The Tongan paʻanga
Currency · TOP · T$ · 1 country
Tonga brought in the paʻanga on 3 April 1967, at two to the old Tongan pound, and passed over the word dollar for a Tongan name. The National Reserve Bank of Tonga holds the sole right to issue it. De La Rue prints the notes in the United Kingdom, and the Royal Australian Mint strikes the coins in Canberra.
The sign
T$ is the dollar sign with a T in front, and PT is sometimes written too. Seniti take the cent sign, ¢. Tongans speaking English often call the paʻanga a dollar and the seniti a cent, although the currency's name was chosen to avoid the Tongan word for dollar.
- ISO code
- TOP
- ISO number
- 776
- Subunit
- seniti, 1/100
An amount, written out
T$1,234.50
- T$1,234.50EnglishTonga
The sign in code
HTML, CSS, JavaScript, UTF-8
- HTML
T$T$- CSS
content: "T\0024";- JavaScript
"T\u0024"- UTF-8
0x54 0x24- UTF-16
0x0054 0x0024- UTF-32
0x00000054 0x00000024
Where the Tongan paʻanga is the official currency
Tonga uses the paʻanga on its own and values it against a basket of the Australian, New Zealand and US dollars and the yen.
About the Tongan paʻanga
Who has the right to issue paʻanga
Section 5 of the National Reserve Bank of Tonga Act gives the bank the sole right to issue currency in the kingdom and bars anyone else from issuing bearer notes or tokens that look like money. A Board of Commissioners of Currency issued the paʻanga until 1989, and the reserve bank took over the production of notes in 1992. Under section 29 of the act, forging or altering a note or coin can bring up to five years in prison. The notes are printed on cotton fibre. The bank also withdraws damaged notes and coins from circulation, to keep the quality of the currency up.
Why Tonga did not call it the dollar
When Tonga decimalised, it considered dollar and dropped it. The Tongan form, tola, means a pig's snout or the soft end of a coconut, and in vulgar speech a mouth, while paʻanga translated as money.
The word first named a plant, Entada phaseoloides, a vine whose pods hold large reddish-brown seeds up to 5 centimetres across. Tongans strung the seeds into anklets for the kailao dance and used them as pieces in lafo, a disc-throwing game. On 1 December 1806 Tongans attacked the ship Port-au-Prince off Lifuka. The chief Fīnau ʻUlukālala found the ship's cash and took the coins for paʻanga, playing pieces. William Mariner survived. Much later he told the chief that the pieces of metal had value.
How the paʻanga is valued
Until 11 February 1991 the paʻanga was pegged at par to the Australian dollar. Since then it has been pegged to a basket of the Australian, New Zealand and US dollars and the Japanese yen. The paʻanga is not convertible. A paʻanga divides into 100 seniti, and a hau of 100 paʻanga exists only on commemorative coins.
Which coins and notes circulate
The first coins of 1967 ran from 1 seniti to 2 paʻanga. They carried Queen Sālote Tupou III, two years after her death. The 1 and 2 seniti showed Tuʻi Malila. James Cook had given the radiated tortoise to the royal family in 1777. From 1975 to 2011 the coins followed food themes of the Food and Agriculture Organization, with the reverse inscription Fakalahi meʻakai, grow more food. A rectangular 1 paʻanga coin appeared in 1978 beside a round 2 paʻanga 44.5 millimetres across. Neither could compete with the notes of the same values. The coins now run from 1 to 50 seniti, and shops round a total to the nearest 5 or 10 seniti.
The government's first notes, in 1967, ran from half a paʻanga to 10, and notes of 20 followed in 1985, 50 in 1988 and 100 on 30 July 2008. The family the reserve bank issued on 29 June 2015 runs from 2 to 100 paʻanga, with the 50 and 100 on a hybrid of paper and polymer. The fronts carry Tongan text and the monarch's portrait, and the backs are in English and show places and scenes such as the Haʻamonga ʻa Maui trilithon, a humpback whale and the making of ngatu. On 4 December 2023 the bank issued a commemorative family of six notes for the birthday of George Tupou I.
Common questions
Questions about the Tongan paʻanga
What does the word paʻanga mean?
It is the Tongan name for Entada phaseoloides, a climbing bean whose pods hold large flat seeds, and it came to mean money. Tongans used the seeds as playing pieces in the game lafo. When the chief Fīnau ʻUlukālala seized the cash of the ship Port-au-Prince in 1806, he took the coins for paʻanga, playing pieces, until the survivor William Mariner explained what they were.
Is the Tongan paʻanga pegged to another currency?
It was pegged at par to the Australian dollar until 11 February 1991. Since then it has been pegged to a basket made up of the Australian, New Zealand and US dollars and the Japanese yen. The paʻanga is not convertible.
Why did Tonga once issue a rectangular coin?
From 1978 Tonga struck its 1 paʻanga coin in a rectangular shape, while the 2 paʻanga stayed round at 44.5 millimetres across. Both carried reverses that changed every year to mark a goal or event of the Food and Agriculture Organization. The awkward shape of the one and the size and weight of the other could not compete with the 1 and 2 paʻanga notes issued at the same time, and production of both coins ended in the 1980s. Today the coins stop at 50 seniti.
What is a hau?
A hau is 100 paʻanga. The unit is not used in everyday life in Tonga and appears only on commemorative coins of high face value. In English, Tongans sometimes call the hau the union, just as they call the paʻanga a dollar and the seniti a cent.