The Yemeni rial

Who built the central bank

The two halves of Yemen built their banking systems separately. In the north, the Yemen Bank for Reconstruction and Development was set up a month after the revolution of 1962. A republican decree of 1964 created a Yemeni Monetary Committee to issue paper money, and the Central Bank of Yemen followed on 27 July 1971. Its founding law gave it the right to issue currency and to manage the country's gold and foreign reserves.

In the south, the South Arabian Monetary Agency was founded in 1964 and made Aden monetarily independent of East Africa. After independence in 1967 the commercial banks were nationalised and merged, and a law of 1972 set up the Bank of Yemen as the central bank.

Law No. 21 of 1991, passed after unification, joined the two banks into one Central Bank of Yemen, and the Bank of Yemen in Aden and its branches became branches of it.

How the rial came out of unification

In the 18th and 19th centuries the rial was associated with the Maria Theresa thaler, widely used in Yemen through the Mocha coffee trade with the French and because Yemenis asked to be paid for their produce in thalers. At unification in 1990 the northern rial and the southern dinar both stayed legal tender for a transitional period, at one dinar to 26 rials. The dinar was withdrawn on 11 June 1996. The republic issued its first coins in 1993.

Why two central banks claim it

The Houthi movement took Sana'a in September 2014, and on 18 September 2016 the internationally recognised government ordered the central bank's headquarters moved to Aden. According to the Sana'a Center, the Aden bank kept the institution's international recognition and with it the right to print currency, while the Sana'a branch kept most of the staff and the archives and its hold on Houthi-held areas.

Aden received its first order of new notes, printed by the Russian firm Goznak, in January 2017, to cover a budget deficit and replace worn notes. The Houthi authorities called for the new 500 rial note to be kept out of their areas in June 2017. On 18 December 2019 the Sana'a bank banned the notes issued in Aden and gave residents 30 days to trade them for notes printed before September 2016 or for an electronic rial. The Aden bank replied on 22 December, rejecting the Sana'a bank's authority and telling banks and traders to keep using the new notes.

Wikipedia records the outcome: in the north, notes printed after 2017 are not treated as legal tender, the two issues can be told apart by their size, and the rial trades at different rates on either side of the front line. The Sana'a Center reports traders moving toward Saudi riyals and US dollars. In 2025 the Sana'a administration issued a 200 rial note bearing the Central Bank of Yemen's name. It also announced a 100 rial coin. The government in Aden called the note counterfeit and the coin a dangerous escalation.

What the notes and coins show

No fils coins have been issued since unification; coins of 1 and 5 rials arrived in 1993, 10 rials in 1995 and 20 rials in 2004, each replacing a note. On the paper side, 200 rials came in 1996, 500 in 1997, 1,000 in 1998 and 250 in 2009.

The Aden series of 2017 and 2018 changed the dimensions and the security features. The 100 rial shows the dragon blood tree of Socotra with terraced fields on the back. The 200 carries the fortress at Zabid, the 500 the Al-Muhdhar Mosque in Tarim and Dar al-Hajar, and the 1,000 Seiyun Palace and Bab al-Yaman in Sana'a.