10 Leva Foreign Exchange Certificate

Bulgaria's Foreign Exchange Certificates — known locally as "certifikati" — were issued by the Bulgarska Narodna Banka as a parallel currency system specifically for tourists and Bulgarians who had access to hard Western currency. Spending them was compulsory in the Corecom chain of hard-currency shops, which stocked imported goods unavailable in the regular state retail network. The system was a straightforward mechanism for the state to capture foreign exchange while maintaining the fiction that the lev itself was a stable currency.

These certificates circulated in a closed loop entirely separate from the domestic money supply. The 1986 series preceded the collapse of the system by only a few years — Corecom and the certificate regime were wound down as Bulgaria entered its chaotic post-1989 transition.