On 18 March 2022, the National Bank of Ukraine and Narodowy Bank Polski signed an agreement allowing Ukrainian refugees staying in Poland to exchange Ukrainian hryvnia for Polish zloty (hereinafter, Agreement).
The Agreement takes effect on 25 March 2022. Starting from this date, Ukrainians may exchange hryvnia cash for Polish zloty in selected bank branches in Poland. The exchange rate will be as close as possible to the official UAH/PLN rate.
Under this mechanism, adult citizens of Ukraine will be able to exchange a total of up to 10,000 hryvnias in cash per person. Polish banks will accept banknotes with a face value of 100 to 1,000 hryvnias (lower denomination banknotes and coins will not be accepted for exchange).
NBP will buy from Polish banks the hryvnia cash received from Ukrainians and exchange them with the NBU at the same rate. To help Ukrainians, the NBU is prepared to buy up to UAH 10 billion in cash from NBP.
“Many representatives of the brave Ukrainian nation fleeing the criminal military aggression have come to Poland. Often they have only hryvnias with them (taken in haste), which so far they have been unable to exchange for zloty. Since the first day of the war, NBP has been working with our friends from the National Bank of Ukraine to solve this problem. It is important that the heroic defenders of Ukraine know that we are taking care of their families. I am very pleased with the regulation of this very important issue for the refugees,” said Professor Adam Glapiński, Governor of Narodowy Bank Polski.
“Thanks to the agreement that we signed with Narodowy Bank Polski, Ukrainians will be able to exchange their hryvnia cash in Polish banks in order to cover their needs. We are grateful to our colleagues for taking this humanitarian step that will strengthen partnership between our nations”, said the NBU Governor Kyrylo Shevchenko.