The Surinamese dollar
Currency · SRD · $ · 1 country
Suriname swapped its guilder for the dollar on 1 January 2004, at 1,000 guilders to one dollar, and let the old cent coins keep their face value in the new money. The Centrale Bank van Suriname, open since 1 April 1957, issues it. Surinamese call it SRD, because dollar on its own means the US dollar.
The sign
Suriname writes its dollar with the dollar sign, $, or Sr$ where it has to be told apart from other dollars. In speech people use the code SRD, since dollar alone is taken to mean the US dollar. The notes give the unit in the singular, as Dutch does.
The same sign stands for 28 other currencies, among them the US dollar and the East Caribbean dollar.
- ISO code
- SRD
- ISO number
- 968
- Subunit
- cent, 1/100
An amount, written out
$1,234.50
- $1,234.50English
- $ 1.234,50DutchSuriname
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 Surinamese dollar is the official currency
Suriname uses it alone. The Centrale Bank van Suriname manages the money supply and holds the gold and foreign exchange that cover the country's external payments.
About the Surinamese dollar
Who issues the Surinamese dollar
The Centrale Bank van Suriname opened on 1 April 1957. Suriname had gained internal self-government in 1954, and the bank was founded as the country's third and last circulation bank. It manages the money supply. It also holds the international reserves, with enough gold and foreign exchange to meet the country's external payments.
What Suriname paid with before a central bank
The colony struck its first coin in 1679, the parrot coin, showing a parrot on a leafy branch. Each leaf stood for a pound of sugar, then worth ten cents, and sugar itself was legal tender from 1667 to 1761. Card money followed until 1827: officials stamped and signed playing cards and issued them as legal tender at a set face value.
Dutch coins and notes then served as legal tender. Money ran short, so the Particuliere West-Indische Bank opened in Paramaribo in 1829 with the right to issue notes, including notes for 10 to 50 cents because coins were scarce. Poor management brought it to insolvency, and its notes were exchanged for Dutch coin. After slavery was abolished in 1863 trade grew, and in 1865 De Surinaamsche Bank opened as both circulation bank and commercial bank. Dutch private investors held most of its capital, but its notes showed Surinamese symbols and landscapes.
During the Second World War bauxite exports to the United States grew. In 1940 the Surinamese guilder left the Dutch guilder and was pegged to the US dollar.
How the guilder became the dollar
The dollar took over on 1 January 2004. Only coins were available at first; the notes, reportedly held up by a problem at the Canadian Bank Note Company, arrived in mid-February. The old cent coins, each a hundredth of a guilder, became cents of the new dollar at face value, so an old 25 cent piece that had been worth a quarter of a guilder was now worth a quarter of a dollar, or 250 guilders. Commemorative coins were left out of that rule. Amendment 121 of ISO 4217 replaced the code SRG with SRD.
Why the official rate and the street rate split
From 2004 to 2021 the central bank set the value of the dollar rather than letting the market do it. A black market in currency grew beside the official rate, and the bank spent much of the country's foreign reserves holding its rates up as the dollar's real value fell. In June 2021 it devalued the currency and announced that it would float. By June 2022 the official rates had caught up with the market.
What the notes are made of
Notes of 5, 10, 20, 50 and 100 dollars came with the changeover, and they print the unit in the singular, as Dutch does. The 5 and 10 run on a hybrid substrate made by Louisenthal. Louisenthal also supplied the 200 and 500 dollar notes, the first new high denominations since 2004, which set the central bank's headquarters beside scenes of fishing and rice growing. The 200 has a transparent laser-cut window in the shape of a sandbox tree seed. The coins still in use run from 1 to 250 cents.
Common questions
Questions about the Surinamese dollar
Why do people in Suriname say SRD instead of dollar?
Because dollar on its own is understood as the US dollar, which Surinamese shops also use to price electronics and cars, among other goods. Saying the letters of the code, SRD, marks the local currency. In writing, Sr$ does the same job where a plain dollar sign could mislead.
Can old Surinamese guilder coins still be spent?
The cent coins can. When the dollar replaced the guilder on 1 January 2004, the old coins denominated in cents were declared worth their face value in the new cents, so the central bank did not need to strike new ones. An old 25 cent coin, once a quarter of a guilder, became a quarter of a dollar. Wikipedia lists coins of 1, 5, 10, 25, 100 and 250 cents from the old currency in circulation. The rule did not cover commemorative coins, and the guilder notes were replaced.
What was the Surinamese parrot coin?
The first coin struck in Suriname, in 1679. It showed a parrot on a branch with one, two or four leaves, and each leaf stood for a pound of sugar, worth ten cents. Sugar was itself legal tender in the colony from 1667 to 1761.
Why did the Surinamese dollar float in 2021?
From 2004 the Centrale Bank van Suriname set the official exchange rate itself. As the currency's real value fell, a black market grew up beside that rate, and the bank used much of Suriname's foreign reserves to defend it. In June 2021 the bank devalued the dollar and announced that it would float freely. It took about a year for the official rates to follow: by June 2022 they reflected the floating market rate.