Dollar shortage: a 40% resort rule is in force and usable reserves are down to USD 170 million

This page sums up what nine published sources reported. It is a record of what outlets said, not original reporting.

The official rate is MVR 15.42 for a dollar. A licensed money changer quoted MVR 23.50 to an Indian truck driver in late October, the Maldives Independent reports. He paid the official rate in one bank transfer and a second payment took the total to MVR 23.50, which the paper says is 52% above the official rate, according to bank records it saw.¹

Five money changers told the driver dollars were unavailable, and one licensed by the central bank agreed to sell, the paper reports.¹ During a budget debate on Monday, opposition MP Abdul Ghafoor Moosa said the dollar was at MVR 23.¹

On 24 August, after the parallel rate passed MVR 22.80, Homeland Security Minister Ali Ihusaan promised a crackdown. He said police had identified seven exchangers who sold USD 76 million in nine months, with major resorts as their suppliers.¹ In mid-September, Economic Minister Mohamed Saeed said the black market rate had fallen below its level when the government took office in November 2023.¹

Parliament passed amendments to the Foreign Exchange Act on 26 August, and the President ratified them on 31 August. They came into force on 1 September.²

• Category A tourism establishments must convert 40% of their monthly gross sales through banks. The earlier option of converting USD 500 per tourist was removed.²
• Category B establishments must convert either USD 25 per tourist arrival or 20% of monthly gross sales.²
• Other businesses are covered once their foreign currency income passes USD 25 million a year, up from USD 15 million, and must convert 40% of monthly gross sales. Businesses that are 100% Maldivian-owned face a 7% requirement.²
• Converted money must go through a foreign currency account at a licensed bank, by the 28th of the following month.²
• Buying or selling foreign currency is limited to rates set by the central bank. Selling above them is a criminal offence, with fines of MVR 25,000 to MVR 1 million for individuals and MVR 100,000 to MVR 5 million for companies.²

The central bank has since revoked the licence of Express Money Exchange and suspended MS Finance Currency Exchange with a fine of MVR 500,000, the Maldives Independent reports.¹

President Mohamed Muizzu said the reforms rest on months of research, technical assessment and consultation. "We do not act arbitrarily," he said.³ Asked in November about the shortage, he said efforts were under way "on many fronts", and the result of efforts to reduce demand for the black market would be seen.¹

Economic Minister Mohamed Saeed told Parliament on 4 November that the current administration supplied USD 1.9 billion to banks at the official rate in its first three years, an 80% rise over the last three years of the previous government. He gave USD 483.53 million for 2024, USD 733.82 million for 2025 and USD 718.53 million so far in 2026.⁴

He was answering a no-confidence motion the opposition MDP filed in August, which accused him of failing to resolve the dollar shortage. He said the central bank, not he, sets foreign exchange policy, and that the 40% rule was needed because of the outlook he said the MDP government left behind.⁴

Former president Abdulla Yameen said in September that the 40% rule reflects economic mismanagement, and that earlier governments managed without forcing resorts to surrender their earnings. He said the rule had added to opposition to the government in the tourism industry.⁵

Former president Mohamed Nasheed wrote on X on 30 September that there had been "no relief", that the parallel rate kept rising, and that businesses could not make the transfers they needed to import goods. MV+ reports that he said the government expected USD 160 million by the end of September from the 40% rule and from foreign tour operators paying tourism tax in dollars, and that this had not helped. MV+ adds that the first deadline for converting September earnings fell on 28 October, and that the first dollar tax payments are due on 28 November.⁶

The tourism association MATI has warned that the 40% rule could add pressure on resorts, which have dollar costs including fuel, salaries, service charges, taxes, lease payments and foreign loans. The Tourism Employees Association of Maldives has launched a campaign against converting staff salaries and service charges to rufiyaa. It says employees from 42 resorts signed its petition on the first day.²

MV+ reports that the government says the measures are meant to raise the supply of dollars and their circulation in the economy.²

Usable reserves fell to USD 170 million at the end of September, down USD 31 million in the month and USD 60.4 million lower than a year earlier, according to the central bank's figures reported by Atoll Times. It says this was the biggest monthly fall this year, mainly because of a USD 50 million repayment to the State Bank of India. Gross official reserves were USD 547.8 million.⁷

Atoll Times calculates that this equals one to 2.4 months of essential imports, or about two weeks of all merchandise imports. It notes that the International Monetary Fund commonly uses three months of imports as a benchmark.⁷

Dollar tax revenue is rising. The tax authority MIRA collected about USD 1.3 billion in dollars in the first ten months of the year, up 6%, with the tourism tax contributing USD 622.5 million, or 48%.⁸ October collections were USD 96.2 million, up about 12% from October 2025 and down 24% from September's USD 126.8 million.^{8, 9}

Foreign workers paid in rufiyaa can send only part of their wages home through banks, the Maldives Independent reports. It says the State Bank of India cut the monthly remittance limit on rufiyaa accounts held by Indian nationals to USD 150 in October 2025, and that India's foreign ministry told its parliament the cap reflects the dollars the central bank allocates to banks.¹

Maldivians shopping online with rufiyaa-linked cards face a USD 250 monthly cap at Bank of Maldives, plus a shared daily allowance for the most-used websites that runs out in under a minute after it resets at 7am, the paper reports.¹

The central bank, Bank of Maldives and the State Bank of India did not respond to the paper's questions.¹

• Whether the new rules are raising the dollars available through banks. The listed sources give opposite readings.
• The size of the parallel-market premium, which the sources give only as individual quotes.
• What the central bank will do next.