The Serbian dinar notes in circulation today were issued by the National Bank of Serbia between 2003 and 2011. The series is, strictly speaking, a re-branding of the Yugoslav notes that the same bank had issued under a different name between 2000 and 2002: the engraved portraits, the reverse scenes, and the basic graphic layout are unchanged. What is new is the legend ("Народна банка Србије" instead of "Народна банка Југославије"), the Serbian coat of arms in place of the Serbia-and-Montenegro emblem, and the security features which were upgraded across the rollout.
The rebrand was triggered by the constitutional reorganisation of February 2003, when the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia transformed into the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro and the National Bank of Yugoslavia was simultaneously rebranded as the National Bank of Serbia. The 2003 dinar therefore arrived in Serbian wallets as a quiet political document, the first state currency to bear the name of the Republic of Serbia since 1918.
Rollout
The series entered circulation gradually across eight years, beginning with three middle denominations in the first wave and ending with the new high denomination in 2011:
- 2003: 100 dinar (Tesla), 1,000 dinar (Vajfert), 5,000 dinar (Jovanović)
- 2004: 500 dinar (Cvijić)
- 2005: 50 dinar (Mokranjac) and 200 dinar (Petrović)
- 2006: 10 dinar (Karadžić) and 20 dinar (Njegoš)
- 2011: 2,000 dinar (Milanković)
Each time a new denomination was issued the corresponding Yugoslav note (where one existed) was withdrawn in tranches; older Yugoslav-era prints in the same designs ceased to be legal tender by the end of 2007. The 2,000 dinar of 2011 was a wholly new denomination, added when sustained inflation made the 1,000-dinar note feel small for daily transactions.
A second-coat-of-arms refresh entered circulation between 2011 and 2013 across all denominations: the Serbian coat of arms had been redesigned in 2010, and the National Bank reissued every denomination with the updated emblem. The older prints with the 2003-emblem are still legal tender.
Inherited from Yugoslavia
Each of the nine designs is taken directly from the 2000–2002 Yugoslav dinar series. Vuk Karadžić had been on the 10-dinar Yugoslav note since 2000; Tesla had been on the 100-dinar Yugoslav note since the same year; Milutin Milankovć's portrait, although the 2,000 dinar denomination was new in 2011, had been the proposed motif for an unissued Yugoslav 2,000-dinar from 2002 onwards. The continuity was deliberate: the National Bank of Serbia, working in the aftermath of the 1992–1994 hyperinflation and a decade of unstable post-Yugoslav issues, wanted the public to recognise the new notes as a continuation of the most recent stable currency rather than as a fresh design.
The one wholly Serbian-era addition is the 2,000-dinar Milankovć note of 2011: a new denomination, a new face on the front, and a 20th-century theme (the astronomer's astronomical-theory diagrams on the reverse) that broke a little from the 19th-century cultural-revival cast of the rest of the series.
Printed at Topčider
All Serbian dinar banknotes since 2003 are printed by the Institute for Manufacturing Banknotes and Coins (Zavod za izradu novčanica i kovanog novca, abbreviated ZIN), a wholly-owned subsidiary of the National Bank of Serbia in the Topčider district of Belgrade. The same plant has produced state currency for every Yugoslav and Serbian regime since it opened in 1929, including under occupation in the Second World War. Every modern Serbian dinar note carries a printer's mark along its lower margin identifying ZAVOD ZA IZRADU NOVČANICA I KOVANOG NOVCA at Topčider.