Way back when I thought my first visit to a country would be my last visit (because trips are expensive and I have so many places to go and yadda yadda yadda), I would try to spend every last cent, pence, franc or yen before I left for home. No sense in bringing currency back with me that I wouldn’t have any use for, ever again.
It’s only been within the last five years or so that I’ve started to keep whatever left over cash I had when going home. It turns out I will have a need again for euros, yen and, particularly, pounds. Having money when I step off the plane means I’m not searching for an ATM as the first thing I need to do.
So when packing for my trip to London, I brought my Ziploc bag-o-pounds with me.
I even bragged about it on Facebook:
On our way. I’ll finally be able to spend those GBP that have been sitting in my drawer since our last trip.
To which one of my Anglophile friends commented:
Unless they were pound coins
What????
This led to a conversation about how said friend had to go to the Bank of England to trade in his pound notes for new ones because the ones he had from a previous trip had been withdrawn from circulation. The pound coins he had were too old to exchange so they were just paperweights or nice souvenirs.
The Bank of England even has a website that explains how to exchange old banknotes.
There is no deadline to exchange old banknotes with the Bank of England.
Our counter can get very busy so we may issue you with a ticket to return at a later time on the same day. If you arrive after 12pm, you may not get served before we close at 3pm.
Our opening hours are Monday to Friday 9.30am until 3pm (we are closed on bank holidays).
Before you arrive, you may want to find out about our accessibility and safety measures.
This option is suitable for you if you:
- have very old banknotes that cannot be exchanged at the Post Office
- have a UK or overseas bank account
- have more than £300
- can present original photo ID and proof of address documents for your permanent residence (even if it is outside the UK)
- need the money back immediately (we cannot guarantee all customers will receive money back on the same day)
I crossed my fingers and hoped my money was not on the list, which is quite exhaustive, on the Bank of England’s website.
As it turns out, the 10 pound note I had with me was on the withdrawn list. It was last issued in 2016 and ceased to be legal tender on 1 March 2018.
I followed all the rules to reproduce images of currency, including not distorting the image of the Queen in any way.
The UK Royal Mint replaced the 1 pound coin with a new 12-sided coin on 28 March 2017. Both coins were in circulation for 6 months at the same time. The round £1 coin lost its legal tender status at midnight on 15 October 2017. The Royal Mint says that most banks in the UK will still allow you to deposit the old coins into your account, or they can be donated to charity.
Considering that bills and coins have been in circulation in the U.S. for decades, it seems strange to print a bill or mint a coin and then make it obsolete less than two years later.
So if you have any old currency in your house, better to check to make sure it hasn’t expired before your next trip or you might get a strange look at the store.
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18 comments
To my knowledge US bills are always legal tender here in the USA. However I do know that abroad, most money changers just want the more recently issued USD bills (in great condition of course)
Only an insolvent government could come up with the idea of money expiring. How next to claim ownership of your future labors?
It’s not the monetary value that expires, you can have the notes exchanged for new ones for free. It’s just that the new ones are (supposedly) harder to counterfeit, thus more secure.
yep, had that happen to me with pounds, swedish kronor. so now i have google alerts for currency changes so i can get them exchanged and not have paper weights or take the really bad exchange rates at one of those money exchanges for old notes.
Actually it seems USA is one of th few countries that uses money that lasts forever. And actually it only lasts forever in the USA. Try using older bills or bills that are less than perfect in Ecuador or Cambodia where USA bills are their legal form of tender. The USA is wayyyyyyyy behind other countries in having bills they help for example people who are sight challenged. Many countries have a different color and size for each denomination which can make it easier for everyone.
US currency seems so strange to me. Ancient notes which are dilapidated, very easy to counterfeit and in denominations not fit for this day and age.
And @BillyBob, UK currency is still exchangeable, it’s just that old and insecure versions are not in circulation. Given debt levels I would suggest that the US and the UK are in a similar place regarding insolvency.
This is exaclty what I learned also past weekend when I went for a citytrip to London. I had some older bills from previous trips that I took along for this journey, and wanted to pay my meal. There they told my that they could not accept the bills and I should go to the bank to have them changed. (on a sunday…)
I had never heard of this kind of method to enforce new bills. Living in the Euro zone, we are used that new versions are printed and gradually the older versions are taken out of circulation.
I visited Tanzania in 2001. I returned in 2005, and brought about $2 worth of Tanzanian shillings with me. I was proud to be so organized as I tried to buy an excellent Kilimanjaro beer at the airport, but was told my money was no longer legal tender. I paid $4 US instead. . .
[…] I Never Thought Money Expired. I Was Wrong […]
[…] from the U.K. – on the heels of our post about money expiring, the U.K.-based The Sun reported on the next change in coinage from the Royal […]
Our head of state is featured on the currency and this needs to be updated; you can see this as the Queen’s image changed on currency over the decades…. King Charles is slowly replacing the Queen on the current currency; when updates happen the new security measures are also added.
Happened to be with British Pounds that were from AIB bank in Northern Ireland. They supposedly expired and I have to go back to NI to have a chance of trading them in. It’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. They wouldn’t do it in England or Scotland.
Now here’s a curious thing… Whilst The Royal Mint issues coins, only the Bank of England can issue banknotes of Legal Tender, for the whole of the UK. However, The BoE authorises and regulates 3 banks in Scotland & 3 banks in Northern Ireland to print local banknotes of their own designs, but only so long as they deposit assets of equivalent value with it in London. These local banknotes are not legal tender in Scotland or Northern Ireland (or anywhere else in the world for that matter), but by convention are widely accepted throughout all countries of the UK.
I’ve had currency “expire” from Canada and Costa Rica. Basically old bills that I had stowed away for a few years only to find that (in each case) they had redesigned the bills to include more colors and security features. Luckily for me, my Canadian $20 bills were accepted after some negotiation. Given the new king, I’d imagine this is happening again.
As for Costa Rica, they had totally redesigned their bills and the old ones were no longer valid. Fortunately, this only resulted in a loss of less than $5 in our case. But yes, it is not that unusual when a country updates it’s currency and phases out the old.
The United States and Singapore are among the countries that do not demonetize old currency.
The UK does so regularly. Luckily, paper currency can be exchanged at the main office of the Bank of England in London so it is not too inconvenient.
I have been burned by Sweden and Switzerland, too. I suppose I could go to Bern or Zurich. I pulled a fast one and exchanged my last remaining Sweden bills with an unsuspecting US bank. Maybe they can call it a loss or find some way to ship it to Sweden.
India is terrible. With little notice, they made most of their currency worthless. Luckily, I had little and pulled a fast one on a taxi driver that cheated me.
I don’t know the status of Japan. They just introduced a new banknote but the old ones are still good. I think Japan is like the US and Singapore and doesn’t demonetize their paper money with the exception of some old World War II currency.
Earlier this year I took some old UK pound notes to the downtown post office in Bath and exchanged them for the newer version that has a clear window. The only requirement was to show my US passport.
Interestingly, the Bath post office is upstairs in an office supply store.
Many countries have demonetized old notes and coins. They almost always provide a way to swap the old notes and coins for new ones, but it can be inconvenient.
I found a company called Leftover Currency (www.leftovercurrency.com) which cashes out old notes and coins. They don’t pay full value—for old British pounds they pay something like 92% of the value, for other currencies sometimes quite a bit less—but I found their rates high enough that the loss of value was justified by the convenience. On a recent trip to London, I changed a huge pile of currency into my home currency and was very happy with the result.
I have no connection with Leftover Currency except as a one-time customer, but my experience was good. Of course, your mileage may vary.
@Derek
You’re correct, Japan’s postwar currency doesn’t expire
You can still use the Shotoku Taishi and Fukuzawa Yukichi 10k jpy bills alongside the new ones.
tbh, seeing the portrait of Prince Shotoku on a bill makes it look like play money… One of those things that the younger generation may not realize being legal tender.