Singapore Dollar (SGD)

About the Singapore Dollar

The Singapore Dollar (SGD) is the official currency of Singapore, issued by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), the country's central bank. Its symbol is the dollar sign, $, often written S$ to distinguish it from other dollar currencies, and one dollar divides into 100 cents. Under the Currency Interchangeability Agreement of 1967, the Singapore dollar and the Brunei dollar are exchanged at par and without charge, and banks in each country accept the other country's notes and coins.

MAS conducts monetary policy through the exchange rate rather than interest rates, a framework in place since 1981. It manages the Singapore dollar nominal effective exchange rate (S$NEER) — the currency's value against a trade-weighted basket of currencies of Singapore's major trading partners — within a policy band set around a targeted level and rate of appreciation. MAS describes the arrangement as a managed float, announces adjustments to the band at quarterly reviews, and implements policy mainly through intervention in the spot US dollar–Singapore dollar market.

The Singapore dollar was first issued in 1967 by the Board of Commissioners of Currency, Singapore (BCCS), when Singapore, Malaysia and Brunei each began issuing national currencies in place of the Malaya and British Borneo dollar, a common currency the territories had shared since 1954. Earlier circulating money included the Straits Settlements dollar, first issued as a government note in 1899, and the Malayan dollar. BCCS merged into MAS in 2002, and MAS has issued Singapore's notes and coins since then.

The Singapore dollar plays an outsized role in global finance for the city-state's size. In the Bank for International Settlements' Triennial Central Bank Survey of April 2025 it was the tenth most traded currency in the world, on one side of 2.4% of over-the-counter foreign-exchange turnover. Singapore itself ranked as the survey's third-largest foreign-exchange trading centre, behind only the United Kingdom and the United States, with average daily turnover of roughly US$1.5 trillion.

Circulating banknotes belong to the Portrait series, launched on 9 September 1999, which features Yusof Ishak, Singapore's first president. MAS stopped issuing the $10,000 note in October 2014 and the $1,000 note in January 2021 to limit money-laundering risk, though both remain legal tender. Coins belong to the Third series, issued from 25 June 2013, whose five denominations from 5 cents to $1 depict national icons such as the Esplanade theatres, public housing and Changi Airport.