The Dutch guilder, or florin in French, was the currency in the Netherlands until 2002. Its ISO code is “NLG”. Its official abbreviations are “f”, “fl” or “NLG”. The guilder has “f”, “fl” or “hfl” as the official currency symbol. This in turn comes from an older currency, the florin – or Dutch florijn. At the end of January 2002, the era of the guilder as legal tender in the Netherlands ended.
Exchange of the Dutch guilder
If you still have Dutch guilders today, you can only partially exchange them for other currencies, such as the euro. Coins could only be exchanged until January 1st, 2007. Gulden notes, however, can be exchanged until January 1, 2032.
This leaves enough time to swap at least for the paper money. The exchange rate is precisely fixed and is not subject to fluctuations. It does not matter where and when you exchange your guilders for another currency. For a Dutch guilder you get around € 0.45. Conversely, one would get NLG 2.20371 for one euro.
History of the Dutch guilder
The first guilders were minted in the Netherlands as early as 1378. At that time, however, the minting took place at the instigation of German dukes. Therefore one can only speak of a single currency in the Netherlands from 1680 or at the latest from 1694, with the introduction of the “Generaliteitsguldens”.
The former Dutch colonies such as the Dutch East Indies, Suriname and the Netherlands Antilles also introduced the guilder as currency under the occupation of the Dutch. Some of the countries still use the so-called Antilles guilder, but plan to abolish it soon.
In 1949 the then Minister P. Lieftinck decided to devalue the guilder by 30 percent. The reason for this was the weak economy in the USA and the peg of the guilder to the dollar. In addition, the Netherlands emerged from the Second World War weakened.
This economic crisis also resulted in wages and prices falling sharply. This was remedied by loans and grants valued at around $ 1 billion. This enabled the Dutch guilder to stabilize again.
A special feature of the Dutch guilder were the 25 cent coins and the 25 and 250 guilder notes. You won’t find this denomination in many other currencies.
In 1999 the guilder was replaced by the euro as book money. Three years later, in 2002, the euro was officially introduced as cash.