500 Francs

The Banque de la République du Burundi was established in 1964 following independence, replacing the monetary framework inherited from the Belgian-administered Ruanda-Urundi trust territory. Thomas De La Rue's involvement with Burundian currency printing was consistent across multiple denominations during this period — their London facilities handled much of anglophone and francophone Africa's currency production well into the 1980s, when several issuing authorities began diversifying their printing contracts.

Watermark security was the sole embedded anti-counterfeiting measure on this issue, modest even by the standards of the time.