The Honduran lempira
Currency · HNL · L · 1 country
Honduras replaced the peso with the lempira at par in 1931, and the Banco Central de Honduras has issued it since opening on 1 July 1950. The name comes from Lempira, a sixteenth-century ruler of the Lenca people who led native resistance against the Spanish conquistadors. A lempira divides into 100 centavos, and every note the central bank has issued remains legal tender.
The abbreviation
Honduras writes the lempira with a capital L, the initial of the currency's name, set before the figure with two decimals: the central bank lists its notes as L1.00, L5.00 and L500.00. The L carries no mark of its own.
- ISO code
- HNL
- ISO number
- 340
- Subunit
- centavo, 1/100
An amount, written out
L 1,234.50
- L 1,234.50English, SpanishHonduras
Where the Honduran lempira is the official currency
Honduras is the lempira's single user, where the official rate stood at two lempiras to the US dollar until the devaluation of March 1990.
About the Honduran lempira
Why the currency carries a Lenca ruler's name
Lempira led the Lenca resistance to the Spanish conquest in the sixteenth century. Honduras counts him a national hero, and the currency named after him arrived in 1931, replacing the peso one for one. His portrait sits on the 1-lempira note, which has shown the Maya site of Copán on the back, and on the 20 and 50-centavo coins.
How the central bank borrowed its first plates
The organising commission set up to create the Banco Central de Honduras wanted notes ready for its first day, but there was no time to engrave new printing plates. Two private banks were then the only ones the government allowed to issue notes, the Banco de Honduras and the Banco Atlántida. Both offered their plates for free. The commission chose the Banco de Honduras's 5-lempira plates, with General Francisco Morazán on the front, and had them adapted, then ordered a first run of a million pieces.
The bank opened on 1 July 1950 with a first issue of 100,000 five-lempira notes from the American Bank Note Company. For the 1, 10, 20 and 100 lempiras it held a competition among Honduran artists. Nineteen entered. Arturo López Rodezno won the 1 with a Maya motif and the 10 with a farming scene, and Waterlow & Sons of London printed 8.8 million notes of the four values, issued in June 1951.
Which notes came after the first series
Thomas De La Rue printed the next three additions. A 50-lempira note with José Trinidad Reyes on the front and the first building of the University of Honduras on the back arrived on 8 June 1956. A 2-lempira note followed on 4 January 1978, marking a century since the government of Marco Aurelio Soto, with Isla del Tigre in the Gulf of Fonseca on the reverse. The 500 went into circulation on 29 December 1997 with Ramón Rosa on the front and the old Rosario mines of San Juancito behind.
For its fiftieth year the bank put out a commemorative 20 on 17 October 2000. Then came polymer. In January 2010 the 20-lempira note was reissued on a polymer base, 60 million of them, and a 200-lempira note with two scarlet macaws, the national bird, marked the bicentenary of independence.
None of these notes has been withdrawn. The bank states that every note it has issued since 1950 is legal tender at face value, with no deadline to swap old series for new ones.
Why coins rarely change hands
The 1931 coins came in 5, 20 and 50 centavos and 1 lempira, and the 10, 1 and 2 centavos joined them during the 1930s, in 1932, 1935 and 1939 in that order. Silver went out of the lempira coin in 1937 and out of the others in 1967, when cupro-nickel replaced it. Six values from 1 to 50 centavos are still legal tender. By 2024 they were very rarely used for payments, and in practice Hondurans paid in notes.
Some were struck abroad. The 10 centavos of 2014 came from Spain's Fábrica Nacional de Moneda y Timbre, and the 20 and 50 centavos of the same year from the Mint of Finland.
Common questions
Questions about the Honduran lempira
Are old Honduran lempira notes still valid?
Yes. The Banco Central de Honduras states that every banknote it has issued since 1950 is legal tender and is accepted at face value. There is no time limit and no requirement to exchange older series for newer ones, so a 1951 note and a polymer 20 from 2010 are both money.
Why do Hondurans call the 20 centavo coin a daime?
Until the devaluation of March 1990 the official rate was two lempiras to the US dollar. At that rate 20 centavos equalled a US dime, ten cents, and people named the coin after it. The name is still in use.
Who was Lempira, the man on the money?
Lempira was a sixteenth-century cacique of the Lenca people who led the native resistance against the Spanish conquistadors in what is now Honduras. Honduran folklore remembers him as a hero, and the country named its currency after him in 1931. He appears on the 1-lempira note and on the 20 and 50-centavo coins.
Where are Honduran lempiras printed and minted?
Abroad, in every case the central bank documents. Its first 5-lempira notes in 1950 came from the American Bank Note Company, and Waterlow & Sons in London printed the 1951 series of 1, 10, 20 and 100 lempiras. Thomas De La Rue printed the 50 of 1956, the 2 of 1978 and the 500 of 1997. The coins have also come from overseas mints: in 2014 Spain's Fábrica Nacional de Moneda y Timbre struck the 10 centavos and the Mint of Finland the 20 and 50 centavos.