500.000 Rials

The 500,000 rial note arrived as Iran's highest-denomination banknote at a time when hyperinflationary pressure had made lower denominations effectively worthless for any transaction above a cup of tea. By 2018, the official exchange rate had collapsed to around 42,000 rials to the US dollar, and the street rate was far worse — meaning this note, nominally worth roughly $12 at the official peg, was already losing ground before it left the press.

Iran's parliament voted in 2020 to redenominate the currency entirely, replacing 10,000 rials with one "toman" as legal tender — a reform long discussed but deferred for decades. Notes of this denomination were a direct symptom of that delay.