The Bank of Ghana is bringing in a new set of banknotes. They are called the Heritage Series. The notes have stronger security features and are built to last longer in circulation.
The date has moved. The Governor's statement of 24 September 2026 said 3 November, and it still shows that date. The Bank of Ghana's homepage now gives 12 November 2026, at Bank Square in Accra. 
Graphic Online reported the same date on 3 November. The Bank's head of currency, Dominic Owusu, gave it in October.
Owusu also said 12 November is only the unveiling. It is not the date the notes go into circulation. We have not seen a date for that yet. Graphic Online says the Bank is expected to give the details before 12 November.
The notes your family already has are fine
On 25 September 2026, the Bank of Ghana's head of currency, Dominic Owusu, said it plainly: "Both the old and the new will continue to be legal tender until further notice." The old notes and the new notes will circulate together. There is no date to swap them in. There is no rush.
The Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Dr Johnson Pandit Asiama, told people the same thing at the announcement the day before: do not rush to exchange or withdraw the cedis you hold. If your family has cedis in a drawer, in a wallet, in a cash box at the market, they stay good.
If a rumour reaches you that a 500-cedi note is coming, that is not true. The Bank of Ghana said on 25 September that there will be no 500-cedi note in the Heritage Series. The series has eight notes: the 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100 and 200 cedi notes. The Bank is reintroducing the 2 cedi note, the Governor told a press briefing on 24 September.
Money sent to a wallet does not touch new notes
A transfer sent to a mobile money wallet, such as MTN Mobile Money or AT Money, does not use paper notes. The wallet holds a balance on your family member's phone. A new banknote design in Accra does not change the balance on the phone in Kumasi. Your transfer arrives the same way it always has.
If your family cashes some of that balance out at a MoMo agent, they will start to see the new notes in the drawer once the notes go into circulation, next to the old ones. Both spend the same.
The one small thing to watch
When the notes go into circulation, cash counters and forex bureaux in Ghana will start seeing them alongside the old ones for the first time. That covers banks, the currency exchange bureaux in town, and the physical cash-pickup counters run by MoneyGram, Western Union and RIA.
If your family is collecting a cash payout at one of those counters and the clerk takes a moment longer than usual to check a note, that is what is happening. The agent is not refusing your transfer. They are looking at a design they have not seen before.
If you can, tell your family to receive the money into their MoMo wallet in the first week the notes are out, instead of at a counter. It is faster, and there is no cash to inspect. If MoMo is not an option, the counter payout will still work; it may just take a few minutes longer than usual.
If someone at home is worried
The plainest thing to send back is: the money is fine, the notes at home are fine, the mobile money wallet is fine. The Heritage Series is a design change, not a currency change. If they need to spend cash, they can spend it. If they want to keep cash for later, they can keep it. Neither choice loses them a pesewa.
The Bank of Ghana has not named a date on which the old notes stop working. It says both old and new stay legal tender "until further notice". For now, the cedis your family has are the cedis your family has.
For how to send the next transfer, and what each app charges into MoMo, our Ghana guide has the current picture.
Corrections
- 2026-11-04: An earlier version of this page said all eight Heritage Series notes were notes already in use. The Governor said at a press briefing on 24 September that the Bank is reintroducing the 2 cedi note, and the page now says so.
- 2026-11-04: An earlier version of this page gave 3 November 2026 for the new notes and for cash counters. The Bank of Ghana's homepage now gives 12 November, and its head of currency has said that date is the unveiling, not the start of circulation. We also removed two claims with no source (that almost every UK-to-Ghana transfer arrives in a wallet, and that the Bank has said it will not name an end date for the old notes) and dated the no-500-cedi statement 25 September.
- 2026-09-29: An earlier version of this page said the Bank of Ghana had asked cash-handling businesses to train their staff on how the new notes look and how to check them. The Governor's statement (24 September 2026) appeals to businesses and the public to handle banknotes with care - it does not include a training-on-features instruction. The section has been rewritten to describe what will happen at the counter without attributing an ask to the Bank of Ghana that its statement does not make.