> [Maxim](https://wikilayer.org/smee-again) / [Apakabar Cash: Money of the World](https://wikilayer.org/smee-again/apakabar.cash) / Vietnamese đồng

# Vietnamese đồng

**Contents:**

- [Hồ Chí Minh on the obverse](#ho-chi-minh-on-the-obverse)
- [10,000 đồng](#10-000-dong)
  - [Reverse: Bạch Hổ oil field](#reverse-bach-ho-oil-field)
  - [Specifications and security](#specifications-and-security)
- [20,000 đồng](#20-000-dong)
  - [Reverse: Chùa Cầu, the Japanese Covered Bridge of Hội An](#reverse-chua-cau-the-japanese-covered-bridge-of-hoi-an)
  - [Specifications and security](#specifications-and-security)
- [50,000 đồng](#50-000-dong)
  - [Reverse: Phu Văn Lâu, Huế](#reverse-phu-van-lau-hue)
  - [Specifications and security](#specifications-and-security)
- [100,000 đồng](#100-000-dong)
  - [Reverse: Khuê Văn Các, the Temple of Literature](#reverse-khue-van-cac-the-temple-of-literature)
  - [Specifications and security](#specifications-and-security)
- [200,000 đồng](#200-000-dong)
  - [Reverse: Hạ Long Bay](#reverse-ha-long-bay)
  - [Specifications and security](#specifications-and-security)
- [500,000 đồng](#500-000-dong)
  - [Reverse: Hồ Chí Minh's birthplace at Kim Liên](#reverse-ho-chi-minhs-birthplace-at-kim-lien)
  - [Specifications and security](#specifications-and-security)
- [The paper denominations (200–5,000 đồng)](#the-paper-denominations-200-5-000-dong)

The Vietnamese đồng (sign: ₫, ISO: VND) is the national currency of Vietnam, issued by the [State Bank of Vietnam](page:4704). The current đồng was introduced on 3 May 1978, two years after reunification, replacing both the North Vietnamese đồng and the Republic of Vietnam đồng at non-par rates. A further revaluation on 14 September 1985 exchanged ten old đồng for one new đồng, which is the unit in circulation today.

The denomination range is unusually wide. Six polymer notes from 10,000 to 500,000 đồng carry virtually all everyday cash transactions; five smaller cotton-paper denominations (200, 500, 1,000, 2,000 and 5,000 đồng) remain legal tender but are no longer produced and rarely seen in change. Every banknote regardless of denomination carries an engraved portrait of Hồ Chí Minh on the obverse; the reverses turn over to landscapes, monuments and industrial scenes drawn from across the country.

The [polymer rollout](page:4204) between 2003 and 2006 made Vietnam the first Asian country to put a complete polymer banknote suite into general circulation. The first two denominations (500,000 and 50,000 đồng) were printed by Note Printing Australia in Melbourne under contract; later denominations were brought in-house at the State Bank's National Banknote Printing Plant in Hanoi.

## Hồ Chí Minh on the obverse

Every polymer denomination of the modern đồng carries the same engraved portrait of Hồ Chí Minh on the obverse: head and shoulders, three-quarter angle, looking slightly to the viewer's right, wearing the high-collared *áo cánh* tunic that has been his canonical likeness in state imagery since the 1960s. The engraving is reproduced on every note in slightly different scale and surrounding ornament, but the head itself is identical. The State Emblem of Vietnam, a five-pointed star above a gear and rice ears, sits beside the portrait in red and gold.

The portrait derives from a photograph taken at Hồ Chí Minh's Hanoi residence in the 1950s. The State Bank has used the same engraved version on every denomination it has issued since 1985, the year of the second đồng revaluation; the polymer series of 2003–2006 preserved it across the substrate change. Earlier paper series of 1976 and 1978 had used a different photographic-style portrait, and the 1985 engraving has been the standard ever since.

## 10,000 đồng

![Obverse of the 10,000 đồng Vietnamese polymer banknote: engraved portrait of Hồ Chí Minh, State Emblem of Vietnam in green, denomination "10000" and the legend "MƯỜI NGHÌN ĐỒNG" in dark brown on a yellow-green polymer ground, with a clear transparent window at the left containing an embedded numeral, watermark portrait of Hồ Chí Minh visible at the upper-left ghost, serial EK 08722455](https://wikilayer.org/s/images/4077/7e9043c98f620ae6.jpg)

*Image: 2008 issue, [polymernotes.com](https://www.polymernotes.com/en/shop/banknotes/VNMS2R3-Vietnam-10000-dong-Pick-P119-B343c-2008-polymer-banknote.html).*

### Reverse: Bạch Hổ oil field

The reverse shows the **Bạch Hổ** ("White Tiger") oil field, the offshore drilling platform that started Vietnam's transition into an oil-exporting economy in the second half of the 1980s. The field sits in the Cửu Long basin, about 145 kilometres east-south-east of Vũng Tàu, in shallow water roughly 50 metres deep.

The geological prize is unusual: most offshore fields hold their oil in porous sandstones, but Bạch Hổ's main reservoir is fractured granitic basement rock, a basement-type accumulation that was barely on the textbook map when Mobil first struck oil there in February 1975, four months before the Fall of Saigon. Mobil left with the rest of the American operating presence; the discovery sat unworked for six years.

In 1981 the Soviet Union and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam founded a joint venture, **Vietsovpetro**, to develop the field. First oil flowed from the MSP-1 platform on 26 June 1986, six months before the Sixth National Congress of the Communist Party approved the **Đổi Mới** reforms that re-opened the economy. By the late 1990s Bạch Hổ was producing over 40 per cent of Vietnam's crude oil and the bulk of its hard-currency export earnings.

![Reverse of the 10,000 đồng Vietnamese polymer banknote: a detailed engraving of the Bạch Hổ offshore oil platform with three connecting decks, multiple derricks, a helipad with antenna, walkways and a sunrise behind, an oil tanker on the left horizon, on a yellow-brown polymer ground, with the legend "NGÂN HÀNG NHÀ NƯỚC VIỆT NAM" along the top and "MƯỜI NGHÌN ĐỒNG 10000" below, clear polymer window at left](https://wikilayer.org/s/images/4077/9ebe3cbf7ed11d42.jpg)

*Image: 2008 issue, [polymernotes.com](https://www.polymernotes.com/en/shop/banknotes/VNMS2R3-Vietnam-10000-dong-Pick-P119-B343c-2008-polymer-banknote.html).*

The note was issued on 30 August 2006, twenty years to the season after the field came on stream. The platform on the reverse is a stylised composite of the MSP series of jack-up rigs that Vietsovpetro operated through the field's peak years; an oil tanker rides in the middle distance and a faint coastline of southern Vietnam sits along the horizon. Vietsovpetro remains the operator today, with the Russian state firm Zarubezhneft inheriting the original Soviet share; the field is now in long-tail decline, expected to be abandoned around the mid-2030s.

### Specifications and security

The 10,000 đồng note is **132 × 60 mm**, the smallest of the polymer denominations, on a predominantly **yellow-brown** ground. It was issued on **30 August 2006**, the same day as the 200,000 đồng note and three years after the first polymer denominations (50,000 and 500,000 đồng) entered circulation. Earlier paper 10,000 đồng notes from the 1990 and 1993 series, both in red and showing Hạ Long Bay on the reverse, were withdrawn from circulation on 1 January 2013.

The note carries the standard Guardian polymer security suite: a **clear window** at the right with an embedded 10,000 denomination numeral, **see-through registration** of the State Emblem split between obverse and reverse halves of the substrate, **optically variable ink** on the obverse value, **intaglio** raised printing on the portrait and denomination, **microprinting** in the ornamental frame, and **UV-fluorescent** elements that resolve into the value and State Bank insignia under ultraviolet light.

Unlike the earlier 500,000 and 50,000 đồng notes, which were printed by Note Printing Australia in Melbourne under contract, the 10,000 đồng was struck in-house at the State Bank's National Banknote Printing Plant in Hanoi. Serial numbers begin with two digits that repeat the last two digits of the year of issue.

## 20,000 đồng

![Obverse of the 20,000 đồng Vietnamese polymer banknote: engraved portrait of Hồ Chí Minh, State Emblem of Vietnam, denomination "20.000" and the legend "HAI MƯƠI NGHÌN ĐỒNG" on a turquoise-blue polymer ground, with a clear transparent window at the right (serial XM 24140864)](https://wikilayer.org/s/images/4077/4bea55734816b9b4.jpg)

*Image: 2024 issue, [polymernotes.com](https://www.polymernotes.com/en/shop/banknotes/vnms3r14-vietnam-20000-dong-pick-p120-b344m-2024-polymer-banknote3.html).*

### Reverse: Chùa Cầu, the Japanese Covered Bridge of Hội An

The reverse shows the **Chùa Cầu** (literally "Pagoda Bridge"), the tile-roofed covered footbridge that crosses the small Thụ Bồn tributary at the western edge of the old port quarter of **Hội An**, in central Vietnam's Quảng Nam province. Hidden inside the upper level is a small Buddhist shrine to **Bắc Đế Trấn Võ**, the Taoist protector against floods, which is what gives the bridge the *pagoda* in its name.

The bridge was built in the 1590s by the Japanese merchant community of Hội An to connect their warehouses on the south bank to the Chinese quarter on the north bank, in the years before the Tokugawa shogunate's *sakoku* edicts ended Japanese overseas trade in 1635. The Japanese left, the bridge remained; the Vietnamese added the shrine around 1653 and have rebuilt the timber structure several times since, most recently in a two-year restoration that re-opened in August 2024.

Hội An itself is a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1999, recognised as a remarkably well-preserved example of a Southeast Asian trading port between the 15th and 19th centuries. The bridge is the town's signature view; every guide-book cover seems to use it.

![Reverse of the 20,000 đồng Vietnamese polymer banknote: detailed engraving of Chùa Cầu, the wooden Japanese Covered Bridge of Hội An, with its tiled roof, arched spans, the small shrine at the upper level, reflection in the water and palms behind, on a turquoise-blue polymer ground](https://wikilayer.org/s/images/4077/9ac8e81da4dbb7fa.jpg)

*Image: 2024 issue, [polymernotes.com](https://www.polymernotes.com/en/shop/banknotes/vnms3r14-vietnam-20000-dong-pick-p120-b344m-2024-polymer-banknote3.html).*

### Specifications and security

The 20,000 đồng note is **136 × 65 mm**, on a predominantly **turquoise-blue** ground. It was issued on **17 May 2006**, three years into the polymer rollout. Earlier paper 20,000 đồng notes from the 1991 and 1993 series, blue with a canned-food factory on the reverse, were withdrawn from circulation on 1 September 2007.

The note carries the standard Guardian polymer security suite: a **clear window** with an embedded denomination numeral, **see-through registration** of the State Emblem, **optically variable ink** on the obverse value, **intaglio** raised printing on the portrait and denomination, **microprinting** in the ornamental frame, and **UV-fluorescent** elements visible under ultraviolet light. The first two digits of the serial number repeat the last two digits of the year of issue.

## 50,000 đồng

![Obverse of the 50,000 đồng Vietnamese polymer banknote: engraved portrait of Hồ Chí Minh, State Emblem of Vietnam, denomination "50.000" and the legend "NĂM MƯƠI NGHÌN ĐỒNG" on a pink polymer ground, captioned "CHỦ TỊCH HỒ CHÍ MINH 1890–1969" (serial NC 24633002)](https://wikilayer.org/s/images/4077/efc50d5cf2db47dc.jpg)

*Image: 2024 issue, [polymernotes.com](https://www.polymernotes.com/en/shop/banknotes/vnms4r16-vietnam-50000-dong-pick-p121-b345n-2024-polymer-banknote3.html).*

### Reverse: Phu Văn Lâu, Huế

The reverse shows the **Phu Văn Lâu** ("Pavilion of Edicts"), a small wooden pavilion on the south bank of the Perfume River, on the edge of the **Imperial City of Huế**. The pavilion was erected in **1819** by Emperor **Gia Long**, the founder of the Nguyễn dynasty, who had moved the capital to Huế in 1802 after unifying Vietnam under his rule.

The square two-storey pavilion was used to display imperial edicts on the days they were promulgated, especially the lists of new doctorate-holders from the triennial palace examinations. The pavilion gave the public, who could not enter the closed imperial city across the river, a place to read the results of the regime's most consequential decisions: who would govern the next generation of mandarins, and who had been forgiven, exiled or executed.

Huế and the Nguyễn citadel are a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1993, the first Vietnamese inscription on the list. The pavilion sits at the foot of Kỳ Đài (the Flag Tower); behind it on the engraving rise the misty hills west of the city.

![Reverse of the 50,000 đồng Vietnamese polymer banknote: detailed engraving of Phu Văn Lâu, the two-storey wooden pavilion with tiered roofs at Huế, set among palm trees and the hills of central Vietnam in the background, on a pink polymer ground](https://wikilayer.org/s/images/4077/05788227af73dd14.jpg)

*Image: 2024 issue, [polymernotes.com](https://www.polymernotes.com/en/shop/banknotes/vnms4r16-vietnam-50000-dong-pick-p121-b345n-2024-polymer-banknote3.html).*

### Specifications and security

The 50,000 đồng note is **140 × 65 mm**, on a predominantly **pink** ground. It was issued on **17 December 2003**, the same day as the 500,000 đồng note: the first two polymer denominations to enter circulation. The earlier paper 50,000 đồng notes from the 1990 and 1994 series, green with the Nhà Rồng port of Saigon on the reverse, were withdrawn on 1 September 2007.

Like the 500,000 đồng note, the 50,000 was printed under contract by **Note Printing Australia** in Melbourne, which had developed the Guardian polymer substrate. Later print runs from 2007 onwards were carried out at the State Bank's National Banknote Printing Plant in Hanoi. The Guardian polymer security suite (clear window, see-through registration, optically variable ink, intaglio, microprinting, UV-fluorescent elements) is the standard across all polymer denominations.

## 100,000 đồng

![Obverse of the 100,000 đồng Vietnamese polymer banknote: engraved portrait of Hồ Chí Minh, State Emblem of Vietnam, denomination "100.000" and the legend "MỘT TRĂM NGHÌN ĐỒNG" on a green polymer ground, with a clear transparent window at the left (serial AA 21304164)](https://wikilayer.org/s/images/4077/a614f8e8a32c2485.jpg)

*Image: 2021 issue, [polymernotes.com](https://www.polymernotes.com/en/shop/VNMS5R15-SA-Vietnam-100000-dong-Pick-P122-B346o-2021-polymer-banknote.html).*

### Reverse: Khuê Văn Các, the Temple of Literature

The reverse shows the **Khuê Văn Các** ("Constellation of Literature Pavilion"), the two-storey wooden gate-pavilion at the heart of the **Văn Miếu – Quốc Tử Giám** complex in central Hanoi. The pavilion was built in 1805 under Emperor Gia Long; the four circular windows of its upper floor are meant to represent the Khuê star, the seventh of the 28 constellations in classical Chinese astronomy and the patron of literature and scholarship.

The larger complex was founded in **1070** by Emperor Lý Thánh Tông as a state temple to Confucius, and expanded six years later as **Quốc Tử Giám**, Vietnam's first national university. Between 1076 and 1779 the school trained the country's scholar-officials; the names of doctoral graduates were carved on stone steles mounted on the backs of stone tortoises, eighty-two of which survive in the third courtyard.

Hanoi adopted the Khuê Văn Các as its official city symbol in 2003. The pavilion is on the engraving in front of the Hồ Văn (Pond of Heavenly Clarity) and the gateway leading further into the temple.

![Reverse of the 100,000 đồng Vietnamese polymer banknote: detailed engraving of Khuê Văn Các, the two-storey wooden gate-pavilion with four circular upper windows, the Temple of Literature stone wall extending to either side, surrounded by trees, on a green polymer ground](https://wikilayer.org/s/images/4077/dfb840ecc6bf932e.jpg)

*Image: 2021 issue, [polymernotes.com](https://www.polymernotes.com/en/shop/VNMS5R15-SA-Vietnam-100000-dong-Pick-P122-B346o-2021-polymer-banknote.html).*

### Specifications and security

The 100,000 đồng note is **144 × 65 mm**, on a predominantly **green** ground. It was issued on **1 September 2004**, the third polymer denomination to enter circulation after the 500,000 and 50,000 đồng notes of December 2003. The earlier paper 100,000 đồng note of 2000, brown with Hồ Chí Minh's ethnic house on the reverse, was withdrawn on 1 September 2007.

The note carries the standard Guardian polymer security suite: clear window with embedded denomination, see-through registration of the State Emblem, optically variable ink, intaglio, microprinting, and UV-fluorescent elements. Print runs from 2004 onwards have been carried out at the State Bank's National Banknote Printing Plant in Hanoi.

## 200,000 đồng

![Obverse of the 200,000 đồng Vietnamese polymer banknote: engraved portrait of Hồ Chí Minh, State Emblem of Vietnam, denomination "200.000" and the legend "HAI TRĂM NGHÌN ĐỒNG" on a red-pink polymer ground, with a clear transparent window at the right (serial FK 06791704)](https://wikilayer.org/s/images/4077/47dd136d4ef47144.jpg)

*Image: 2006 first-year note, [polymernotes.com](https://www.polymernotes.com/en/shop/banknotes/VNMS6R1-Vietnam-200000-dong-Pick-P123-B347a-2006-polymer-banknote.html).*

### Reverse: Hạ Long Bay

The reverse shows a view of **Hạ Long Bay** ("Bay of the Descending Dragon"), the karst-pillar seascape on the northern Vietnamese coast in Quảng Ninh province. The specific formation engraved here is **Đỉnh Hương**, the "Incense Burner" rock, a slim pillar set in front of larger limestone islets; a traditional wooden junk under sail rides to the right of the pillar.

The bay covers about 1,500 square kilometres of the Gulf of Tonkin and contains roughly 1,600 limestone islets, most of them uninhabited, sculpted out of a karst plateau by 20 million years of monsoon weathering after the Pleistocene flooded the lowlands. Vietnamese myth has it that a dragon and her offspring spat the rocks into the sea to break the advance of an invading fleet, hence the descending-dragon name. The bay was inscribed on UNESCO's World Heritage list in 1994 for its aesthetic value and extended in 2000 for its geological one.

The junk on the engraving is a *thuyền buồm* with the distinctive batten-supported lateen sail of the northern Vietnamese fishing fleet, the kind that still works the bay's quieter inlets.

![Reverse of the 200,000 đồng Vietnamese polymer banknote: detailed engraving of Đỉnh Hương rock in Hạ Long Bay, a slim limestone karst pillar standing in front of larger islets, with a traditional Vietnamese sailing junk to the right, on a red-pink polymer ground](https://wikilayer.org/s/images/4077/73b801705b6fa4f5.jpg)

*Image: 2006 first-year note, [polymernotes.com](https://www.polymernotes.com/en/shop/banknotes/VNMS6R1-Vietnam-200000-dong-Pick-P123-B347a-2006-polymer-banknote.html).*

### Specifications and security

The 200,000 đồng note is **148 × 65 mm**, on a predominantly **red-pink** ground. It was issued on **30 August 2006**, the same day as the 10,000 đồng note, completing the polymer rollout that had begun in December 2003. There is no paper-era predecessor: 200,000 đồng is a wholly new denomination introduced with the polymer series, in response to inflation that had made the 100,000 đồng feel too small for routine large transactions.

The note carries the standard Guardian polymer security suite (clear window, see-through registration, optically variable ink, intaglio, microprinting, UV-fluorescent elements). All print runs have been carried out at the State Bank's National Banknote Printing Plant in Hanoi.

## 500,000 đồng

![Obverse of the 500,000 đồng Vietnamese polymer banknote: engraved portrait of Hồ Chí Minh, State Emblem of Vietnam, denomination "500.000" and the legend "NĂM TRĂM NGHÌN ĐỒNG" on a cyan-blue polymer ground, with a clear transparent window at the right containing a lotus-shaped optically variable device (serial CG 06687867)](https://wikilayer.org/s/images/4077/6c682202049c10b1.jpg)

*Image: 2006 issue, [polymernotes.com](https://www.polymernotes.com/en/shop/banknotes/VNMS7R4-Vietnam-500000-dong-Pick-P124-B348d-2006-polymer-banknote.html).*

### Reverse: Hồ Chí Minh's birthplace at Kim Liên

The reverse shows the **bamboo-and-thatch family house at Kim Liên**, where **Hồ Chí Minh** was born on **19 May 1890**. The hamlet is in the village of **Làng Sen** ("Lotus Village") in Nam Đàn district of central **Nghệ An** province, a few hundred kilometres south of Hanoi.

The house, built in the local style of north-central Vietnam (a three-bay timber frame on stilts, with palm-thatch roof and rammed-earth floor) was the home of Hồ's father **Nguyễn Sinh Sắc**, a Confucian scholar who had passed the imperial palace examinations and would serve as a low-ranking provincial official until he was dismissed in 1909 for striking a corrupt landowner. Hồ was originally named **Nguyễn Sinh Cung** and would adopt the working name *Hồ Chí Minh* ("He Who Enlightens") only in 1942, after thirty years of political work abroad.

The site has been preserved as a state memorial since 1956; tens of thousands of Vietnamese visit each year, especially on his birthday. On the engraving, the house sits behind a low fence and a fruit-bearing tree, with the **mountains of central Nghệ An** on the horizon and rice paddies in the foreground.

![Reverse of the 500,000 đồng Vietnamese polymer banknote: detailed engraving of Hồ Chí Minh's thatched-roof childhood home at Làng Sen, with bamboo-and-timber walls, a low fence, a fruit tree, rice paddies in front and the mountains of Nghệ An behind, on a cyan-blue polymer ground](https://wikilayer.org/s/images/4077/30a75eeb3d5de442.jpg)

*Image: 2006 issue, [polymernotes.com](https://www.polymernotes.com/en/shop/banknotes/VNMS7R4-Vietnam-500000-dong-Pick-P124-B348d-2006-polymer-banknote.html).*

### Specifications and security

The 500,000 đồng note is **152 × 65 mm**, the largest of the polymer denominations, on a predominantly **cyan-blue** ground. It was issued on **17 December 2003** alongside the 50,000 đồng note: the first two polymer denominations to enter circulation in Vietnam, and the launch of the country's polymer programme. It remains the highest-denomination Vietnamese banknote in circulation.

Like the 50,000, the 500,000 was printed under contract by **Note Printing Australia** in Melbourne, which had developed the Guardian polymer substrate. The two initial denominations were chosen at opposite ends of the value range so the public would learn the new substrate from the high-circulation small notes and the prestige large note simultaneously.

The security suite is the standard Guardian package: clear window with a **lotus-shaped optically variable device**, see-through registration of the State Emblem, optically variable ink, intaglio, microprinting, and UV-fluorescent elements. Later print runs from 2007 onwards have been carried out at the State Bank's National Banknote Printing Plant in Hanoi.

## The paper denominations (200–5,000 đồng)

The five smaller cotton-paper denominations from the 1980s and 1990s are still legal tender, but no longer produced and rarely seen in change:

- **200 đồng** (1987, brown-red, paper), agricultural-production scene on the reverse
- **500 đồng** (1988, deep-pink, paper), Hải Phòng container port
- **1,000 đồng** (1987, purple, paper), elephant logging in the highlands
- **2,000 đồng** (1987, dark brown, paper), textile mill at Nam Định
- **5,000 đồng** (1991, dark turquoise, paper), Trị An hydroelectric power station

Active production of the smaller notes ended around 2007; their face value has been eroded to single US cents (200 đồng ≈ 0.008 USD, 5,000 đồng ≈ 0.20 USD as of 2026). A visitor in Vietnam today receives change in 10,000 đồng polymer and rounds smaller amounts to zero. The paper notes survive mostly in collector folders and in the cash drawers of countryside markets that have not topped up their float in years.

There is no equivalent surviving subdivision below 1 đồng. *Hào* (1/10 đồng) and *xu* (1/100 đồng) coins were last struck in 1985 and have been worth nothing since the mid-1990s. As of 2022 the State Bank issues no coins at all, the only ASEAN central bank not to.