Dominica: Currency & Financial System

Dominica's official currency is the Eastern Caribbean dollar (EC$), which it has used since 1965 as one of eight territories in the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union. The currency is issued and managed jointly with the island's regional partners rather than by a national central bank of Dominica's own.

Monetary policy and currency issuance fall to the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB), a regional institution headquartered in Basseterre, Saint Kitts and Nevis, that serves Dominica alongside Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and the territories of Anguilla and Montserrat. As of 2026, the EC dollar remains fixed to the US dollar at a rate of EC$2.70 per US$1, a peg the ECCB has maintained since July 1976 and regularly highlights as a source of monetary stability for its member economies.

Dominica's domestic banking sector includes both regional institutions and international commercial banks such as Scotiabank and the Royal Bank of Canada, alongside a smaller offshore financial services industry. That offshore sector expanded after Dominica responded to pressure from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in the late 1990s by tightening transparency and information-sharing standards to avoid blacklisting as a harmful tax jurisdiction. Financial services, together with the country's citizenship-by-investment program, have grown into one of Dominica's largest sources of government revenue, a shift that has reduced the economy's historical reliance on agriculture.