New coins for South Africa in 2023 – including big design changes

The South African Reserve Bank has gazetted the new designs for the 2023 Fourth Decimal Coin Series of South Africa, which will become legal tender from 1 January 2023.

The new coins were first announced during a virtual meeting on 31 August, where the cabinet green-lit the new dimension, design, and compilation of the coins.

The key change in the next series is that the word “South Africa” will be inserted on one side of the coins and printed in all the official languages.

The coins will be minted on a rotational system with the use of all the official languages being printed onto the coin over a certain period. For the next ten years, the languages will be alternated annually.

The following number of languages will be minted of the various coin varieties:

• R5 – three languages will be used;
• R2, 50c, and 10c – two languages will be used;
• R1 – only one language will be used.

However, the gazetted designs have revealed a host of other changes – including changes to some of the animals featured on the coins.

The new coin designs are showcased below:

New R5 coin

New R2 coin

New R1 coin

New 50c coin

New 20c coin

New 10c coin

Read: South Africa is getting new coins in 2023 – here’s what is changing