Haitian Currency, La gourde and its History

March 11, 2013 8:59 AM

The current Haitian currency is La gourde that was introduced in the year 1813. It was then that livre, the previous currency was replaced at the rate of 8 livre and 5 sous equaling 1 gourde. The gourde or goud has a division of 100 centimes. The currency was first issued in form of coins of denominations 6, 12 & 25 centimes with coins for 50 & 100 centimes being introduced in 1827 and the following year, 1 & 2 centimes were pushed in market. The silver coins first introduced were later replaced by bronze coins in 1863 of 5, 10 & 20 centimes. These were the last of first gourde coins.

Paper money issued by governments of Haiti had the denominations 500, 100, 50, 25, 20, 10, 5, 2 and 1 gourde. Revaluation of La gourde took place in 1870 at 10 to 1 ratio. These were the second gourde with paper note denominations of 25 & 10 being issued by the government. The second revaluation was on 1872 at 300 to 1 ratio. For this third gourde, there were only banknotes. The first pegging of gourde took place in 1881 with French franc at rate of 1 gourde equaling 5 francs and in 1912 gourde was pegged to US Dollar at the rate of 1 USD equaling 5 gourde.

In 1989, the linking with USD was abandoned but even today, 5 gourdes are still referred to as 1 Haitian Dollar with 1 Haitian penny referred to as 5 centimes. The current currency circulation includes coins of 50 centimes, 1 gourde and 5 gourde. The banknotes currently in circulation include denominations of 10, 20, 25, 50, 100, 250, 500 and 1000 gourdes.

Reply to this article

Haitian Currency, La gourde and its History

Leave a Reply

Recent Comments

Recent Articles

Photo Stories