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- Currency in Chile
21/12/2018, updated 10/07/2024
The currency used in Chile is the Chilean peso (peso chileno). Usually represented like this $, CL$, or CLP
To give you an idea of what a peso is worth, the exchange rate USD/CLP ranged during the last ten years between 450 and 850 Chilean pesos for 1 US dollar. The currency is significantly weaker than it used to be due to limited growth since 2016, social protests in 2019, and a pandemic that has impacted the price of copper...
Coins
Available coins are worth 10, 50, 100, or 500 pesos.
In 2018, the Chilean central bank removed the 1 and 5 pesos coins. When you pay in cash, the amounts in centimes ending in 0 to 5 are rounded down. Amounts in centimes ending in 6 to 9 are rounded up.
Notes
You can find notes of 1000, 2000, 5000, 10000 and 20000 pesos. Notes of 500 pesos are deemed to exist, but they seem to be all in private collections now.
You will often hear the expression luca, which means 1000 pesos. Especially when walking in the street, where sellers shout a luca, a luca, meaning they sell everything at 1000 pesos.
The portrait of Gabriela Mistral (a famous Chilean poet and diplomat from the beginning of the 20th century) is on the 5000 pesos note. Therefore, a gabriela is sometimes used to describe this note.
