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ISO 4217 is a standard published by the
International Organization for Standardization The International Organization for Standardization (ISO ) is an international standard development organization composed of representatives from the national standards organizations of member countries. Membership requirements are given in A ...
(ISO) that defines alpha codes and numeric codes for the representation of currencies and provides information about the relationships between individual currencies and their minor units. This data is published in three tables: * Table A.1 – ''Current currency & funds code list'' * Table A.2 – ''Current funds codes'' * Table A.3 – ''List of codes for historic denominations of currencies & funds'' The first edition of ISO 4217 was published in 1978. The tables, history and ongoing discussion are maintained by
SIX Group SIX operates the infrastructure for the Swiss financial centre. The company provides services relating to securities transactions, the processing of financial information, payment transactions and is building a digital infrastructure. The company ...
on behalf of ISO and the Swiss Association for Standardization. The ISO 4217 code list is used in
bank A bank is a financial institution that accepts Deposit account, deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital m ...
ing and business globally. In many countries, the ISO 4217 alpha codes for the more common currencies are so well known publicly that exchange rates published in newspapers or posted in
bank A bank is a financial institution that accepts Deposit account, deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital m ...
s use only these to delineate the currencies, instead of translated currency names or ambiguous
currency symbol A currency symbol or currency sign is a graphic symbol used to denote a currency unit. Usually it is defined by the monetary authority, like the national central bank for the currency concerned. In formatting, the symbol can use various forma ...
s. ISO 4217 alpha codes are used on
airline ticket An airline ticket is a document or electronic record, issued by an airline or a travel agency, that confirms that an individual is entitled to a seat on a flight on an aircraft. The airline ticket may be one of two types: a ''paper ticket'', wh ...
s and international train tickets to remove any ambiguity about the price.


History

In 1973, the ISO Technical Committee 68 decided to develop codes for the representation of currencies and funds for use in any application of trade, commerce or banking. At the 17th session (February 1978), the related UN/ ECE Group of Experts agreed that the three-letter alphabetic codes for International Standard ISO 4217, "Codes for the representation of currencies and funds", would be suitable for use in international trade. Over time, new currencies are created and old currencies are discontinued. Such changes usually originate from the formation of new countries, treaties between countries on shared currencies or monetary unions, or
redenomination In monetary economics, redenomination is the process of changing the face value of banknotes and coins in circulation. It may be done because inflation has made the currency unit so small that only large denominations of the currency are in c ...
from an existing currency due to excessive inflation. As a result, the list of codes must be updated from time to time. The ISO 4217 maintenance agency is responsible for maintaining the list of codes.


Types of codes


National currencies

In the case of national currencies, the first two letters of the alpha code are the two letters of the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code and the third is usually the initial of the currency's main unit. So
Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the n ...
's currency code is : "JP" for Japan and "Y" for yen. This eliminates the problem caused by the names '' dollar, franc,
peso The peso is the monetary unit of several countries in the Americas, and the Philippines. Originating in the Spanish Empire, the word translates to "weight". In most countries the peso uses the same sign, "$", as many currencies named " doll ...
'' and '' pound'' being used in dozens of countries, each having significantly differing values. While in most cases the ISO code resembles an abbreviation of the currency's full English name, this is not always the case, as currencies such as the Algerian dinar, Aruban florin, Cayman dollar, renminbi, sterling and the
Swiss franc The Swiss franc is the currency and legal tender of Switzerland and Liechtenstein. It is also legal tender in the Italian exclave of Campione d'Italia which is surrounded by Swiss territory. The Swiss National Bank (SNB) issues banknotes and the ...
have been assigned codes which do not closely resemble abbreviations of the official currency names. In some cases, the third letter of the alpha code is not the initial letter of a currency unit name. There may be a number of reasons for this: * It is considered important that the code of a completely new currency be highly mnemonic if possible. An example is the assignment of the code to the euro. ISO 4217 amendment 94, which created this code, states “The code element 'EU' has been reserved by the ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency for use within ISO 4217 where 'R' has been appended to make an acceptable mnemonic code.” Here the R comes from the third letter in the word “euro”. * The currency in question is replacing another currency of the same name, due to devaluation. So that the two currencies have different codes, a different third letter must be chosen for the code of the new currency. In some cases, the third letter is the initial for "new" in that country's language, to distinguish it from an older currency that was revalued; the code sometimes outlasts the usage of the term "new" itself (for example, the code for the Mexican peso is ). Another solution to a devalued currency having the same name as its predecessor is to choose a third letter which results in a 3-letter code with mnemonic significance. For example, the Russian ruble changed from to following a devaluation, where the B comes from the third letter in the word "ruble".


X currencies (funds, precious metals, supranationals)

In addition to codes for most active national currencies ISO 4217 provides codes for "supranational" currencies, procedural purposes, and several things which are "similar to" currencies: * Codes for the precious metals
gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile ...
(XAU),
silver Silver is a chemical element with the symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical ...
(XAG),
palladium Palladium is a chemical element with the symbol Pd and atomic number 46. It is a rare and lustrous silvery-white metal discovered in 1803 by the English chemist William Hyde Wollaston. He named it after the asteroid Pallas, which was itself ...
(XPD), and
platinum Platinum is a chemical element with the symbol Pt and atomic number 78. It is a dense, malleable, ductile, highly unreactive, precious, silverish-white transition metal. Its name originates from Spanish , a diminutive of "silver". Pla ...
(XPT) are formed by prefixing the element's chemical symbol with the letter "X". These "currency units" are denominated as one troy ounce of the specified metal as opposed to "USD 1" or "EUR 1". * The code XTS is reserved for use in testing. * The code XXX is used to denote a "transaction" involving no currency. * There are also codes specifying certain monetary instruments used in international finance, e.g. XDR is the symbol for special drawing right issued by the
International Monetary Fund The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a major financial agency of the United Nations, and an international financial institution, headquartered in Washington, D.C., consisting of 190 countries. Its stated mission is "working to foster glo ...
. * The codes for most supranational currencies, such as the
East Caribbean dollar The Eastern Caribbean dollar ( symbol: EC$; code: XCD) is the currency of all seven full members and one associate member of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS). The successor to the British West Indies dollar, it has existed si ...
, the CFP franc, the CFA franc BEAC and the CFA franc BCEAO. The predecessor to the euro, the
European Currency Unit The European Currency Unit (, ; , ECU, or XEU) was a unit of account used by the European Economic Community and composed of a basket of member country currencies. The ECU came in to operation on 13 March 1979 and was assigned the ISO 42 ...
(ECU), had the code XEU. The use of an initial letter "X" for these purposes is facilitated by the ISO 3166 rule that no official country code beginning with X will ever be assigned. The inclusion of EU (denoting the
European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are located primarily in Europe, Europe. The union has a total area of ...
) in the ISO 3166-1 reserved codes list allows the
euro The euro ( symbol: €; code: EUR) is the official currency of 19 out of the member states of the European Union (EU). This group of states is known as the eurozone or, officially, the euro area, and includes about 340 million citizens . ...
to be coded as EUR rather than assigned a code beginning with X, even though it is a supranational currency.


Numeric codes

ISO 4217 also assigns a three-digit numeric code to each currency. This numeric code is usually the same as the numeric code assigned to the corresponding country by ISO 3166-1. For example, USD (
United States dollar The United States dollar ( symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the officia ...
) has numeric code which is also the ISO 3166-1 code for "US" (United States).


List of ISO 4217 currency codes


Active codes

The following is a list of active codes of official ISO 4217 currency names . In the standard the values are called "alphabetic code", "numeric code", "minor unit", and "entity". According to UN/CEFACT recommendation 9, paragraphs 8–9 ECE/TRADE/203, 1996: : 8. In applications where monetary resources associated with a currency (i.e. funds) need not be specified and where a field identifier indicating currency is used, the first two (leftmost) characters are sufficient to identify a currency—example: US for United States dollars for general, unspecified purposes where a field identifier indicating currency is present. (A field identifier can be a preprinted field heading in an aligned document or a similarly-agreed application in electronic transmission of data.) : 9. In applications where there is a need to distinguish between types of currencies, or where funds are required as in the banking environment, or where there is no field identifier, the third (rightmost) character of the alphabetic code is an indicator, preferably mnemonic, derived from the name of the major currency unit or fund—example: USD for general, unspecified purposes; USN for United States dollar next-day funds, and USS for funds which are immediately available for Federal Reserve transfer, withdrawal in cash or transfer in like funds (same-day funds). Since there is no need for such a distinction in international trade applications, the funds codes have not been included in the Annex to the present Recommendation.


Historical codes

A number of currencies had official ISO 4217 currency codes and currency names until their replacement by another currency. The table below shows the ISO currency codes of former currencies and their common names (which do not always match the ISO 4217 names). That table has been introduced end 1988 by ISO.


Currency details


Minor unit fractions

The 2008 (7th) edition of ISO 4217 says the following about minor units of currency: Examples for the ratios of :1 and :1 include the
United States dollar The United States dollar ( symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the officia ...
and the Bahraini dinar, for which the column headed “Minor unit” shows “2” and “3”, respectively. , two currencies have non-decimal ratios, the Mauritanian ouguiya and the
Malagasy ariary The ariary ( sign: Ar; ISO 4217 code MGA) is the currency of Madagascar. It is notionally subdivided into 5 '' iraimbilanja'' and is one of only two non-decimal currencies currently circulating (the other is the '' Mauritanian ouguiya''). The nam ...
; in both cases the ratio is 5:1. For these, the “Minor unit” column shows the number “2”. Some currencies, such as the Burundian franc, do not in practice have any minor currency unit at all. These show the number “0”, as with currencies whose minor units are unused due to negligible value.


Code position in amount formatting

The ISO standard does not regulate either the spacing, prefixing or suffixing in usage of currency codes. According however to the
European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are located primarily in Europe, Europe. The union has a total area of ...
's Publication Office, in
English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ...
, Irish, Latvian and Maltese texts, the ISO 4217 code is to be followed by a hard space and the amount: :''a sum of EUR 30'' In Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch,
Estonian Estonian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Estonia, a country in the Baltic region in northern Europe * Estonians, people from Estonia, or of Estonian descent * Estonian language * Estonian cuisine * Estonian culture See also * ...
, Finnish,
French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
,
German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...
, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Lithuanian, Polish, Portuguese,
Romanian Romanian may refer to: *anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Romania ** Romanians, an ethnic group **Romanian language, a Romance language ***Romanian dialects, variants of the Romanian language **Romanian cuisine, traditiona ...
, Slovak, Slovene, Spanish and Swedish the order is reversed; the amount is followed by a hard space and the ISO 4217 code: : Note that, as illustrated, the order is determined not by the currency but by the native language of the document context.


USD, USN: two US currency codes

The US dollar has two codes assigned: USD and USN ("US dollar next day"). The USS (same day) code is not in use any longer, and was removed from the list of active ISO 4217 codes in March 2014.


Non ISO 4217 currencies


Currencies without ISO 4217 currency codes

A number of active currencies do not have an ISO 4217 code, because they may be: (1) a minor currency pegged at par (1:1) to a larger currency, even if independently regulated, (2) a currency only used for commemorative banknotes or coins, or (3) a currency of an unrecognized or partially recognized state. These currencies include: * Abkhazian apsar * Alderney pound (1:1 pegged to sterling) * Artsakh dram * Cook Islands dollar (1:1 pegged to the New Zealand dollar) * Faroese króna (1:1 pegged to the Danish krone) *
Guernsey pound The pound is the currency of Guernsey. Since 1921, Guernsey has been in currency union with the United Kingdom and the Guernsey pound is not a separate currency but is a local issue of sterling banknotes and coins, in a similar way to the banknot ...
(1:1 pegged to sterling) *
Isle of Man pound The pound (; abbreviation: IMP; sign: £) is the currency of the Isle of Man, at parity with sterling. The Manx pound is divided into 100 pence. Notes and coins, denominated in pounds and pence, are issued by the Isle of Man Government. Pari ...
(1:1 pegged to sterling) * Jersey pound (1:1 pegged to sterling) * Kiribati dollar (1:1 pegged to the Australian dollar) * Maltese scudo (1:0.24 pegged to the
euro The euro ( symbol: €; code: EUR) is the official currency of 19 out of the member states of the European Union (EU). This group of states is known as the eurozone or, officially, the euro area, and includes about 340 million citizens . ...
) *
Real Time Gross Settlement dollar Real may refer to: Currencies * Brazilian real (R$) * Central American Republic real * Mexican real * Portuguese real * Spanish real * Spanish colonial real Music Albums * ''Real'' (L'Arc-en-Ciel album) (2000) * ''Real'' (Bright album) (2010 ...
(ZWL occasionally used) * Sahrawi peseta (pegged to the euro), sometimes given the code "EHP" but this has not been assigned by the ISO * Somaliland shilling (state of issue is viewed as ''
de jure In law and government, ''de jure'' ( ; , "by law") describes practices that are legally recognized, regardless of whether the practice exists in reality. In contrast, ("in fact") describes situations that exist in reality, even if not legall ...
'' part of
Somalia Somalia, , Osmanya script: 𐒈𐒝𐒑𐒛𐒐𐒘𐒕𐒖; ar, الصومال, aṣ-Ṣūmāl officially the Federal Republic of SomaliaThe ''Federal Republic of Somalia'' is the country's name per Article 1 of thProvisional Constitut ...
, exchange rate not fixed) * Transnistrian ruble (state of issue is viewed as ''de jure'' part of
Moldova Moldova ( , ; ), officially the Republic of Moldova ( ro, Republica Moldova), is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east, and south. The unrecognised state of Transnistri ...
) * Tuvaluan dollar (1:1 pegged to the Australian dollar) *
Zimbabwean bonds Zimbabwean Bonds are a form of legal tender near money released by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe which attempts to resolve Zimbabwe's lack of currency. Bonds are pegged against the U.S. dollar at a 1:1 fixed exchange rate and backed by the countr ...
See :Fixed exchange rate for a list of all currently pegged currencies.


Non-standard codes

Despite having no presence or status in the standard,
three letter acronym A three-letter acronym (TLA), or three-letter abbreviation, is an abbreviation consisting of three letters. These are usually the initial letters of the words of the phrase abbreviated, and are written in capital letters (upper case); three-lette ...
s that resemble ISO 4217 coding, are sometimes used locally or commercially to represent currencies or currency instruments. The following non-ISO codes were used in the past.


Unofficial codes for minor units of currency

Minor units of currency (also known as currency subdivisions or currency subunits) are often used for pricing and trading stocks and other assets, such as energy, but are not assigned codes by ISO 4217. Two conventions for representing minor units are in widespread use: * Replacing the third letter of the ISO 4217 Code of the parent currency with an upper-case "X". Examples are GBX for penny sterling, USX for the US Cent, EUX for the Euro Cent. * Replacing the third letter of the ISO 4217 Code of the parent currency with the first letter of the name of a minor unit, using lower-case. Examples are GBp for Penny Sterling, USc for the US Cent, EUc for the Euro Cent. A third convention is similar to the second one but uses an upper-case letter, e.g. ZAC for the South African Cent.


Cryptocurrencies

Cryptocurrencies have ''not'' been assigned an ISO 4217 code. However, some cryptocurrencies and
cryptocurrency exchange A cryptocurrency exchange, or a digital currency exchange (DCE), is a business that allows customers to trade cryptocurrencies or digital currencies for other assets, such as conventional fiat money or other digital currencies. Exchanges may acc ...
s use a three-letter acronym that resemble an ISO 4217 code.


See also

* ** * * List of circulating currencies * Tables of historical exchange rates to the United States dollar * List of international trade topics


Notes


References


External links

* ** (The official list of ISO 4217 alphabetic and numeric codes)
An older list of ISO 4217 alphabetic codes that contains some history of ISO 4217
( PDF file)
Position of the ISO code or euro sign in amounts

List of all currencies with names and ISO 4217 codes in all languages and all data formats
(Github) {{DEFAULTSORT:ISO 4217 Financial metadata Encodings International trade #04217 Financial regulation Financial routing standards