The Brunei dollar

What stands behind each Brunei note

Brunei runs a currency board. Under the Currency Order of 2004, the Brunei Darussalam Central Bank (BDCB) is the only body allowed to issue Brunei notes and coins, and the same order requires it to back every note and coin it puts out with an equivalent amount held in reserve. The local currency is pegged to the Singapore dollar at par.

That peg hands Brunei's monetary conditions to Singapore. The Singapore dollar anchors the Brunei dollar, the BDCB says, and Singapore, which uses the exchange rate as its monetary policy tool, has a direct influence on conditions in Brunei.

How the interchangeability agreement works

The Currency Interchangeability Agreement dates from 1967. It obliges the BDCB, the Monetary Authority of Singapore and the licensed banks of both countries to accept each other's notes and coins and exchange them into their own at par, free of charge. Banks on both sides also take the other currency for deposit on the same terms.

Shops are a different matter. Each currency is customary tender in the other country, which is not legal tender, so a retailer in Brunei may refuse Singapore notes and one in Singapore may refuse Brunei notes. The notes that do cross are sent home: the BDCB returns Singapore currency to the Monetary Authority of Singapore, and the Monetary Authority returns Brunei currency to the BDCB.

For the agreement's fiftieth anniversary the two authorities launched a pair of $50 polymer notes on 5 July 2017, one from each country, sharing a design with the simpur flower of Brunei and Singapore's orchid Vanda Miss Joaquim. One million Brunei notes and two million Singapore notes went out for exchange at face value.

Which dollars Brunei spent before its own

Brunei struck tin coins in pitis in 1868 and a one cent coin in 1888, a hundredth of a Straits dollar. As a British protectorate it then used the Straits dollar from 1906, the Malayan dollar from 1939 and the Malaya and British Borneo dollar from 1953.

In 1967 that shared dollar split into three, the Malaysian, the Singapore and the Brunei dollar, all at par and all exchangeable under the agreement. Malaysia withdrew from the arrangement in 1973, and the Monetary Authority of Singapore and Brunei's monetary authority have maintained it between the two remaining currencies since.

Who has signed the notes and struck the coins

The government, Kerajaan Brunei, issued the first notes on 12 June 1967 in 1, 5, 10, 50 and 100 dollars. Notes of 500 and 1,000 dollars followed in 1979. In 1989 the title on the notes became Negara Brunei Darussalam and a 10,000 dollar note appeared. Every note gives the value in Malay, in both Rumi and Jawi script, and in English.

Coins of 1, 5, 10, 20 and 50 cents came in 1967, the cent in bronze and the rest in cupro-nickel. The cent changed to copper-clad steel in 1986 and to brass in 2008. The issuer has changed name more than once, from the Brunei Currency and Monetary Board to the Authoriti Monetari Brunei Darussalam and then the BDCB, whose New Family Banknotes Series has circulated since 9 March 2026.