Syria will remove two zeros from its currency and issue new banknotes to restore public confidence in the devalued lira. They will be printed by a Russian state-owned company.
This was reported by Reuters, which has reviewed the relevant documents. The agency was also informed by seven informed sources, namely five commercial bankers, an employee of the Central Bank and a Syrian economic official.
The problem is that the Syrian lira has lost more than 99% of its value since the start of the civil war in 2011: the current exchange rate is approximately 10 000 liras per dollar, compared to 50 liras per dollar before the war.
Now families have to pay for their weekly groceries with black bags, each containing at least half a kilogram of 5 000 lira bills — the largest denomination to date.
Three Syrian bankers also said that one of the main reasons for the reform is the approximately 40 trillion lira that is outside the official financial system. Issuing new banknotes would give the government more control over cash circulation. Reuters writes: it is not yet clear whether the denomination of the Syrian lira must be approved by parliament.
The head of the Central Bank of Syria Abdulkader Husrieh said on August 22 that the denomination is a strategic component of financial and monetary reforms.
"We have established committees with the participation of state and private banks and Central Bank experts to determine the requirements for changes in the currency," he said on the state-run Saudi television channel Al Arabiya, calling the new currency a "necessity".
He added that the timing of the introduction of the new money is still “under consideration”. However, sources said an information campaign is planned in the coming weeks ahead of the official launch of the new banknotes on December 8, the first anniversary of the overthrow of the Bashar al-Assad regime. And two directors of commercial banks said that the Central Bank has ordered financial institutions to prepare for the launch by mid-October.
Five bankers confirmed that they had been informed of a 12-month “transition period” during which old and new notes would be in circulation.
Central Bank circulars seen by Reuters required banks to provide detailed reports on their infrastructure — the number of cameras, banknote counters, vaults — and to conduct tests to ensure automated systems can handle the new currency.
Two bankers and another Syrian source told the agency that Syria has reached an agreement with the Russian state-owned company Derzhznak to print the new banknotes. The deal, they said, was finalized during a visit by a high-ranking Syrian delegation to Moscow in late July. This is the same company that printed Syrian currency under Bashar al-Assad.
In May, Reuters reported that Syria was planning to print the new currency in the United Arab Emirates and Germany, replacing Russia, which had been printing the Syrian pound for more than a decade after sanctions forced Damascus to terminate a contract with a European company. In February 2025, the EU lifted sanctions on Syriaʼs financial sector, including allowing the currency to be printed.
Reuters also notes that the reform has symbolic significance and will mark a final break with more than half a century of Assad rule. Bashar Assadʼs face is currently depicted on the purple 2 000 lira note, and his father Hafez on the green 1 000 lira note.
Syrian economist Karam Shaar, a UN adviser, said that replacing banknotes with Assadʼs image is a necessary political step.
However, he warned that the denomination could confuse the population, especially the elderly, and that there is no clear regulatory framework or plan for full implementation at the national level, given the fragmented territory.
Shaar noted that instead of a complete reform, Syria could limit itself to issuing larger denominations of 20 000 or 50 000 lira. This would simplify the circulation and storage of money and help avoid the costs of a large-scale currency change, which can reach hundreds of millions of dollars.
What preceded
On December 8, 2024, the Syrian opposition entered the Syrian capital, Damascus, and overthrew the regime of President Bashar Assad, who had been in power for 24 years. Assad himself fled to Moscow.
Syrian rebels formed a transitional government, led by Muhammad Bashir, who led the "Salvation Government" — a political structure created in 2017 in territories controlled by the Syrian opposition, primarily in the province of Idlib.
The leader of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) rebel group, Ahmed al-Sharaa, became the new president of Syria in January 2025. And at the end of July 2025, Syria scheduled early elections for the Peopleʼs Council (parliament) for September 15-20.
- After the fall of the Bashar al-Assad dictatorship, the new Syrian government continued to maintain contacts with Moscow and even received a new batch of its currency printed in Russia, along with fuel and wheat. Russia has goals in Syria — it wants to keep two military bases there.
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