Banknotes

The Democratic Republic issued notes in denominations of 25, 50, 100, 250, and 500 manats, whilst the Soviet Socialist Republic issued notes in denominations of 5, 100, 1,000, 5,000, 10,000, 25,000, 50,000, 100,000, 250,000, 1 million, and 5 million manats.

Coins

Coins were issued in denominations of 5, 10, 20, and 50 gapiks, dated 1992 and 1993. Although brass and cupronickel were used for some of the 1992 issues, later issues were all in aluminium. These coins were rarely used in circulation.

Banknotes

The following banknotes were issued for this currency

• 1, 5, 10, 250 manats (all first issued on 15 August 1992)
• 50, 100, 500, 1,000 manats (all first issued in early 1993)
• 10,000 manats (first issued in August 1994)
• 50,000 manats (first issued in May 1996)

Symbol

The new banknotes and Azerbaijani manat symbol, ₼, were designed by Robert Kalina in 2006, and the symbol was added to Unicode (U+20BC) in 2013, after failed addition proposals between 2008 and 2011.^[4] The final Azerbaijani Manat symbol design was inspired by the design of the Euro sign (€), based on an initial proposal by Mykyta Yevstifeyev,^[5] and resembles a single-bar Euro sign rotated 90° clockwise. The manat symbol is displayed to the right of the amount in Azeri and Russian.

Code

The new manat was initially assigned the code AYM on being added to the ISO 4217 standard on 1 June 2005, with an effective date of 1 January 2006.^[6] However, this was removed and replaced by AZN on 13 October 2005 as it did not comply with the ISO 4217 currency coding standardization rules (which state that currency codes must begin with the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code for the relevant country).^[7]

Coins

Coins in circulation are 1, 3, 5, 10, 20 and 50 gapiks. Most coins closely resemble the size and shape of various euro coins. Most notably the bimetallic 50 gapik (similar to the €2 coin) and the 10 gapik (Spanish flower, like the 20 euro cent coin). Coins were first put into circulation during January 2006 and do not feature a mint year.

Banknotes

Banknotes in circulation are ₼1, ₼5, ₼10, ₼20, ₼50, ₼100, ₼200, and ₼500. They were designed by Austrian banknote designer Robert Kalina, who also designed the current banknotes of the euro and the Syrian pound. The notes look quite similar to those of the euro and the choice of motifs was inspired by the euro banknotes.

In 2009 the Azərbaycan Milli Bankı (National Bank of Azerbaijan) was renamed the Azərbaycan Respublikasının Mərkəzi Bankı (Central Bank of Azerbaijan). In 2010, the ₼1 banknote was issued with the new name of the issuing bank, in 2012 a ₼5 banknote was issued with the new name of the issuing bank and in 2017 a 100₼ banknote dated 2013 was issued with the new name of the issuing bank.

In 2011 Azerbaijan's Ministry of Finance announced it was considering issuing notes of ₼2 and ₼3 as well as notes with values larger than ₼100.^[8] In February 2013 the Central Bank of Azerbaijan announced it would not introduce larger denomination notes until at least 2014.^[9]

In 2018, a ₼200 banknote was issued to commemorate Heydar Aliyev's 95th birthday.^[10]

Redesigned ₼1, ₼5, and ₼50 banknotes were introduced in 2021, preserving the same motifs but with updated designs.^[11] These circulate in parallel with existing notes.

A new commemorative ₼500 banknote was introduced in 2021.^[12]

Exchange rates

• Before Feb 2015: US$1 = ₼0.78
• Feb - Dec 2015: US$1 = ₼1.05
• Dec 2015 - Apr 2017: Fluctuate
• May 2017 onwards: US$1 = ₼1.7 (pegged)