UAE's dirham symbol has officially been included in Unicode's version 18.0, making it easier for computer and smartphone makers to include it on keyboards.
Unicode, based in California, is the technology industry’s leading organisation for standardising emojis and digital characters across billions of digital devices.
Last week, the organisation described the UAE dirham symbol as "among the most anticipated new characters" in version 18.0, along with the Omani riyal and the Maldivian rufiyaa.
Before users go looking for the UAE dirham symbol, however, they should note that it is up to tech companies to adopt the latest Unicode update.
But the fact that the dirham made it past Unicode's beta version and into the final iteration means it will soon be a lot easier to select that symbol on devices.
"Each of these symbols was authorised for public use by the respective monetary authority over a year ago, but usage has been hindered by lack of a standardised encoding," a Unicode blog entry reads.
"With the release of Unicode 18.0, vendors are now able to implement support for these symbols."
The organisation's core specification document, with more than 1,100 pages, provides more insight on the UAE dirham's journey to being standardised for keyboards.
"UAE Dirham sign was unveiled by the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates on March 27, 2025, as the official currency symbol for the UAE dirham," the document reads.
"It incorporates two horizontal lines that embody the financial and monetary stability of the UAE dirham, and which are also inspired by the UAE flag."
The dirham symbol has been given U+20C3 as the code point identifier by Unicode to assist programmers in encoding the symbol within devices and software.
Last year, shortly after the UAE Central Bank announced the creation of the symbol as part of a drive to bolster the country's position as a global financial centre, the bank applied to Unicode to have its 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 blog post in February, Unicode said that monetary authorities introducing new symbols for their currencies represented 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,” Unicode 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, that will also be up to keyboard makers.
Meanwhile, the Unicode Consortium, which has existed since 1991, implied that the currency symbol additions were just the tip of the iceberg in version 18.0.
"This version adds 13,007 new characters, including nine new emoji characters, as well as many other characters and symbols, bringing the total number of encoded characters to 172,808," Unicode said.
