After King Ho Quy Ly failed to enforce the law on using paper money instead of bronze coins, French Indochines piastre was the first banknote to have appeared in Vietnam. The note was circulated in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. The French issued and maintained the notes from 1885 to 1954.

After the August Revolution in 1945, the government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam was born, and issued the first dong to replace the piastre. The numbers were presented in Vietnamese, Arabic, Chinese, Laotian and Khmer. The notes were circulated from 1946 to 1978.

The Republic of Vietnam in the south also issued its own currency which was in circulation between 1954 and 1975. After reunification day in April 1975, the southern dong lost value and was renamed the "liberation dong".

The modern Vietnamese dong has seen high levels of inflation, and so has gone through various changes over the years. The State Bank of Vietnam first issued notes in denominations of 1, 5,10, 20 and 50 dong. Higher denominations were added during the 20th century, including the 100 and 200 dong notes, but they were discontinued as inflation mounted. 

The cotton notes that replaced them had much higher denominations, between 10,000 and 100,000. The 100,000 was still the highest banknote issued as of September 1, 2000.

In 2003, Vietnam replaced the cotton banknotes with plastic polymer bills and introduced the 500,000 note as the highest cash denomination.

French Indochines piaster

Vietnamese dong in the north

Vietnamese dong in the south

100 Vietnam dong     200 Vietnam dong   20,000 Vietnam dong      50,000 Vietnam dong     100,000 Vietnam dong

50,000 polymer note     500,000 polymer note

DTriNews/VNN