The Fijian dollar
Currency · FJD · $ · 1 country
Fiji switched from the Fijian pound to a decimal dollar on 15 January 1969, at two dollars to the pound. It was the second dollar the islands had used: another circulated between 1867 and 1873. The Reserve Bank of Fiji issues the notes and coins, and since the series launched in December 2012 they show local plants and animals.
The sign
Fiji writes its dollar with the ordinary $ sign and uses FJ$ where it has to be told apart from other dollars. The sign came with the name in 1969, and the name was chosen because the new half-pound unit was closer in value to the US dollar than to the pound sterling.
The same sign stands for 28 other currencies, among them the US dollar and the East Caribbean dollar.
- ISO code
- FJD
- ISO number
- 242
- Subunit
- cent, 1/100
An amount, written out
$1,234.50
- $1,234.50EnglishFiji
The sign in code
HTML, CSS, JavaScript, UTF-8
- HTML
$$$- CSS
content: "\0024";- JavaScript
"\u0024"- UTF-8
0x24- UTF-16
0x0024- UTF-32
0x00000024
Where the Fijian dollar is the official currency
Fiji uses it on its own. The Reserve Bank of Fiji has issued it since 1986, after the Currency Board and the Central Monetary Authority.
About the Fijian dollar
Who issued Fiji's money before the Reserve Bank
The first Fijian dollar was a paper one. The government treasury issued 1 dollar notes in 1867, notes of up to 50 dollars followed between 1871 and 1873, and in the same years King Seru Epenisa Cakobau put out his own, some worth 12½ cents. Levuka issued notes of its own in the 1870s.
Before any regulator existed, planters and traders paid in bills of exchange, cheques on colonial banks abroad, promissory notes, drafts, currency tokens, foreign money and certificates of indebtedness. The Fiji Currency Board, set up in 1914, issued and redeemed the currency for the next sixty years. English coins came first. Fiji's own coinage of pennies and shillings arrived in 1934, struck at the Royal Mint in London, and the pennies and halfpennies had a hole through the centre. During the Second World War some coins were minted in San Francisco instead, and in 1942 New Zealand pound notes were overprinted locally when ordinary notes ran short.
The Central Monetary Authority took over the note issue in 1974. The Reserve Bank followed in 1986.
Why the new unit was called a dollar
Fiji followed South Africa, Australia and New Zealand in basing its decimal currency on half a pound rather than a whole one, and because a unit of that size sat closer in value to the US dollar than to sterling, it took the name dollar. The decimal coins had the same sizes and metals as their Australian counterparts, and the 50 cent coin of 1975 was twelve-sided like Australia's.
How the coins shrank and the Queen came off
Coins kept replacing notes: the 50 cents in 1975, the dollar in 1995. The 1 and 2 cent coins went next. Issuance stopped in October 2008 and they were demonetised in April 2009, when the Reserve Bank brought in smaller, lighter 5, 10, 20 and 50 cent pieces. It gave rising metal prices and the cost of production as the reason.
Fiji became a republic in 1987, yet its notes and coins carried Queen Elizabeth II until the family launched in December 2012. That series put local flora and fauna on every denomination, added a $2 coin and made the $5 note Fiji's first in polymer. The $2 coin was barely larger than the $1 and the same colour, and people confused them. A larger, thicker coin shaped like a Spanish flower replaced it in 2014, and the metal of both coins was changed after complaints that they corroded and turned black.
Who prints the notes and strikes the coins
De La Rue in the United Kingdom has printed Fiji's notes since 1914. The Royal Canadian Mint strikes the coins. The current structure is 5, 10, 20 and 50 cent coins, $1 and $2 coins, and notes of $5, $10, $20, $50 and $100. The notes share a height of 67 millimetres and grow by five millimetres a step, from 136 on the $5 to 156 on the $100.
Common questions
Questions about the Fijian dollar
When did Fiji stop using the pound?
On 15 January 1969. The dollar replaced the Fijian pound at two dollars to one pound, which made a dollar worth ten shillings. That day the coins ran from 1 to 20 cents and the notes from 50 cents to $20. The $5 note followed in 1970.
Why did the Queen disappear from Fijian banknotes?
The Reserve Bank of Fiji launched a new family of notes and coins in December 2012 that replaced her portrait with endemic plants and animals on every denomination. The bank said the change would promote Fiji's biodiversity, make notes last longer and save money. It came 25 years after Fiji became a republic in 1987; until then the monarch had stayed on the currency. The $5 note in the new family, the first in polymer, entered circulation on 2 April 2013.
What happened to Fiji's 1 and 2 cent coins?
A Cabinet decision in 2005 approved their withdrawal because minting them cost more than they were worth. Issuance stopped in October 2008, and the coins were demonetised in April 2009 when smaller, lighter 5, 10, 20 and 50 cent pieces replaced the old Australian-sized set. The current coins start at 5 cents.
Why does Fiji have two different $2 coins?
The first $2 coin, issued with the 2012 family, was only slightly larger than the $1 and the same colour, so the two were easy to mix up. In 2014 the Reserve Bank replaced it with a larger, thicker coin in a scalloped Spanish flower shape. The metal of the $1 and $2 was changed that year as well, after complaints that the coins were corroding.