The UAE dirham symbol is one step closer to being included on computer and smartphone keyboards.
The symbol, along with those of the Omani rial and Saudi riyal, is in Unicode's 18.0 beta review of future symbol and emoji standards.
Unicode, based in California, is considered the technology industry’s leading organisation attempting to standardise emoji codes and digital characters across billions of digital devices.
Its 18.0 beta is open for user feedback, the group said on Tuesday. Users can view the latest version of characters and provide feedback.
“At this phase of a release, the character repertoire is considered stable,” Unicode’s blog post read, and that comments may be submitted on version 18.0 until July 7.
“No new characters will be added … characters that are new in this version could still be removed, and their character names or code points could be changed, but such changes would require strong justification.”
Because Unicode's 18.0 standard is in the beta phase, it has not yet been adopted by any major technology companies or platforms. The organisation says that 13,047 characters have been added to it.
In March last year, the UAE Central Bank unveiled a symbol for the national currency as part of a drive to bolster the country's position as a global financial hub. The new symbol was chosen to represent the stability of the currency while also paying homage to the UAE flag.
Later in 2025, the bank applied to Unicode to solidify the dirham's presence on technology platforms.
“We confirm that the proposed glyph is original, it does not use a specific font and as such does not require any licensing to allow its inclusion in the official Unicode charts,” the UAE's submission letter read.
“The symbol is intended for the general public, businesses and government in everyday life for transactions and represents the country's national currency.”
In a February blog post, Unicode said monetary authorities introducing a new symbol for their currency was 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 UAE Central Bank released a style guideline in 2025 detailing how it envisions the dirham symbol appearing on the number 6 key on keyboard layouts.
Ultimately, it will be up to device manufacturers to decide where the symbol goes. Unicode's final 18.0 release is expected to be published in September.
