Argentine Peso (ARS): Argentina's Currency Explained

Search Fintrev

Search our guides, reviews and glossary.

The Argentine peso (ARS) is the official currency of Argentina, issued by the Banco Central de la República Argentina (BCRA) and divided into 100 centavos. Its ISO 4217 code is ARS (numeric code 032). Locally it is written with the “$” sign, while dollars are marked “US$” or “USD”, so prices are often shown as AR$ or ARS when the two could be confused. The current peso dates from January 1, 1992, and is the latest of several Argentine currencies, each created after its predecessor lost most of its value to inflation.

What Is the Argentine Peso?

The Argentine peso, also called the Argentinian peso, is legal tender in Argentina for wages, taxes, contracts and everyday payments. The BCRA manages its supply, sets monetary policy and, depending on the regime in force, manages or intervenes in the exchange rate.

The word “peso” is shared with several other Latin American currencies, including the Mexican peso (MXN), Chilean peso (CLP), Colombian peso (COP) and Uruguayan peso (UYU). These are separate currencies with separate central banks. The shared name and the shared “$” symbol come from the Spanish colonial silver peso, not from any monetary link today.

A Short Lineage of Argentina’s Currencies

Argentina’s currency has been renamed and redenominated repeatedly. Each step replaced the old unit at a fixed conversion ratio:

1. Peso moneda nacional (1881 to 1969): the long-running national currency.
2. Peso ley 18.188 (1970 to 1983): replaced it at 100 to 1.
3. Peso argentino (1983 to 1985): replaced the peso ley at 10,000 to 1.
4. Austral (1985 to 1991): replaced the peso argentino at 1,000 to 1.
5. Peso (1992 to present): replaced the austral at 10,000 to 1.

Multiplying those ratios (100 × 10,000 × 1,000 × 10,000) gives 10 trillion. One peso today equals 10,000,000,000,000 pesos moneda nacional, the 13 zeros removed in roughly two decades.

How the Argentine Peso Works

Argentine Peso Devaluation History

Since 1992, the peso has moved through three broad regimes.

Convertibility (1991 to 2002). The Convertibility Law, introduced under Economy Minister Domingo Cavallo after the hyperinflation of 1989 and 1990, fixed the currency at one unit per US dollar, and the new peso launched at that parity. The arrangement worked like a currency board: pesos in circulation were meant to be backed by foreign reserves, which brought inflation down sharply during the 1990s. It also stopped Argentina from adjusting its exchange rate when the dollar strengthened and neighboring Brazil devalued in 1999. Recession, rising debt and capital flight followed.

Crisis and floating (2001 to 2002). In December 2001 the government restricted bank withdrawals in a measure known as the corralito, and Argentina defaulted on its sovereign debt. In January 2002 the one-to-one peg was abandoned. The peso lost most of its dollar value within months, and dollar deposits were forcibly converted into pesos at rates below the market rate, a step known as “pesification.”

Controls, devaluations and resets (2011 onward). Exchange controls, popularly called the cepo, were introduced in 2011 to limit dollar purchases. They were lifted in December 2015, reimposed in 2019 after renewed market stress, and tightened over the following years. In December 2023 the government devalued the official rate by more than half and then let it crawl at a preset monthly pace. In 2025 the official rate moved to a band system and many restrictions on individuals’ dollar purchases were removed. Through all of these phases, high inflation kept eroding the peso’s purchasing power.

Interpreting the Argentine Peso Exchange Rate

The peso is quoted almost always against the US dollar, as USD/ARS: the number of pesos needed to buy one dollar. USD is the base currency and ARS is the quote currency. A move from a lower number to a higher one means the peso has weakened, because each dollar now costs more pesos.

During periods of capital controls, several rates exist at once, and they answer different questions:

• Official (wholesale) rate: the rate the central bank manages and at which authorized trade transactions settle.
• Dólar blue: the informal street rate paid in cash exchanges outside the official market.
• Dólar MEP and contado con liquidación (CCL): implied rates created by buying securities in pesos and selling the same securities for dollars, locally (MEP) or abroad (CCL). The CCL rate effectively shows what it costs to move money out of the country legally through capital markets, a form of arbitrage between two markets for the same asset.
• Special rates for specific uses: at times, card spending abroad, tourism or certain exports carried their own surcharged or adjusted rates.

The gap between the official and parallel rates, called the brecha, measures pressure on the official rate:

Gap (%) = (parallel rate ÷ official rate − 1) × 100

A wide gap signals that the official rate is held below what buyers will pay where they can trade freely. A narrowing gap often accompanies devaluations or the easing of controls.

Why the Argentine Peso Is Important

For Argentines, the peso’s instability shapes ordinary financial decisions. Savings are frequently held in US dollars, large purchases such as real estate have long been priced in dollars, and wage negotiations track inflation. The peso works as the medium of payment while the dollar often serves as the store of value.

For companies with Argentine operations, the peso creates translation and repatriation risk. Profits earned in pesos can shrink in dollar terms between the time they are booked and the time they are converted, and controls can delay or block the conversion itself. Firms manage this by hedging, commonly through non-deliverable forwards (NDFs): contracts settled in dollars against a reference rate, so no pesos change hands offshore.

For investors and traders, the peso is an exotic currency whose history shows how inflation, fiscal deficits, debt defaults and capital controls feed into an exchange rate. It is often compared with other managed currencies such as China’s renminbi.

Example: Reading a Peso Move

Suppose, as a hypothetical example, USD/ARS moves from 1,000 to 1,250.

• Dollar appreciation against the peso: 1,250 ÷ 1,000 − 1 = 25%. A dollar now buys 25% more pesos.
• Peso depreciation against the dollar: 1 − (1,000 ÷ 1,250) = 20%. One peso is now worth 0.0008 dollars instead of 0.001.

Both figures describe the same move, so the size of a reported “peso drop” depends on which side of the pair the percentage is measured from.

Now add inflation. Suppose an Argentine household holds 1,000,000 pesos while domestic prices rise 30% over a year and USD/ARS rises 25% (again hypothetical):

• In dollars, the savings fall from $1,000 to $800 (1,000,000 ÷ 1,250).
• In local purchasing power, the same pesos buy about 23% less (1 − 1 ÷ 1.30).

In this example, inflation outpaced depreciation, so the peso lost more value at home than against the dollar. Economists describe this as a real appreciation of the peso: Argentina became more expensive in dollar terms even though the nominal exchange rate weakened. Persistent real appreciation under managed rates has historically preceded sharp devaluations, because the official rate drifts away from what exporters and savers consider sustainable.

A third hypothetical shows the parallel market. If the official rate is 1,000 and the dólar blue is 1,500, the gap is (1,500 ÷ 1,000 − 1) × 100 = 50%. A tourist exchanging cash informally would receive 50% more pesos per dollar than at the official rate, which is why parallel rates have mattered to anyone spending dollars in Argentina.

Limitations and Common Confusions

One quote may not be the whole picture. When controls are in force, a single USD/ARS figure on a chart or converter usually reflects one specific rate, typically the official one. It may not be the rate available to an individual, a company or a tourist.

Devaluation and depreciation are different. Devaluation is a deliberate reduction of the official rate by the authorities, as in January 2002 or December 2023. Depreciation is a decline through market forces under a floating or banded regime. The peso has experienced both.

Old currency units are not the current peso. Historical figures quoted in australes, pesos argentinos or pesos ley must be converted by the redenomination ratios before comparison. A long-run chart that ignores those ratios understates the loss of value by many orders of magnitude.

Trading access is narrower than for major pairs. ARS is not a freely convertible major currency. Offshore exposure has largely run through NDFs, and liquidity, spreads and availability differ from pairs such as EUR/USD. Policy changes can move the rate abruptly: a single overnight devaluation can exceed a planned stop-loss distance and fill at a much worse price.

FAQs

The Bottom Line

The peso matters to Argentine savers, companies with Argentine operations and traders weighing exotic currencies. Its history of inflation, defaults and controls means a single USD/ARS quote may not match the rate anyone can actually use. Anyone with peso exposure should check which rate a figure reflects, convert old units before comparing, and expect sudden policy moves that can jump past a stop-loss.