20 Escudos

São Tomé and Príncipe remained a Portuguese overseas province until independence in 1975, and the escudo coinage issued in these final colonial years was administered through Lisbon's monetary framework rather than any local authority. The 1971 issue appeared just four years before the Carnation Revolution ended Portuguese colonial rule across Africa almost simultaneously — Mozambique, Angola, Cape Verde, and São Tomé all gaining independence within months of each other in 1975.

Circulation on the islands was limited enough that metropolitan Portuguese coins also passed freely as legal tender, making locally-issued pieces functionally redundant for much of the population.