Users may find the UAE dirham symbol on their computer and smartphone keyboards from September, according to the Unicode Consortium.
The California-based authority responsible for standardising emoji codes and digital characters across billions of digital devices said on Thursday that the UAE dirham and Omani rial have been "approved for encoding in Unicode version 18.0", which is scheduled to publish in September.
Unicode cautioned, however, that it may take time for device manufacturers to adopt the new symbol standards.
"For many devices, including some mobile phones, many vendors do not routinely provide updates, or discontinue providing updates on older devices," a Unicode blog post read.
In March last year, the Central Bank of the UAE unveiled a new symbol for the country's national currency as part of a move to strengthen the Emirates' position as a leading global financial hub.
The new symbol was chosen to represent the stability of the Emirati dirham while also paying homage to the UAE's flag.
Unicode said that when monetary authorities introduce a new symbol for their currency, it marks a "significant milestone for financial and commercial activity in their domain".
"The consortium is honoured to work with monetary authorities, and would like to help make the launch of a new symbol as smooth as possible," it said.
The Central Bank of the UAE also revealed a new symbol for the digital dirham.
"The digital dirham symbol features a circle surrounding the physical currency symbol, using the colours of the UAE flag to reflect pride and national identity," it said in a release.
According to Unicode, in addition to the UAE dirham symbol, the consortium's "version 18" will include support for 13,048 new characters, as well as new scripts and alphabets like Chisoi, which Unicode describes as "a modern script used in eastern India".
In a document containing graphic style guidelines released in 2025, the Central Bank of the UAE detailed how it envisions the dirham symbol appearing on computer keyboards.
"The currency symbol is designated to appear on the number 6 key across all keyboard layouts," the style guideline said.
Ultimately, it will be up to device manufacturers to decide where the symbol goes on various keyboards sold around the world, but the fact the dirham symbol received the greenlight to be included in Unicode's forthcoming code update will make the process of using it much easier.
