Currency
From Alhannah
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The Riyal
The monetary unit of Qatar is the Qatari riyal, abbreviated QAR or QR. The paper bills come in denominations of 1, 5, 10, 50,100, and 500, and are different sizes and colors, with Arabic numerals printed on one side and English numerals printed on the other.
The Dirham
The riyal is divided into 100 dirhams. (Not to be confused with the Emirati dirham, which is of the same value as a Qatari riyal.) There are 25 and 50 dirham coins, but they are fairly uncommon, and often a store will round either up or down to the nearest riyal, or offer you a small package of gum or candy instead of giving you coins in change.
Exchange Rate
The Riyal is pegged to the dollar at the constant conversion rate $1=QR3.65, although if you're converting money at a bank you'll probably get a rate more like 3.64. For simplicity sake, you can divide QR by 3 and be pleasantly surprised to find the price in US dollars is somewhat less than that, (or divide by 4 and know the US dollar price is slightly more than that).
Alternatively, you can multiply by 3 and divide by 10, it gets you closer (~10% off) as opposed to 20%+ off like the divide by 3 method.
| Qatari Riyals | US Dollars |
| 1 | 0.28 |
| 5 | 1.38 |
| 10 | 2.80 |
| 50 | 13.80 |
| 100 | 27.77 |
| 500 | 138.88 |
Travelers Cheques
The use of travelers cheques is discouraged. They will not be accepted for currency conversion, and if you wish to deposit them into a Qatari account, there is a 21-day processing period. Using an ATM/credit card, or writing a check to yourself from an American account, is much easier (though regular checks normally have a 1-day processing period).
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