Swiss banks stop exchange of Bulgarian lev as euro introduced in 2026
Select your language
Generated with artificial intelligence.
Listening:
Swiss banks stop exchange of Bulgarian lev as euro introduced in 2026
When the euro is introduced in Bulgaria on January 1, 2026, it will be difficult to exchange the previous Bulgarian national currency, the lev, in Switzerland. Local banks have stopped the exchange.
The banks are no longer able to resell the lev banknotes on the interbank market, Zürcher Kantonalbank explained on Tuesday in response to an enquiry from AWP news agency. ZKB is therefore already no longer offering trading in Bulgarian lev notes.
+Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox
According to ZKB, interbank trading activities were gradually discontinued following the announcement of the changeover to the euro. Against this background, it is likely to be generally difficult to exchange lev in Switzerland.
Exchange possible in Austria
Swiss citizens who still have Bulgarian levs and would like to exchange them will likely have to go abroad. Austria offers one option: the Austrian National Bank (OeNB) will exchange lev banknotes for euros free of charge from January 2 to March 2, 2026 as part of the introduction of the euro in Bulgaria.
The exchange is possible at the OeNB cash desks in Vienna and Innsbruck. Bulgarian coins, old banknote series without legal tender status and 1 and 2 lev banknotes from the 1999 banknote series are excluded. The exchange is limited to 2,000 lev per person per day. The exchange rate is fixed at 1.95583 lev per euro.
Adapted from German by AI/jdp
We select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools to translate them into English. A journalist then reviews the translation for clarity and accuracy before publication.
Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. The news stories we select have been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team from news agencies such as Bloomberg or Keystone.
If you have any questions about how we work, write to us at english@swissinfo.ch
External Content
In compliance with the JTI standards
More: SWI swissinfo.ch certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative
You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.