Currencies of Africa
Every African country and its national currency, including the major shared currencies (CFA franc zones) and exchange context.
African Currencies at a Glance
Africa has more than 40 distinct national currencies. Three notable exceptions are the shared currencies: the West African CFA franc (XOF) used by eight West African nations, the Central African CFA franc (XAF) used by six Central African states, and the South African rand (ZAR) which circulates alongside national currencies in Eswatini, Lesotho and Namibia (the Common Monetary Area).
Complete List of African Currencies
| Country | Currency | Code |
|---|---|---|
| Algeria | Algerian Dinar (DZD) | DZD |
| Angola | Angolan Kwanza (AOA) | AOA |
| Benin | West African CFA franc (XOF) | XOF |
| Botswana | Botswana Pula (BWP) | BWP |
| Burkina Faso | West African CFA franc (XOF) | XOF |
| Burundi | Burundian Franc (BIF) | BIF |
| Cameroon | Central African CFA franc (XAF) | XAF |
| Cape Verde | Cape Verdean Escudo (CVE) | CVE |
| Central African Republic | Central African CFA franc (XAF) | XAF |
| Chad | Central African CFA franc (XAF) | XAF |
| Comoros | Comorian Franc (KMF) | KMF |
| Democratic Republic of the Congo | Congolese Franc (CDF) | CDF |
| Djibouti | Djiboutian Franc (DJF) | DJF |
| Egypt | Egyptian Pound (EGP) | EGP |
| Equatorial Guinea | Central African CFA franc (XAF) | XAF |
| Eritrea | Eritrean Nakfa (ERN) | ERN |
| Eswatini | Swazi Lilangeni (SZL) | SZL |
| Ethiopia | Ethiopian Birr (ETB) | ETB |
| Gabon | Central African CFA franc (XAF) | XAF |
| Gambia | Gambian Dalasi (GMD) | GMD |
| Ghana | Ghanaian Cedi (GHS) | GHS |
| Guinea | Guinean Franc (GNF) | GNF |
| Guinea-Bissau | West African CFA franc (XOF) | XOF |
| Ivory Coast | West African CFA franc (XOF) | XOF |
| Kenya | Kenyan Shilling (KES) | KES |
| Lesotho | Lesotho Loti (LSL) | LSL |
| Liberia | Liberian Dollar (LRD) | LRD |
| Libya | Libyan Dinar (LYD) | LYD |
| Madagascar | Malagasy Ariary (MGA) | MGA |
| Malawi | Malawian Kwacha (MWK) | MWK |
| Mali | West African CFA franc (XOF) | XOF |
| Mauritania | Mauritanian Ouguiya (MRU) | MRU |
| Mauritius | Mauritian Rupee (MUR) | MUR |
| Morocco | Moroccan Dirham (MAD) | MAD |
| Mozambique | Mozambican Metical (MZN) | MZN |
| Namibia | Namibian Dollar (NAD) | NAD |
| Niger | West African CFA franc (XOF) | XOF |
| Nigeria | Nigerian Naira (NGN) | NGN |
| Republic of the Congo | Central African CFA franc (XAF) | XAF |
| Rwanda | Rwandan Franc (RWF) | RWF |
| Senegal | West African CFA franc (XOF) | XOF |
| Seychelles | Seychellois Rupee (SCR) | SCR |
| Sierra Leone | Sierra Leonean Leone (SLL) | SLL |
| Somalia | Somali Shilling (SOS) | SOS |
| South Africa | South African Rand (ZAR) | ZAR |
| South Sudan | South Sudanese Pound (SSP) | SSP |
| Sudan | Sudanese Pound (SDG) | SDG |
| São Tomé and Príncipe | São Tomé Dobra (STN) | STN |
| Tanzania | Tanzanian Shilling (TZS) | TZS |
| Togo | West African CFA franc (XOF) | XOF |
| Tunisia | Tunisian Dinar (TND) | TND |
| Uganda | Ugandan Shilling (UGX) | UGX |
| Western Sahara | Moroccan Dirham (MAD) | MAD |
| Zambia | Zambian Kwacha (ZMW) | ZMW |
| Zimbabwe | Zimbabwean Dollar (ZWL) | ZWL |
Shared Currencies in Africa
West African CFA Franc (XOF)
Used by 8 West African countries: Benin, Burkina Faso, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Mali, Niger, Senegal, Togo. The XOF is issued by the BCEAO (Central Bank of West African States), pegged to the euro at a fixed rate of 655.957 XOF per EUR.
Central African CFA Franc (XAF)
Used by 6 Central African countries: Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Republic of the Congo. The XAF is issued by the BEAC (Bank of Central African States), also pegged to the euro at 655.957 XAF per EUR. Despite sharing the same name and value, XOF and XAF banknotes are not interchangeable.
Common Monetary Area (CMA)
The South African rand (ZAR) circulates as legal tender in Eswatini, Lesotho and Namibia alongside the lilangeni (SZL), loti (LSL) and Namibian dollar (NAD) — all pegged 1:1 to the rand.
The Eco — A Common West African Currency?
ECOWAS member states have for two decades discussed launching a common currency called the Eco to replace national currencies and the CFA franc across both anglophone and francophone West Africa. Repeatedly delayed (most recently from 2027), the project remains aspirational.
African Currency Trivia
- The Tunisian dinar is one of the few currencies that legally cannot be taken out of the country.
- The Libyan dinar is divided into 1,000 dirhams — most currencies use 100 subunits.
- The Mauritanian ouguiya and the Malagasy ariary are the only modern currencies not based on a decimal system.
- The Zimbabwean dollar has been revalued multiple times after hyperinflation; the country also officially uses the US dollar.
How Currencies Work Across Africa
With 54 sovereign states, Africa is home to more than 40 distinct currencies. The number is lower than the count of countries because monetary integration has a long history on the continent: several groups of nations have chosen to share a single unit of money, while a handful of smaller states peg their currency rigidly to that of a larger neighbour. Understanding this landscape means looking beyond a simple country-to-currency list and recognising the colonial inheritances, regional alliances and economic strategies that shaped it.
Broadly, African currencies fall into a few categories. The largest group consists of fully independent national currencies — the Nigerian naira, Egyptian pound, Kenyan shilling, Moroccan dirham, Ethiopian birr and South African rand among them — each managed by its own central bank. A second group comprises the two CFA franc zones, where 14 countries use a currency they do not individually control. A third group is the Common Monetary Area of southern Africa, where the rand anchors the currencies of three smaller economies. Finally there are special cases such as Zimbabwe, which has at various times abandoned its own currency in favour of the US dollar and a basket of foreign units.
Currency codes follow the international ISO 4217 standard, which assigns each unit a three-letter code. The first two letters usually represent the country and the third the currency name — ZAR for the South African rand, NGN for the Nigerian naira, EGP for the Egyptian pound, KES for the Kenyan shilling. The shared CFA francs are exceptions, using the X-prefixed codes XOF and XAF that the standard reserves for supranational units. The complete country-by-country table above lists every code, and you can explore the wider economic picture on our Africa GDP overview.
The CFA Franc Zones
No feature of African money is more distinctive — or more debated — than the CFA franc. It exists in two separate forms. The West African CFA franc (XOF) is used by the eight members of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA, also known as WAEMU): Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo. The Central African CFA franc (XAF) serves the six members of the Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa (CEMAC): Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, the Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon.
Both versions are pegged to the euro at the same fixed rate, and that peg is guaranteed by the French treasury. This arrangement gives the CFA zones an unusual degree of monetary stability: inflation has historically been lower and exchange rates far less volatile than in many neighbouring economies that run independent floating currencies. For traders and travellers this predictability is a genuine advantage. A crucial point of detail, however, is that although the two CFA francs share an identical value, they are not interchangeable — banknotes issued for the West African zone are not legal tender in the Central African zone, and vice versa. The West African notes are issued by the BCEAO in Dakar and the Central African notes by the BEAC in Yaoundé.
The CFA franc is also politically contentious. Critics argue that pegging to the euro and channelling reserves through France constrains monetary sovereignty and ties African economies to European decisions over which they have no say. Supporters counter that the stability and credibility the peg provides have spared the zones the runaway inflation seen elsewhere. In recent years reforms have begun to address some criticisms — including renaming and restructuring elements of the West African arrangement — and the long-discussed regional currency known as the Eco is intended, eventually, to supersede the West African CFA franc.
Pegged vs Floating Currencies
African central banks pursue very different exchange-rate strategies, and the contrast shapes daily life for businesses and travellers alike. At one end of the spectrum are tightly pegged currencies. The CFA francs are fixed to the euro, and the lilangeni, loti and Namibian dollar are pinned one-to-one to the South African rand. Morocco operates a managed regime in which the dirham tracks a basket of currencies weighted toward the euro and the US dollar, allowing the dirham to move within a controlled band rather than freely.
At the other end are floating or heavily managed currencies whose value is set largely by market supply and demand. Nigeria has moved over recent years toward a more market-determined naira, a shift that produced sharp adjustments as the official and parallel-market rates converged. Egypt has similarly allowed the pound to depreciate substantially during periods of external pressure. Floating regimes give policymakers flexibility to respond to commodity-price swings and capital flows, but they can also bring volatility that complicates planning for importers, exporters and ordinary households.
Between these poles sit numerous crawling pegs and managed floats, where a central bank guides the currency gradually rather than fixing or fully freeing it. The practical lesson for anyone exchanging money is that the headline rate you see today can differ markedly from the rate even a few months earlier, particularly for floating currencies.
Monetary Unions and Regional Plans
Africa has more experience with shared currencies than almost any other continent, and ambitions for deeper integration continue. The two established unions are UEMOA in West Africa and CEMAC in Central Africa, each with a single central bank, a common currency and coordinated monetary policy across its members. The Common Monetary Area links South Africa, Eswatini, Lesotho and Namibia through rand parity, functioning as a partial union in which the smaller members retain their own notes but surrender exchange-rate independence.
The most prominent forward-looking project is the Eco, a proposed single currency for all 15 members of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). The Eco is designed to unite the francophone CFA users with anglophone economies such as Nigeria and Ghana under one currency, eventually replacing the West African CFA franc. Launch dates have repeatedly slipped because members have found it difficult to meet shared convergence criteria on inflation, deficits and debt. Beyond West Africa, the African Union has long articulated a still more ambitious vision of a single continental currency managed by an African Central Bank, but that remains a distant aspiration rather than a concrete plan. Regional context for these blocs is explored across our West Africa and Central Africa overviews.
Inflation and Currency Volatility
For many African economies, inflation and exchange-rate movement are among the defining features of the currency story. Floating currencies in particular have seen significant depreciation during periods of fiscal stress, commodity-price shocks or shortages of foreign exchange. The Nigerian naira, Ghanaian cedi and Egyptian pound have all experienced substantial declines against the US dollar in recent years as their governments adjusted away from overvalued official rates toward levels closer to the parallel market.
The most extreme historical example is Zimbabwe, whose dollar suffered one of the worst hyperinflations ever recorded in the late 2000s, ultimately forcing the authorities to abandon the currency and adopt the US dollar and other foreign units. Zimbabwe has since experimented with reintroducing and revaluing a domestic currency more than once, illustrating how difficult it is to restore confidence once it has been lost. These episodes underline why the relative stability of the euro-pegged CFA zones is valued by their members, even amid debate over the costs of the peg. For travellers and businesses, the practical takeaway is to treat exchange rates for volatile currencies as snapshots that can change quickly.
Mobile Money: Africa's Payment Revolution
Any discussion of money in Africa is incomplete without mobile money, an innovation in which the continent leads the world. Rather than relying on bank accounts and card networks, millions of people send, receive and store value directly on their mobile phones. The pioneering and most celebrated service is M-Pesa, launched in Kenya, which transformed everyday payments and brought financial services to people who had never held a traditional bank account.
The model has since spread across East, West and Southern Africa, with major platforms operating in Tanzania, Uganda, Ghana and beyond. Mobile money is used to pay for goods, settle utility bills, send remittances between regions and even receive wages. For visitors, the implication is that cash and mobile transfers often matter more than international credit cards, which may be accepted only at larger hotels, airlines and upmarket establishments. In several markets a local SIM card linked to a mobile-money wallet can be one of the most convenient ways to transact.
Exchanging Money: Practical Tips for Travelers
Travelling across Africa rewards a little currency planning. Because so many local currencies are not traded internationally, it is often easier to carry a widely accepted hard currency — usually US dollars or euros — and exchange it on arrival rather than trying to obtain the local currency in advance. In the CFA zones the euro is the natural reserve currency to bring given the fixed peg, while US dollars are more useful in much of East and Southern Africa.
A few habits help avoid problems. Carry clean, recent banknotes: many exchange offices and businesses refuse worn, torn or older US dollar bills, particularly small-denomination or pre-2013 notes. Use banks, licensed bureaux de change and ATMs rather than informal street dealers, who may offer attractive headline rates but short-change unwary visitors. Keep some small-denomination local cash for taxis, markets and tipping, since vendors often cannot change large notes. Remember that a few currencies, such as the Tunisian dinar, legally cannot be carried across the border, so spend or convert them before leaving. Finally, because rates for floating currencies move daily, check a current source before you travel and again before any large transaction. Practical mobility planning can also draw on our visa requirements and passport power guides.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many currencies are used in Africa?
Africa's 54 countries use more than 40 distinct currencies. The total is below 54 because several states share a currency: eight West African nations use the West African CFA franc (XOF), six Central African states use the Central African CFA franc (XAF), and the South African rand circulates as legal tender in Eswatini, Lesotho and Namibia alongside their own currencies under the Common Monetary Area.
What is the CFA franc?
The CFA franc is a shared currency used by 14 countries across two separate zones — the West African CFA franc (XOF) for eight UEMOA members and the Central African CFA franc (XAF) for six CEMAC members. Both are pegged to the euro at the same fixed rate and guaranteed by the French treasury. The two CFA francs share the same value but are not interchangeable: XOF notes are not legal tender in the XAF zone, and vice versa.
Which is the strongest African currency?
By nominal value per US dollar, currencies such as the Tunisian dinar, Libyan dinar and Moroccan dirham have historically ranked among the highest, partly because of currency controls and managed exchange-rate regimes. Nominal value is not the same as economic strength, and rates change frequently, so any ranking should be checked against current market data.
Can I use US dollars in Africa?
US dollars are widely accepted for tourism, hotels and larger transactions in many African countries, and serve as official or de facto currency in places such as Zimbabwe. Even so, most everyday purchases require the local currency, and worn or older dollar notes are sometimes refused. It is best to carry some local cash along with clean, recent dollar bills.
What is the Eco currency?
The Eco is a proposed single currency for the 15 ECOWAS member states, intended to unite francophone and anglophone West Africa and eventually replace the West African CFA franc. Its launch has been postponed several times because members have struggled to meet shared convergence criteria, so the Eco remains a planned rather than a circulating currency.
Last updated: June 2026. Currency information is general and educational; exchange rates fluctuate daily — verify current rates before transacting.