The Qatari riyal

What circulated before Qatar had a currency

Qatar Central Bank's account of the years before 1959 is a list of foreign coin: the Ottoman majidi riyal, the Maria Theresa silver riyal, the gold sovereign, and Indian silver and copper rupees. In 1959 the government of India, in agreement with the Gulf states, issued the Gulf rupee for use in the region. It matched the Indian rupee in gold content and in its price against sterling. It was not, however, legal tender inside India, and the central bank records the disappointment of Gulf merchants at that.

Why Qatar and Dubai left the rupee

India devalued the rupee in 1966 by about 35%, the Gulf rupee with it. Qatar and Dubai switched to the Saudi riyal as a stopgap and signed a currency agreement on 21 March 1966. The Qatar and Dubai Currency Board it created issued the Qatar and Dubai riyal on 18 September 1966, at a gold value of 0.186621 grams of pure gold, the Gulf rupee's value before the devaluation. Sterling still provided the cover.

Dubai joined the United Arab Emirates on 2 December 1971. Amiri Decree No. 6 of May 1973 wound up the shared board, and Amiri Decree No. 24 of the same year authorised the Qatari riyal at the same gold value, redeeming the joint notes. The Qatar Monetary Agency, created by Law No. 7 of 1973, took over the duties of a central bank. The old notes were withdrawn after 90 days of parallel use.

When the riyal settled on the dollar

Decree No. 60 of 1975 pegged the riyal to the IMF's Special Drawing Rights at 0.21 SDR per riyal, with a band of 2.25% either side. The agency used the US dollar to set the daily rate. It revalued the riyal against the dollar twelve times between March 1976 and June 1980, by 8.5% in all, to steady it against the currencies of Qatar's trading partners and to damp imported inflation.

From July 1980, as the dollar began to rise, the agency held the rate at 3.64 riyals to the dollar. Qatar Central Bank, established in August 1993, inherited the policy of targeting the exchange rate and kept that same fixed rate.

What the later note issues added

The Qatar Monetary Agency's first notes, of 1973, ran from 1 to 500 riyals. Four more issues have followed. A revised fourth issue gave the 100 and 500 riyal notes a transparent window and added features for blind and partially sighted users to the rest. The fifth issue, from 18 December 2020, redrew every note and added a 200 riyal note.

The riyal divides into 100 dirhams. Coins of 1, 5, 10, 25 and 50 dirhams date from 1973, struck to the sizes of the earlier Qatar and Dubai pieces. Only the 25 and 50 dirham coins still circulate, although the smaller ones remain legal tender.