500 Colones Central Bank

Costa Rica's 500 colones brass coin was introduced as part of a broader monetary reform effort to reduce dependence on high-denomination paper notes, which had suffered persistent devaluation through the 1980s and 1990s as the country managed recurring balance-of-payments crises and IMF structural adjustment programs. Shifting that value into a circulating coin was a deliberate policy choice, not a routine update.

KM#236 is the first year of the type.