In February of this year, the Saudi Central Bank (SAMA) announced the creation of a new symbol to represent the Saudi riyal currency. This was widely noticed by users, font developers and other vendors, and many are wondering how it should be supported. The Unicode Consortium has received a number of inquiries regarding this. In this blog post, we want to let you know about our plans for supporting the Saudi riyal sign, and provide other information to help vendors plan to support the new symbol.
When SAMA announced the new symbol, they also provided related pages with usage guidelines and FAQ information. In the FAQ page, they provide information about expected timeline for implementation:
It can be put into use immediately, but “reflection in financial and commercial transactions and various applications will be done gradually and in coordination with relevant entities.”
Allowance for gradual implementation is important since vendors need time to implement and deploy changes in their products and services.
Implementation Guidance
Vendor support for a new currency symbol can involve many different things, such as the following:
Updates to fonts
Updates to software keyboard layouts or new designs for physical keyboards
APIs for formatting currency values
Generation of financial statements and reports
Updates to applications, online services or devices for commercial transactions
However, all of these depend on first establishing how the new currency symbol will be represented in Unicode. This starts with receiving a proposal to encode the symbol in the Unicode Standard.
After consulting with representatives from the Unicode Technical Committee (UTC), SAMA has now submitted a proposal to UTC for encoding a new character, SAUDI RIYAL SIGN. UTC will be taking up this proposal at its next meeting, to be held April 22 – 24, 2025. Next steps
It is anticipated that UTC will approve the new character for encoding in Unicode Version 17.0, which will be released in September 2025. The Unicode 17.0 Beta will be released for public review in early May, and we expect the Saudi riyal sign will be included there. Details related to the encoding (code point, name, property data) are unlikely to change after the Beta is released.
There is a small possibility that some changes could be made at the following UTC meeting in July, when technical details for Unicode Version 17.0 are finalized. Some vendors may choose to start working on implementations once the Beta is available, but vendors should not distribute product updates until after Unicode Version 17.0 is finalized.
Extending support with CLDR
Many implementations use Unicode CLDR data for currency formatting, so incorporating the new symbol is an important step for widespread support. CLDR 48 is slated to be released in October 2025, and would contain the new currency symbol character as an “alternative” currency symbol for the Saudi riyal.
The reason for it being an alternative rather than the default is to avoid the symbol being displayed in contexts where fonts might not yet support the new symbol, causing users to see a missing glyph for their currency:
instead of
Later, when there is confidence that the symbol is more widely supported in fonts, a future CLDR version will change currency formatting to make the format with the Saudi riyal symbol the default, rather than an alternative.
People wishing to start using the new symbol in applications and services should anticipate that it could take several months or, in some cases, even years for vendors to implement and distribute product updates.
Working together to support the new Saudi riyal symbol
The introduction of the new Saudi riyal currency symbol marks a significant milestone for financial and commercial sectors in Saudi Arabia, and the Unicode Consortium is honored to help SAMA on this journey. We encourage stakeholders to participate in the public review for Unicode 17.0 Beta and to plan their implementations and adoption accordingly.
