The som (/sɒm/; Kyrgyz: сом [sɔm]; ISO code: KGS; sign: ⃀ (с)) is the currency of Kyrgyzstan.

The National Bank of the Kyrgyz Republic oversees its issuance, and various commemorative coins have been released to celebrate cultural and historical events.

The banknotes display notable Kyrgyz historical figures and symbols, with periodic updates to enhance security features such as watermarks, holograms, and microprinting.

The word som (alternatively transliterated "soum" or "sum") means "pure" in Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Uyghur and Uzbek, as well as in many other Turkic languages.

The National Bank of the Kyrgyz Republic approved an underlined С (es) as the official currency symbol for the som in February 2017.

[3] After the collapse of the Soviet Union attempts were made by most republics to maintain a common currency.

It continued to ship Soviet notes and coins to the central banks of the fourteen newly independent countries, which had formerly been the main branches of Gosbank in the republics.

Since it was clear that the situation would not last, each of them was using its position as "free-riders" to issue huge amounts of money in the form of credit.

The Russian central bank responded in July 1992 by setting up restrictions to the flow of credit between Russia and other states.

This move came with growing demand from vendors for coins, especially from slot machine industries and those desiring a more efficient system for collecting fare money.

Starting in 1995, the National Bank of the Kyrgyz Republic has issued a large number of commemorative coins intended for collectors.

In January 2008 the Kyrgyz National Bank estimated that within 2 years the 1 and 5 som banknotes would have almost completely disappeared from circulation.