The lev (Bulgarian: лев, plural: лева, левове / leva, levove; ISO 4217 code: BGN) was the sole currency of Bulgaria from 1880 to 2025, and is in a double circulation period alongside the euro from 1 January 2026 until its full withdrawal on 31 January 2026. In early modern Bulgarian, the word lev meant "lion"; the word "lion" in the modern standard language is lаv (IPA: [ɫɤf]; in Bulgarian: лъв). The lev is subdivided into 100 stotinki (стотинки, singular: stotinka, стотинка). Stotinka in Bulgarian means "a hundredth" and is, in fact, a direct translation of the French term "centime". Grammatically, the word stotinka is derived from the Bulgarian word "sto" (сто; a hundred). Under a currency board established in 1997, the lev was first pegged to the Deutsche Mark (1,000 BGL = 1 DEM). With the lev's 1999 redenomination and the establishment of the euro, the exchange rate was updated to its long-standing fixed peg of 1.95583 BGN = 1 EUR. Between 10 July 2020 and 31 December 2025, the lev remained within the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM II), exiting the mechanism to transition into the euro on 1 January 2026.