King Charles won’t be on the $20 bill until 2027, Bank of Canada says

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It’s been a full year since the coronation of King Charles III, and 20 months since the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II. But the Bank of Canada has just announced that a new $20 bill featuring the King’s likeness is still almost three years away, and won’t be issued until early in 2027.

The federal government already announced at the coronation that King Charles would feature on the new $20 bill, with the Canadian National Vimy Memorial remaining on the back of the banknote.

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However, in an update on the Bank of Canada web site, the organization says it is still in the design phase for the new bill. “This includes historical and visual research and talking to experts and the Bank’s Indigenous Advisory Circle,” it notes.

The process of designing a new banknote involves several stages, it says, including research and development, design, and production. A key element of this process is to test out security features that are easy to check yet hard to counterfeit.

Once the preliminary design is approved by the finance minister, it will be developed and tested before moving to production. They unveiling of the new design will take place several months before it begins circulating, in order to raise awareness and educate the public, retailers, law enforcement agencies, financial institutions and others about its design and security features.

All of this will push circulation of the new bill into early 2027, the Bank of Canada says. “In the meantime, our current $20 note featuring Queen Elizabeth will continue to circulate,” it says, adding that the old note will remain legal tender even after the new one arrives.

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“The $20 bank note is Canada’s workhorse note — more than a billion are circulating in pockets, cash registers and ATMs across the country,” said Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem. “Cash remains an important payment method, and we’re looking forward to issuing a new $20 note that Canadians can continue to use with confidence.”

The Bank of England released images of its new banknotes featuring King Charles in December of 2022, just three months after the death of the Queen. They will enter circulation on June 5 of this year.

Meanwhile, the Royal Canadian Mint this week introduced a special silver dollar bearing the likeness of King Charles on one side, and a full-colour reproduction of the official coronation portrait, taken at Buckingham Palace on May 6, 2023, by British photographer Hugo Burnand. Made of 99.99 per cent silver, the dollar retails for $89.95.

Circulation coins have moved more quickly, with a small number being produced last November, and more to follow this year. This is similar to the timeline for the previous monarch: King George VI died in February of 1952, and Queen Elizabeth’s coronation was June 2, 1953, with coins bearing her likeness beginning to circulate that same year.

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Elizabeth had, however, already appeared on the $20 bill more than 15 years before she became Queen, and a full year before the abdication of Edward VIII changed the line of succession and put her second in line to the throne after her father.

In 1935, when the Canadian Bank Note Company began supplying the country with its bills (a position it still holds today), it released a series of notes featuring the current monarch, George V, as well as his wife, his daughter, his three sons, and granddaughter Princess Elizabeth, aged 8. It’s the only time a future queen has appeared on Canadian currency.

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