The Mexican peso
Currency · MXN · $ · 1 country
Banco de México has held the exclusive power to issue Mexico's money since it opened on 1 September 1925. The peso in use today is the new peso of 1 January 1993, worth 1,000 of the old ones, and the N in its ISO code MXN stands for new. The name itself goes back to the silver eight-real coins of colonial Mexico.
The sign
The $ began as the mark for the Spanish dollar, the eight-real silver coin that Spanish America called a peso, and the Mexican peso still uses it. Where it could be confused with a dollar, the peso is written Mex$. Between 1993 and 1996 new pesos were written N$.
The same sign stands for 28 other currencies, among them the US dollar and the East Caribbean dollar.
- ISO code
- MXN
- ISO number
- 484
- Subunit
- centavo, 1/100
An amount, written out
$1,234.50
- $1,234.50English, SpanishMexico
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 Mexican peso is the official currency
Mexico uses the peso today, though Mexican silver pesos were once legal tender in the United States until 1857 and in China until 1935.
About the Mexican peso
Who issues the peso and on what authority
Banco de México began work on 1 September 1925 with the exclusive power to produce currency and issue banknotes, and with the job of regulating the money supply, interest rates and the exchange rate. The American Bank Note Company printed its first notes, in New York. In 1969 the bank opened its own Banknote Factory, and the series that followed was the first printed in Mexico.
How the eight-real coin became the peso
In 1535 Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza received the decree founding the Mint of Mexico. King Charles I and Queen Juana ordered a Latin M placed between the columns so that every coin showed where it was made. The first pieces were apparently struck in April 1536. Gold and copper discs cast earlier, the tepuzque pesos, had matched the weight of a Spanish castellano, and the name peso descends from them.
Silver coins of eight reales, weighing 24.44 grams of fine silver, were called pesos across Spanish America and dollars in Britain and its colonies. Minted from the mines of Mexico and Bolivia, they served as a trading and reserve currency far beyond the Americas. Mexican silver pesos were legal tender in the United States until 1857 and in China until 1935, and they were the model for the US dollar, the Chinese yuan and the Japanese yen. Emperor Maximilian ordered the first decimal coins, and the first coins called pesos were struck under him in the 1860s.
Why three zeros came off the peso
By the end of the 1980s the prices of basic goods in Mexico ran into thousands of pesos. A decree published on 22 June 1992 created a new unit worth 1,000 old pesos, still called the peso and still divided into 100 centavos. Until the old money was withdrawn, the new notes and coins had to say nuevos pesos and carry the symbol N$.
Banco de México prepared the change from 23 June to the end of 1992. Its campaign ran under the slogan Nuevo peso, más práctico y más sencillo, and 30 million copies of a folded leaflet went out through banks, post offices and Metro stations, translated into Maya, Zapotec, Nahuatl, Tzotzil, Tzeltal and Chol. The new money arrived on 1 January 1993. Its first notes copied the designs of the old 10,000 to 100,000 peso notes at a thousandth of the value. In 1996 the word nuevos and the N$ were dropped from new issues.
Less than two years later the peso was unpegged. The devaluation of December 1994 came in the same year the North American Free Trade Agreement was ratified, and accounts that lay the crisis at the government's door point to its signing of that agreement.
What the notes and coins are made of
The G series began with the 500 pesos on 27 August 2017. Every note in it is 65 millimetres wide and grows 7 millimetres longer at each step up in value. The 50 and 100 peso notes are polymer. The rest are cotton paper. For the bank's centenary on 25 August 2025, polymer 50 and 100 peso notes carried the words 100 Aniversario 1925 to 2025.
The one, two and five peso coins have an aluminium bronze centre in a stainless steel ring. Since August 2009 the centres punched out when those rings are made have been used to strike the 10, 20 and 50 centavo coins.
Common questions
Questions about the Mexican peso
Why does the Mexican peso use the dollar sign?
Both currencies descend from the same coin. The eight-real silver piece, minted from Mexican and Bolivian silver, was called a peso in Spanish America and a dollar in Britain and its colonies, and the $ was the mark used for it. Mexican silver pesos were legal tender in the United States until 1857 and served as a model for the US dollar, which kept the sign as well. Where the two could be confused, the peso is written Mex$.
What were nuevos pesos?
The name of the peso's new unit from 1993 to 1996. A decree of 22 June 1992 created a peso worth 1,000 of the old ones, and on 1 January 1993 Banco de México put its notes and coins into circulation marked nuevos pesos and N$. The first new notes looked almost exactly like the old notes of 10,000, 20,000, 50,000 and 100,000 pesos, with three zeros fewer. From 1996 new issues dropped the word nuevos, and the currency went back to being simply the peso.
Why is the code MXN and not MXP?
MXP was the ISO code of the old peso. When the new peso worth 1,000 old ones arrived on 1 January 1993 it took a new code, and the N stands for new. The currency dropped the word nuevos from its notes in 1996 but kept the code.
Which Mexican banknotes are made of plastic?
In the G series, begun in 2017, the 50 and 100 peso notes are printed on polymer, while the 200, 500 and 1,000 peso notes are cotton paper. Banco de México also issued polymer 50 and 100 peso notes on 25 August 2025 for the hundredth anniversary of its founding, and earlier polymer notes included a 20 pesos of 2007 and a 100 pesos of 2009 marking the centenary of the Revolution.