The Uzbekistani sum
Currency · UZS · 1 country
Uzbekistan introduced the sum on 1 July 1994 at 1,000 sum-coupons to one sum, ending an interim currency that had pushed out the Soviet ruble the previous November. The Central Bank of the Republic of Uzbekistan issues it. Until 2013 no note went above 1,000 sum; a 200,000-sum note arrived on 15 July 2022.
No sign of its own
The sum has no currency sign. Amounts carry the name itself, soʻm in Latin-script Uzbek and сўм in Cyrillic, or the code UZS. The word is the Turkic som, meaning pure, which had already appeared on Soviet banknotes as the ruble's name in the Uzbek language.
- ISO code
- UZS
- ISO number
- 860
- Subunit
- tiyin, 1/100
- ISO name
- Uzbekistan Sum
An amount, written out
UZS 1,234.50
- UZS 1,234.50English
- 1 234,50 soʻmUzbekUzbekistan
In English the code comes before the amount. Where the Uzbekistani som is used, it comes after the amount in Uzbekistan.
Where the Uzbekistani som is the official currency
Uzbekistan uses the sum on its own, floated since September 2017, when the peg to the US dollar ended.
About the Uzbekistani som
What Uzbekistan spent before the sum
From 1 January 1991 to 14 November 1993 the only official money in Uzbekistan was the ruble, in USSR State Bank notes of 1961 to 1992 and Bank of Russia notes of 1993. Russia had issued a new ruble series on 26 July 1993, and the old notes stopped being legal tender there.
Uzbekistan answered on 15 November 1993 with the sum-coupon, an interim unit that replaced the ruble at par. It came only as notes, from 1 to 10,000, all with the coat of arms on the front and a Registan madrasah in Samarkand on the back, a plain design for a currency meant to be temporary. Cabinet Resolution No. 613 of 30 December 1993 banned every Soviet note from 1 January 1994, leaving the coupon as the only legal tender.
How the present sum was introduced
A presidential decree, No. UP-870 of 16 June 1994, set the terms, and on 1 July 1994 the sum replaced the coupon at 1,000 to one. It is divided into 100 tiyin. The first notes ran from 1 to 100 sum. The 1-sum note of that series, with the Alisher Navoi State Academic Great Theatre in Tashkent on its back, stayed in circulation until 1 March 2020, and the 1-tiyin coin stopped being legal tender on the same day.
Why the notes kept growing
For nineteen years the denominations crept upward: 200 sum in 1997, 500 in 1999, 1,000 in 2001. Nothing larger came until 2013, and Uzbeks carried thick bundles of notes for ordinary purchases. The 5,000 sum arrived in 2013, the 10,000 on 10 March 2017, the 50,000 on 22 August 2017 and the 100,000 on 25 February 2019. Those four carry their inscriptions in Latin-script Uzbek. The earlier notes were printed in Cyrillic.
A new family began on 14 June 2021 with 2,000 and 20,000 sum notes, issued to close the gaps between 1,000 and 5,000 and between 10,000 and 50,000. New 5,000 and 10,000 notes on the same template followed four days later. The new 50,000 entered circulation on 22 December 2021 as part of the central bank's Great Silk Road series, landmarks along Uzbekistan's stretch of the old route, produced by the state printer Davlat Belgisi. The 200,000 shows the Khan's Palace in Kokand.
When the sum was allowed to float
A presidential decree of 2 September 2017 on liberalising foreign exchange policy took effect on 5 September. It ended the sum's peg to the US dollar and let the currency float, and on the same day it abolished the limits on how much foreign currency people and companies could buy. The new market rate came out weaker than the black-market rate of the time.
Which coins are in use
The sum-coupon had no coins at all. The sum itself has had three coin series, which are easy to tell apart by script: Cyrillic in the first, from 1994 to 2000, and Latin in the second and third. In May 2018 the central bank announced new 50, 100, 200 and 500 sum coins, and all earlier notes and coins of those values were due out of circulation by 1 July 2020. A bimetallic 1,000-sum coin followed in December 2022.
Common questions
Questions about the Uzbekistani som
What was the Uzbek sum-coupon?
An interim currency, issued only as notes, that served as Uzbekistan's national money from 15 November 1993 to 1 July 1994. It replaced the ruble at par, and from 1 January 1994 it was the only legal tender, after a cabinet resolution banned every Soviet banknote. The present sum replaced it at 1,000 coupons to one sum.
Is the Uzbek currency spelled sum, som or soʻm?
All three turn up. In Latin-script Uzbek the word is soʻm, and ISO 4217 lists the currency as the Uzbekistan Sum. English sources use both sum and som; De La Rue, which supplied security thread for the 50,000 note of December 2021, wrote som. The word comes from the Turkic som, meaning pure, and it already stood on Soviet banknotes as the name of the ruble in the Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Tajik and Uzbek languages. Soviet notes printed their value in all fifteen official languages of the USSR.
Does Uzbekistan still use the tiyin?
No. The tiyin is still the hundredth of a sum on paper, and ISO 4217 keeps two decimal places for the code, but the 1-tiyin coin stopped being legal tender on 1 March 2020, the same day the 1-sum note of 1994 left circulation. The coins in use run from 50 to 1,000 sum.