The standard ISO 4217 code for the United Arab Emirates dirham is AED.
ISO 4217 assigns three-letter alphabetic codes to currencies so banks, payment systems, businesses, and travelers can identify them consistently. In AED, “AE” refers to the United Arab Emirates and “D” refers to dirham. The code is different from the currency’s symbols and local abbreviations, such as Dh or د.إ.
The dirham was introduced in 1973, replacing currencies that had circulated in the emirates before federation. It is divided into 100 fils and is issued by the Central Bank of the UAE. Since 1997, it has been pegged to the U.S. dollar at about 3.6725 dirhams per dollar.
A common mix-up is confusing AED with “DHS,” a widely used abbreviation for dirhams, or with the Moroccan dirham’s code, MAD. ISO codes are not always obvious from English names: the Australian dollar is AUD, while the UAE dirham is AED.