1966.
What the Bank of Guyana has issued since
The first coins came in 1967, in 1, 5, 10, 25 and 50 cents. They ceased to be legal tender in 1992. High inflation led to dollar coins in 1996: copper-plated steel $1 and $5 pieces and a seven-sided $10 in nickel-plated steel. In August 2020 the bank launched a $100 coin, its debut coin in colour.
Notes run from $20 to $5,000. The Bank of Guyana unveiled the $5,000 note on 15 November 2013 and issued it on 9 December 2013. Its centre shows the gorge of Kaieteur Falls. The watermark is a red macaw, and a holographic stripe reveals a jaguar when tilted. A $2,000 note marking fifty-five years of independence, unveiled in February 2022, is printed on polymer, and its numerals and wording stand raised so that blind and partially sighted people can read them by touch.
Common questions
Questions about the Guyanaese dollar
What does G$ mean on a Guyanese price?
It marks the Guyanese dollar. Inside Guyana a plain $ before the amount is enough, but many currencies share the dollar sign, so G$ or GY$ is written wherever Guyana's dollar has to be told apart from the others. Banks use the ISO code, GYD.
Why does Guyana use dollars and not guilders?
Because of a decision taken in 1839. The land that became British Guiana was Dutch until the Napoleonic Wars, and its first money under British rule was a form of the guilder. To move the colony onto British silver coins, the authorities made the Spanish dollar the unit of account from 29 January 1839. Spanish pieces of eight were already circulating there, so the dollar made a convenient bridge: one dollar equalled 4 shillings and 2 pence, or 3⅛ guilders. Accounts in the colony have been kept in dollars ever since, through sterling coins, the British West Indies dollar and the East Caribbean dollar.
When did Guyana get its own currency?
After independence in 1966, when the Guyanese dollar replaced the East Caribbean dollar at par. The East Caribbean dollar had circulated in British Guiana for only about a year, from 1965, and before it the British West Indies dollar from 1951. Guyana's own coins followed in 1967, in cents from 1 to 50.
Does Guyana have a polymer banknote?
Yes. The Bank of Guyana unveiled a $2,000 note on polymer in February 2022 to mark fifty-five years of independence. Its value and the words on it are raised so that blind and partially sighted users can feel them, and a transparent window carries an image of a jaguar.