You know those little marks we see next to prices? Like $, €, or ¥? Some countries seem to love them. Others don’t bother at all. Once you start paying attention, it gets kind of interesting.
Some of these symbols are ancient. Others were designed just a few years ago. And in many places? There’s no symbol at all—just three capital letters. So what gives?
Let’s start with the most famous one: the dollar sign.
Most people assume it came from the U.S., but the story actually goes back to Spanish pesos. Merchants used to shorten “peso” to “ps” in handwriting. Over time, that turned into a merged symbol—and eventually the $ we use now.
The U.S. adopted it in the late 1700s, but it’s far from exclusive. You’ll also find it in Canada, Australia, and a whole bunch of Latin American countries.
The British Pound Sign Has Roman Roots
The pound sign (£) has been around for a long, long time. It comes from the Latin word libra, which referred to weight, specifically a pound of silver. That’s also where we get the “lb” abbreviation for weight.
So yes, the symbol comes from ancient Rome. And today, it still shows up not only in the UK, but in a few former British colonies too.
The Euro Symbol Was Designed Like a Logo
Unlike older symbols, the euro sign (€) was designed on purpose.
In the 1990s, when the EU launched the euro, they ran a design contest. The winning symbol was based on the Greek epsilon, with two horizontal lines to suggest stability.
It’s basically a logo. Clean, modern, and meant to represent unity.
India’s Rupee Symbol Is a Mix of Scripts
India got its ₹ symbol in 2010. Before that, people just used “Rs.” The new design combines the Devanagari “र” with the Latin “R.” It’s subtle but clever—a nice way to reflect both Indian tradition and global currency culture.
Below is the full list of the countries that use a symbol for their currency.
Country
Symbol
Afghanistan
؋
Armenia
֏
Argentina, Australia, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, Brazil, Brunei, Canada, Cape Verde, Cayman Islands, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Eastern Caribbean, Dominica, Fiji, Guyana, Hong Kong, Jamaica, Kiribati, Liberia, Macau, Mexico, Namibia, Nicaragua, New Zealand, Samoa, Singapore, Suriname, Taiwan, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Tuvalu, United States of America, Uruguay
$ (known by different names such as dollar, real, peso, pataca etc)
Bangladesh
৳
Cambodia
៛
China, Japan
¥ (yuan in Chinese, yen in Japanese)
Costa Rica
₡
Andorra, Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Kosovo, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, Montenegro, Netherlands, Portugal, San Marino, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Vatican City
€
Georgia
₾
Ghana
₵
India
₹
Iran
﷼
Israel
₪
Kazakhstan
₸
Kyrgyzstan
⃀
Laos
₭
Mongolia
₮
Nigeria
₦
North Korea, South Korea
₩
Paraguay
₲
Philippines
₱
Russia
₽
Saudi Arabia
No Unicode symbol
Thailand
฿
Turkey
₺
Ukraine
₴
Vietnam
₫
And Then There Are Countries Without Symbols
Not every country uses a special symbol.
Take Poland’s złoty (PLN), Brazil’s real (BRL), or Norway’s krone (NOK). They stick to abbreviations. It works. Everyone understands them, and you don’t need to change keyboards or fonts.
Maybe there wasn’t much motivation to invent a new symbol. Maybe they didn’t want to.
