Why does the Swiss Franc (CHF) have no symbol while all(?) other currencies do?
May 6, 2025
The Swiss France doesn't have a symbol such as $,€,¥,£.
Why is this?
Did the Swiss not want a symbol for some reason?
11 comments
Only a few currencies have symbols. NOK, SEK, PLN, CZK, BAM, RON, HUF are some more European currencies that don’t have dedicated symbols
For some reason Francs never had a symbol. French francs, Belgian francs and Luxembourgish francs also didn’t have a symbol… except for a standard F maybe..
The Dutch guilder and German mark had a symbol.. not sure about other countries. And AFAIK the German symbol was barely used, and they usually used DM.
Only the Dutch guilder used ƒ usually, abbreviated to hfl or fl or even f.
Before the euro, lots of currencies in Europe had no symbol. To my knowledge, the krona/krone in Scandinavia does not have a symbol, just the abbreviation kr.
Belgian and Luxembourgish francs didn’t have a symbol either, and I think France also simply used ‘F’.
The Scandinavian coins also don’t have one.
I think many currencies don’t.
E.g in Norway, Denmark, and Iceland people use kroner/króna and it is written “kr.”
(Sometimes with the country initial first to differentiate them from each other)
Many currencies do not have a dedicated symbol, other than some abbreviation of the name.
It’s less visible now because a lot of currencies were replaced by the Euro, but e.g. the Greek drachma was just Δρ. too, the French Franc was Fr., the German Mark was just DM, and so on.
It’s just that the currencies that survived coincidentally have unique symbols (or there’s some mysterious correlation about which currencies survive and having a symbol).
Almost no currency has a symbol.
Only the JPY, GBP, EUR and Peso have a currency sign. The USD borrows the Peso sign.
I think most currencies don’t have a dedicated symbol, rather they use one or more letters of the local alphabet for the currency. Like Swedish krona just being denoted kr, two letters from the alphabet without a special ligature or dedicated symbol.
Looks like [Wikipedia confirms](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currency_symbol) my intuition, with a couple dozen currencies using $. According to that page, the formal symbol for the Swiss franc would be F, but I’m not sure if that’s correct – during my time in Zurich I generally saw prices denoted with Fr if they had a symbol.
If you think all other currencies have a sign, you don’t really seem to grasp how many currencies there are in the world. Besides, they use CHF. It’s currency that isn’t used anywhere outside of Switzerland.
It’s funny reading this thread as I’d never realised that currencies having a symbol was such an exclusive thing. Portugal’s currency before the Euro, the escudo, had a symbol as well – it looked like $ but with two strikes through it, and the symbol itself had a name too (cifrão) – so it would also strike me as unusual that a currency wouldn’t have a symbol.
Most do not have one.
Can’t think of any former or current European currencies that do have a symbol other than Euro and the Pound.
11 comments
Only a few currencies have symbols. NOK, SEK, PLN, CZK, BAM, RON, HUF are some more European currencies that don’t have dedicated symbols
For some reason Francs never had a symbol. French francs, Belgian francs and Luxembourgish francs also didn’t have a symbol… except for a standard F maybe..
The Dutch guilder and German mark had a symbol.. not sure about other countries. And AFAIK the German symbol was barely used, and they usually used DM.
Only the Dutch guilder used ƒ usually, abbreviated to hfl or fl or even f.
Before the euro, lots of currencies in Europe had no symbol. To my knowledge, the krona/krone in Scandinavia does not have a symbol, just the abbreviation kr.
Belgian and Luxembourgish francs didn’t have a symbol either, and I think France also simply used ‘F’.
The Scandinavian coins also don’t have one.
I think many currencies don’t.
E.g in Norway, Denmark, and Iceland people use kroner/króna and it is written “kr.”
(Sometimes with the country initial first to differentiate them from each other)
Many currencies do not have a dedicated symbol, other than some abbreviation of the name.
It’s less visible now because a lot of currencies were replaced by the Euro, but e.g. the Greek drachma was just Δρ. too, the French Franc was Fr., the German Mark was just DM, and so on.
It’s just that the currencies that survived coincidentally have unique symbols (or there’s some mysterious correlation about which currencies survive and having a symbol).
Almost no currency has a symbol.
Only the JPY, GBP, EUR and Peso have a currency sign. The USD borrows the Peso sign.
I think most currencies don’t have a dedicated symbol, rather they use one or more letters of the local alphabet for the currency. Like Swedish krona just being denoted kr, two letters from the alphabet without a special ligature or dedicated symbol.
Looks like [Wikipedia confirms](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currency_symbol) my intuition, with a couple dozen currencies using $. According to that page, the formal symbol for the Swiss franc would be F, but I’m not sure if that’s correct – during my time in Zurich I generally saw prices denoted with Fr if they had a symbol.
If you think all other currencies have a sign, you don’t really seem to grasp how many currencies there are in the world. Besides, they use CHF. It’s currency that isn’t used anywhere outside of Switzerland.
It’s funny reading this thread as I’d never realised that currencies having a symbol was such an exclusive thing. Portugal’s currency before the Euro, the escudo, had a symbol as well – it looked like $ but with two strikes through it, and the symbol itself had a name too (cifrão) – so it would also strike me as unusual that a currency wouldn’t have a symbol.
Most do not have one.
Can’t think of any former or current European currencies that do have a symbol other than Euro and the Pound.