20,000 Shillings

Uganda's 20,000 shilling note entered circulation at a denomination made necessary by the prolonged inflationary damage the economy had absorbed since the 1970s — a period in which the shilling lost value so catastrophically that notes of this face value would have been inconceivable at independence. By the late 1990s, 20,000 shillings was a functional mid-range transaction note, not a high-value reserve piece.

P#42 ran through three consecutive issue years with no major design revision, suggesting the Bank of Uganda was satisfied with the series' security performance — though the watermark-only security specification looks thin against contemporary regional issues from the same period.