Egyptian Pound (EGP)

About the Egyptian Pound

The Egyptian Pound (EGP) is the official currency of Egypt, issued by the Central Bank of Egypt under the Central Bank and Banking System Law No. 194 of 2020. Its symbol is E£, written domestically as ج.م, and one pound divides into 100 piastres. In March 2024 the CBE unified Egypt's foreign-exchange market, moving the pound onto a market-determined exchange rate after years in which official and parallel-market rates had diverged.

Egypt's exchange-rate liberalisation formed part of a wider shift toward inflation targeting. The Central Bank of Egypt describes its monetary-policy framework as transitioning to flexible inflation targeting, with the foreign-exchange system determined and regulated by the CBE under its 2020 law. On 26 December 2024 the CBE deferred its inflation targets to 7 percent, plus or minus 2 percentage points, by the fourth quarter of 2026, and 5 percent by the fourth quarter of 2028. The CBE also holds periodic foreign-exchange auctions alongside its other open-market operations.

The Egyptian pound is conventionally dated to an 1834 reform under Muhammad Ali Pasha, said to have replaced the Ottoman-Egyptian piastre system with a pound of 100 piastres, though this date is not confirmed on the Central Bank of Egypt's own website. The Central Bank of Egypt now holds the exclusive legal right to issue and cancel Egyptian banknotes and coins, with its board setting denominations and specifications under Article 58 of the 2020 banking law. The CBE's own printing house, established in the 1960s, began producing Egyptian banknotes domestically in 1967, ending reliance on notes printed abroad.

As one of the independent regulatory bodies provided for in Egypt's Constitution, the CBE has public legal personality and technical, financial and administrative independence under the 2020 banking law. Its stated competencies span currency issuance, monetary policy, foreign-exchange regulation, banking supervision, crisis management, management of the state's gold and foreign reserves, payment-systems oversight and financial inclusion. At its meeting of 20 August 2026 the CBE's Monetary Policy Committee held its overnight deposit, overnight lending and main-operation rates at 19.00, 20.00 and 19.50 percent.

Cash circulates as Egyptian-pound banknotes and piastre and pound coins; in 2023 the Central Bank of Egypt issued a new 20-pound polymer banknote as part of its ongoing note modernisation. Banknote denominations in circulation run from 5 pounds to 200 pounds, and coins run from 25 piastres to 1 pound, with 100 piastres equal to one pound.