Egypt Currency

Egypt currency is pound, popularly known as Egyptian Pound. One Egyptian Pound is divided into 100 piastres. Piastre is originally a silver coin of U.S. dollar size that served as the major currency of French Indochina and in the Ottoman Empire.

Each banknote of Egypt has two faces one in Arabic and the other in English. The Arabic face generally represents pictures of a well-known mosque of Egypt while the counter English face depicts pictures of ancient Egyptian figures, statues or monuments.

The banknotes are issued by the National Bank for the first time on 3rd April 1899. At present The Central Bank of Egypt and the Egypt's National Bank are unified into the Central Bank of Egypt.

Coins are also a part of Egyptian currency. However only 5, 10, 20 and 25 piastres coins are considered as the legal coin currency. On 1st June 2006, Egypt government introduced 1-pound coin, which is bimetallic in nature. This 1-pound coin bears the faces of Cleopatra VII and of Tutankhamun on its different faces.

1 US Dollar is equivalent to approximately 3.4 Egyptian Pounds. The old Egyptian banknotes look different from the new ones but they are in circulation and are useful. While exchanging any foreign currency rely only on Exchange Company or a Bank. Law in Egypt forbids exchanging money from an unauthorized place. Not only this according to Egypt law there is a fixed legal exchange rates for important foreign currencies.