Zimbabwe $100 trillion

Zimbabwe printed a 100 trillion dollar note in January 2009 at the height of hyperinflation. The currency was dropped later that year.

Context

Zimbabwe's hyperinflation in the late 2000s pushed prices up so quickly that the central bank kept issuing notes with more zeros. The 100 trillion dollar note was the largest denomination in the series; the Smithsonian collection record dates the note to 2008, while it entered circulation in January 2009.

By then the note was worth very little in foreign currency terms. Estimates of peak inflation are uncertain because official statistics stopped being reliable, and different economists give widely different monthly and annual rates.

In 2009 the government allowed the use of foreign currencies such as the U.S. dollar and South African rand, and the Zimbabwean dollar was effectively suspended. The notes are now collectors' items and teaching tools for how rapid money printing can destroy a currency.

For economists the episode is a standard example of hyperinflation, and similar episodes in Germany in the 1920s and Hungary in the 1940s are studied alongside it to see what causes prices to spiral out of control. The note is a well-documented example of how a currency can lose its function as a store of value.