page_title: Hyperinflation
section_title: Venezuela
hierarchical_section_title: Hyperinflation / Notable hyperinflationary episodes / Venezuela
caption_attribution_description: English: The value of one US dollar in Venezuelan bolívares (VEF/VES) on the black market through time, according to DolarToday.com. Blue vertical lines represent every time the currency has lost 90% of its value relative to the US dollar since the last one. This has happened four times since 2012, meaning that the currency is worth, as of December 2017, less than one ten-thousandth of what it was worth five years ago, since it has lost 99.99% of its value. The rate at which the value is lost (inflation) is rapidly accelerating. The first time the money took 2 years and 2 months (an implied monthly inflation rate of 9.3%) to lose 90% of its value, the second time 1 year and 10 months (implied rate 11% m/m), the third time only 10 months (implied rate 26% m/m), and the fourth time a mere four months (implied rate 77% m/m).
context_page_description: In economics, hyperinflation is very high and typically accelerating inflation. It quickly erodes the real value of the local currency, as the prices of all goods increase. This causes people to minimize their holdings in that currency as they usually switch to more stable foreign currencies, in recent history often the US dollar. Prices typically remain stable in terms of other relatively stable currencies.
  Unlike low inflation, where the process of rising prices is protracted and not generally noticeable except by studying past market prices, hyperinflation sees a rapid and continuing increase in nominal prices, the nominal cost of goods, and in the supply of currency. Typically, however, the general price level rises even more rapidly than the money supply as people try ridding themselves of the devaluing currency as quickly as possible. As this happens, the real stock of money decreases considerably.
  Hyperinflation is often associated with some stress to the government budget, such as wars or their aftermath, sociopolitical upheavals, a collapse in aggregate supply or one in export prices, or other crises that make it difficult for the government to collect tax revenue.
context_section_description: Venezuela's hyperinflation began in November 2016. Inflation of Venezuela's bolivar fuerte (VEF) in 2014 reached 69% and was the highest in the world. In 2015, inflation was 181%, the highest in the world and the highest in the country's history at that time, 800% in 2016, over 4,000% in 2017, and 1,698,488% in 2018, with Venezuela spiraling into hyperinflation. While the Venezuelan government "has essentially stopped" producing official inflation estimates as of early 2018, one estimate of the rate at that time was 5,220%, according to inflation economist Steve Hanke of Johns Hopkins University.
  Inflation has affected Venezuelans so much that in 2017, some people became video game gold farmers and could be seen playing games such as RuneScape to sell in-game currency or characters for real currency. In many cases, these gamers made more money than salaried workers in Venezuela even though they were earning just a few dollars per day. During the Christmas season of 2017, some shops would no longer use price tags since prices would inflate so quickly, so customers were required to ask staff at stores how much each item was.
  The International Monetary Fund estimated in 2018 that Venezuela's inflation rate would reach 1,000,000% by the end of the year. This forecast was criticized by Steve H. Hanke, professor of applied economics at The Johns Hopkins University and senior fellow at the Cato Institute. According to Hanke, the IMF had released a "bogus forecast" because "no one has ever been able to accurately forecast the course or the duration of an episode of hyperinflation. But that has not stopped the IMF from offering inflation forecasts for Venezuela that have proven to be wildly inaccurate".
  In July 2018, hyperinflation in Venezuela was sitting at 33,151%, "the 23rd most severe episode of hyperinflation in history".
  In April 2019, the International Monetary Fund estimated that inflation would reach 10,000,000% by the end of 2019.
  In May 2019, the Central Bank of Venezuela released economic data for the first time since 2015. According to this release, the inflation of Venezuela was 274% in 2016, 863% in 2017 and 130,060% in 2018. The annualised inflation rate as of April 2019 was estimated to be 282,972.8% as of April 2019, and cumulative inflation from 2016 to April 2019 was estimated at 53,798,500%.
  The new reports imply a contraction of more than half of the economy in five years, according to the Financial Times "one of the biggest contractions in Latin American history". According two undisclosed sources from Reuters, the release of this numbers was due to pressure from China, a Maduro ally. One of this sources claims that the disclosure of economic numbers may bring Venezuela into compliance with the IMF, making it harder to support Juan Guaidó during the presidential crisis. At the time, the IMF was not able to support the validity of the data as they had not been able to contact the authorities.
  Start and end date: November 2016 – present
  Peak month and rate of inflation: April 2018, 234% (Hanke estimate); September 2018, 233% (National Assembly estimate)
caption: The value of one US dollar in Venezuelan bolivares on the black market through time, according to DolarToday.com. Blue and red vertical lines represent every time the currency has lost 90% of its value. This has happened eight times since 2012, meaning that the currency is worth, as of March 2020, 100,000,000 times less than in August 2012, since it has lost more than 99.999999% of its value.
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