# Currency Code (ISO 4217)

Key: `finance.currency.currency_code`

Three-letter currency code as defined by ISO 4217. Examples: USD, EUR, GBP, JPY. Used in financial data, trading systems, and international commerce.

Page: <https://meridian.online/docs/projects/finetype/types/finance/currency/currency_code>

Samples: `USD`, `EUR`, `GBP`, `JPY`, `CHF`, `AUD`

## Background

### Origin

ISO 4217 is a standard published by the International Organization for Standardization that defines alpha codes and numeric codes for the representation of currencies.[[1]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_4217) ISO/TC 68 began developing a code for representing currencies in 1973.[[1]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_4217) The first edition of ISO 4217 was published in 1978.[[1]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_4217) Wikipedia gives ISO 4217:2015 as the most recent edition of the standard.[[1]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_4217)

For a national currency, the first two letters of the ISO 4217 alpha code are the country's ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code and the third is usually the initial of the currency's main unit.[[1]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_4217) Japan's currency code is JPY, with JP for Japan and Y for yen.[[1]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_4217) Wikipedia notes that the country prefix removes the ambiguity of names such as dollar, franc, peso and pound being used in many countries.[[1]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_4217) The euro's code EUR is an exception, built on the code element EU that the ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency reserved for use within ISO 4217, with R appended to make a mnemonic.[[1]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_4217)

Gold, silver, palladium and platinum have the codes XAU, XAG, XPD and XPT, formed by prefixing the element's chemical symbol with X.[[1]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_4217) ISO 4217 reserves the code XTS for testing.[[1]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_4217) The code XXX denotes a transaction involving no currency.[[1]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_4217) ISO 4217 also assigns each currency a three-digit numeric code, such as 840 for USD.[[1]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_4217)

SIX is the official Maintenance Agency of the ISO 4217 currency codes, providing the service on behalf of ISO and its Swiss member SNV (Swiss Association for Standardization).[[2]](https://www.six-group.com/en/products-services/financial-information/market-reference-data/data-standards.html) SIX says it continually updates the codes to reflect global economic and political changes.[[2]](https://www.six-group.com/en/products-services/financial-information/market-reference-data/data-standards.html)

### Use

The ISO 4217 code list is used in banking and business globally.[[1]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_4217) ISO 4217 alpha codes are used on airline tickets and international train tickets to remove any ambiguity about the price.[[1]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_4217) Java's java.util.Currency class identifies currencies by their ISO 4217 currency codes.[[3]](https://docs.oracle.com/en/java/javase/21/docs/api/java.base/java/util/Currency.html) Stripe's documentation tells developers to use all lowercase letters when entering the three-letter ISO code in any payment request.[[4]](https://docs.stripe.com/currencies) Fold a currency column to upper case before you match it against the code list. (Meridian's view)

### Where you'll meet it

The European Central Bank's daily euro reference rates file labels each rate with a three-letter currency code, such as USD, JPY and GBP.[[5]](https://www.ecb.europa.eu/stats/eurofxref/eurofxref-daily.xml)

## Sources

1. [ISO 4217](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_4217) — secondary source
2. [Global Financial Data Standards \| SIX](https://www.six-group.com/en/products-services/financial-information/market-reference-data/data-standards.html) — organisation
3. [Currency (Java SE 21 \& JDK 21)](https://docs.oracle.com/en/java/javase/21/docs/api/java.base/java/util/Currency.html) — documentation
4. [Supported currencies \| Stripe Documentation](https://docs.stripe.com/currencies) — documentation
5. [eurofxref-daily.xml](https://www.ecb.europa.eu/stats/eurofxref/eurofxref-daily.xml) — dataset