The dirham (; ,

abbreviation An abbreviation () is a shortened form of a word or phrase, by any method including shortening (linguistics), shortening, contraction (grammar), contraction, initialism (which includes acronym), or crasis. An abbreviation may be a shortened for ...

: د.إ in

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

, Dh (singular) and Dhs (plural) or DH in

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

; ISO code: AED) is the official currency of the

United Arab Emirates The United Arab Emirates (UAE), or simply the Emirates, is a country in West Asia, in the Middle East, at the eastern end of the Arabian Peninsula. It is a Federal monarchy, federal elective monarchy made up of Emirates of the United Arab E ...

. The dirham is subdivided into 100 . It is pegged to the

United States Dollar The United States dollar (Currency symbol, symbol: Dollar sign, $; ISO 4217, currency code: USD) is the official currency of the United States and International use of the U.S. dollar, several other countries. The Coinage Act of 1792 introdu ...

at a constant exchange rate of approximately 3.67 AED to 1 USD. In March 2025, the UAE Central Bank announced the creation of a Dirham

currency symbol A currency symbol or currency sign is a graphic symbol used to denote a currency unit. Usually it is defined by a monetary authority, such as the national central bank for the currency concerned. A symbol may be positioned in various ways, acc ...

, derived from the Latin letter crossed with two horizontal lines.

History

The name ''

dirham The dirham, dirhem or drahm is a unit of currency and of mass. It is the name of the currencies of Moroccan dirham, Morocco, the United Arab Emirates dirham, United Arab Emirates and Armenian dram, Armenia, and is the name of a currency subdivisi ...

'' is a loan from the Greek δραχμή (drakhmé). Due to centuries of trade and usage of the currency, ''dirham'' survived through the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

. Before 1966, all the emirates that now form the UAE used the

Gulf rupee The Gulf rupee () was the official currency used in the British protectorates of the Arabian Peninsula that are around the Persian Gulf between 1959 and 1966 (1970 Oman). These areas today form the countries of Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, and t ...

, which was pegged at parity to the

Indian rupee The Indian rupee (symbol: ₹; code: INR) is the official currency of India. The rupee is subdivided into 100 '' paise'' (Hindi plural; singular: ''paisa''). The issuance of the currency is controlled by the Reserve Bank of India. The Reserve ...

. On 6 June 1966, India decided to devalue the Gulf rupee against the Indian rupee. Not accepting the devaluation, several of the states still using the Gulf rupee adopted their own or other currencies. All the

Trucial States The Trucial States, also known as the Trucial Coast, the Trucial Sheikhdoms, or Trucial Oman, was a group of tribal confederations to the south of the Persian Gulf (southeastern Arabia) whose leaders had signed protective treaties, or truce ...

except

Abu Dhabi Abu Dhabi is the capital city of the United Arab Emirates. The city is the seat of the Abu Dhabi Central Capital District, the capital city of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, and the UAE's List of cities in the United Arab Emirates, second-most popu ...

adopted the Qatar and Dubai riyal, which was equal to the Gulf rupee prior to the devaluation. These emirates briefly adopted the Saudi riyal during the transition from the Gulf rupee to the Qatar and Dubai riyal.

used the

Bahraini dinar The dinar ( ') (sign: or BD; code: BHD) is the currency of Bahrain. It is divided into 1000 fils (). The Bahraini dinar is abbreviated (Arabic) or ''BD'' (Latin). It is usually represented with three decimal places denoting the fils. The name ...

, at a rate of 10 Gulf rupees = 1 dinar. In 1973, the UAE adopted the dirham as its currency.

adopted the UAE dirham in place of the Bahraini dinar, at 1 dinar = 10 dirhams, while in the other emirates, the Qatar and Dubai riyal were exchanged at par.

Currency symbol

In March 2025, the Central Bank of the UAE announced a

of the Dirham. Its design based on two horizontal lines with curved ends (inspired by the UAE flag) superimposed on the Latin letter . This symbol does not yet have a

codepoint A code point, codepoint or code position is a particular position in a table, where the position has been assigned a meaning. The table may be one dimensional (a column), two dimensional (like cells in a spreadsheet), three dimensional (sheets in ...

Unicode Unicode or ''The Unicode Standard'' or TUS is a character encoding standard maintained by the Unicode Consortium designed to support the use of text in all of the world's writing systems that can be digitized. Version 16.0 defines 154,998 Char ...

for use with

computer font A computer font is implemented as a digital data file containing a set of graphically related glyphs. A computer font is designed and created using a font editor. A computer font specifically designed for the computer screen, and not for printi ...

Coins

In 1973, coins were introduced in denominations of 1, 5, 10, 25, and 50 fils and 1 dirham. The 1, 5, and 10 fils are struck in bronze, with the higher denominations in

cupro-nickel Cupronickel or copper–nickel (CuNi) is an alloy of copper with nickel, usually along with small quantities of other metals added for strength, such as iron and manganese. The copper content typically varies from 60 to 90 percent. ( Monel is a ...

. The fils coins were the same size and composition as the corresponding Qatar and Dubai dirham coins. In 1995, the 5 fils, 10 fils, 50 fils, and 1 dirham coins were reduced in size, with the new 50 fils being curve-equilateral-heptagonal shaped. The value and numbers on the coins are written in

Eastern Arabic numerals The Eastern Arabic numerals, also called Indo-Arabic numerals or Arabic-Indic numerals as known by Unicode, are the symbols used to represent numerical digits in conjunction with the Arabic alphabet in the countries of the Mashriq (the east o ...

and the text is in

. The 1, 5, and 10 fils coins are rarely used in everyday life, The Central Bank of the UAE continues to produce 1,5 and 10 fills coins. However, these coins are primarily minted for collectors and commemorative purposes rather than for everyday circulation.So all amounts are rounded up or down to the nearest multiples of 25 fils. The 1 fils coin is a rarity and does not circulate significantly. In making a change there is a risk of confusing the old 50 fils coin for the modern 1 dirham coin because the coins are almost the same size. Since 1976 the Currency Board of the United Arab Emirates has minted several

commemorative coin A commemorative coin is a coin issued to commemorate some particular event or issue with a distinct design with reference to the occasion on which they were issued. Some coins of this category serve as collector's items only, while most commemora ...

s celebrating different events and rulers of the

. For details, see Commemorative coins of the United Arab Emirates dirham.

Issues with fraud

By August 2006 it became publicly known that the Philippine one peso coin is the same size as one dirham. As 1 peso is only worth 8 fils, this has led to vending machine fraud in the UAE. Pakistan's 5 rupee coin, the Omani 50 Baisa coin and the Moroccan 1 dirham are also the same sizes as the Emirati one dirham coin. Although 1 mm thinner, one dirham coin has also been found in ten-cent coin rolls in Australia.

Banknotes

On 20 May 1973, the UAE Currency Board introduced notes in denominations of 1, 5, 10, 50, and 100 dirhams; a Dhs 1,000 note was issued on 3 January 1976. A second series of note was introduced in 1982 which omitted the Dh 1 and Dhs 1,000 notes. Dhs 500 notes were introduced in 1983, followed by Dhs 200 in 1989. Dhs 1,000 notes were reintroduced in 2000. Banknotes are currently available in denominations of Dhs 5 (brown), Dhs 10 (green), Dhs 20 (light blue), Dhs 50 (purple), Dhs 100 (pink), Dhs 200 (green/brown), Dhs 500 (navy blue) and Dhs 1,000 (greenish blue). The obverse texts are written in

with numbers in

; the reverse texts are in English with numbers in

Arabic numerals The ten Arabic numerals (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9) are the most commonly used symbols for writing numbers. The term often also implies a positional notation number with a decimal base, in particular when contrasted with Roman numera ...

. The 200 dirham denomination is scarce as it was only produced in 1989; any circulating today comes from bank stocks. The 200 dirham denomination has since been reissued and is now in circulation since late May 2008 – it has been reissued in a different colour; Yellow/Brown to replace the older Green/Brown. On 22 March 2008, The Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates released a Dhs 50 note. The security thread was a 3-mm wide, colour-shifting windowed security thread with demetalized UAE 50, and it bore the new coat of arms. On 7 December 2021, a redesigned polymer Dhs 50 note was released to commemorate the golden jubilee of the country on 2 December 2021, making it the UAE's first polymer banknote. Additional new polymer banknotes of Dhs 5 and Dhs 10 were introduced on 21 April 2022, with the Dhs 1000 released in the first half of 2023, and the Dhs 500 note reportedly introduced on 30 November 2023. A falcon watermark is present on all dirham notes to prevent fraud.

Second issue

Third issue

Exchange rates

On January 28, 1978, the dirham was officially pegged to the

IMF The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a major financial agency of the United Nations, and an international financial institution funded by 191 member countries, with headquarters in Washington, D.C. It is regarded as the global lender of la ...

special drawing rights Special drawing rights (SDRs, code ) are supplementary foreign exchange reserve assets defined and maintained by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). SDRs are units of account for the IMF, and not a currency ''per se''. They represent a claim ...

(SDRs). In practice, it has been pegged to the

U.S. dollar The United States dollar (symbol: $; currency code: USD) is the official currency of the United States and several other countries. The Coinage Act of 1792 introduced the U.S. dollar at par with the Spanish silver dollar, divided it int ...

for most of the time. Since November 1997, the dirham has been pegged to the US dollar at a rate of US$1 = Dhs 3.6725,Statistical Bulletin, Quarterly July – Sep. 2005, Central Bank of the UAE
Vol. 25, No. 3 which translates to approximately Dh 1 = US$0.272294.

References

External links

United Arab Emirates Commemorative Coins

UAE Dirham Currency Converter
{{Authority control Economy of the United Arab Emirates Fixed exchange rate 1973 establishments in the United Arab Emirates Currencies introduced in 1973 Currencies of the United Arab Emirates Currencies of Asia Circulating currencies