Hyperinflation in Zimbabwe

Hyperinflation in Zimbabwe is an ongoing period of currency instability in Zimbabwe which, using Cagan's definition of hyperinflation, began in February 2007. During the height of inflation from 2008 to 2009, it was difficult to measure Zimbabwe's hyperinflation because the government of Zimbabwe stopped filing official inflation statistics. However, Zimbabwe's peak month of inflation is estimated at 79.6 billion percent month-on-month, 89.7 sextillion (${\displaystyle 8.97\times 10^{22}}$) percent year-on-year in mid-November 2008.^[1]

In April 2009, Zimbabwe stopped printing its currency, and currencies from other countries were used.^[2] In mid-2015, Zimbabwe announced plans to have completely switched to the United States dollar by the end of that year.^[3]

In June 2019, the Zimbabwean government announced the reintroduction of the Real Time Gross Settlement dollar (RTGS), to be known simply as the "Zimbabwe dollar", and that all foreign currency was no longer legal tender.^[4] By mid-July 2019, inflation had increased to 175%, sparking concerns that the country was entering another period of hyperinflation.^[5][6] In March 2020, with inflation above 500% annually, a new task force was created to assess the currency problems.^[7][8] By July 2020, annual inflation was estimated to be 737%.^[9]