Foreign-Currency Accounts in Sudan: The Rules and What They Mean in Practice (2026)

If you are paid in dollars, receive money from relatives abroad, or run a business that earns hard currency, one question comes up quickly in Sudan: can you actually hold that money as dollars in a Sudanese bank, or does it have to become Sudanese pounds the moment it lands?

The answer is yes, you can — but through a specific, regulated product with its own rulebook. Sudan does not treat a foreign-currency account as just an ordinary account denominated in a different currency. It is a distinct category with its own eligibility rules, its own restrictions on where the money may come from, and its own limits on what you may do with it. Those rules have also tightened during the war.

This guide explains the framework as the Central Bank of Sudan (CBOS) has set it out, what a real bank product looks like when the rules are applied, and — just as importantly — which parts you must confirm for yourself before relying on them.

What a "foreign-currency account" actually means in Sudan

The term you will meet at the counter is a free account in foreign currency — in Arabic, hisab hurr bil-naqd al-ajnabi (حساب حر بالنقد الأجنبي). The word "free" is doing real work here. It distinguishes this account from a special account, which is a restricted, purpose-tied foreign-currency account: money in it is earmarked for a defined use, such as a specific import transaction or a particular project.

A free account is the general-purpose version. It is the one an individual, a professional, or an ordinary trading business would hold. The framework governing it comes from CBOS Policy Circular No. 1/2015, issued under Article 20 of the 2013 Foreign Currency Regulation by-law, which sets out how banks open and manage these accounts.

Alongside the general framework, CBOS has issued a series of circulars creating foreign-currency account rules for specific categories of holder — hotels and tourism businesses, higher-education institutions, local contractors, and entities operating in Sudan's free zones each have their own dedicated circular. That structure tells you something useful before you walk into a branch: if you fall into one of those categories, your account may be governed by rules that do not apply to an ordinary individual, and the branch will treat your application differently.

Because every licensed bank in Sudan operates on Sharia-compliant principles, none of this involves conventional interest. A foreign-currency current account is a safekeeping arrangement; a foreign-currency savings or investment account participates in profit-sharing instead. If that distinction is new to you, how Sudanese banking actually works covers the underlying contracts before you choose between the two.

Who may open one

Under the CBOS framework, banks may open free foreign-currency accounts for Sudanese persons, natural or legal — meaning individuals and Sudanese-registered companies — without having to refer each application up to the Central Bank. That is what makes these accounts practically obtainable rather than a special-permission product.

Two boundaries are worth knowing:

Government bodies and public institutions are excluded. The rules explicitly direct banks not to open free foreign-currency accounts for government agencies or public institutions. This is not a discretionary matter the branch can help you around.

Non-Sudanese holders are treated differently. Foreign individuals are contemplated by the rules but carry an extra condition: for their savings and investment accounts, reinvesting the money abroad is barred until a minimum of one year has passed from the deposit date. In practice, banks track nationality on these accounts closely — Bank of Khartoum's published rules for its Premium Foreign Account, for example, permit transfers from one Sudanese customer to another and from one non-Sudanese customer to another, but prohibit transfers across nationalities. If you are a foreign national banking in Sudan, or a Sudanese national trying to move money to a foreign-national counterparty, ask about this specifically before you plan around it.

The account-opening documentation itself follows the same identity and address requirements as any Sudanese bank account, plus whatever CBOS regulations require for the foreign-currency category. If you have not opened a Sudanese account before, how to open a bank account in Sudan walks through the base process, and this sits on top of it.

Before any of that, confirm the institution is licensed. This matters more for hard currency than for anything else, because an unlicensed operator holding your dollars is a far worse outcome than one holding pounds — how to check if a bank or lender is licensed shows you the CBOS locator to use.

Where the money is allowed to come from

This is the part that surprises people, and it is where accounts most often run into trouble.

A free foreign-currency current account may be funded by, in the framework's own framing, any amounts and by any payment method — except for three specific sources:

• Amounts purchased from banks or exchange companies. You cannot buy hard currency in the local market and then deposit it into your free account. The account is designed to receive foreign currency you have genuinely earned or been sent, not currency you have converted into.
• Ordinary cheques made payable to someone other than the account holder. Third-party cheques will not be accepted into the account.
• Transfers from special accounts. Money that is sitting in a restricted, purpose-tied account cannot be moved sideways into your general-purpose free account, with only limited exceptions such as certain insurance and rent payments.

Underlying all of this is a documentation expectation: these accounts are meant to have continuous foreign-currency inflows with supporting documents retained. Your bank is expected to be able to show where the money came from. Keep transfer confirmations, salary evidence, and export documentation — not because a clerk is being awkward, but because the retention requirement sits in the rules.

The clean, uncontroversial funding sources are therefore international transfers, salary payments in foreign currency, and — for exporters — genuine export proceeds. If money is reaching you from relatives abroad, how to receive money from abroad in Sudan explains the payout side, and senders will find the corridor-by-corridor detail in the complete guide to sending money to Sudan.

What you may do with the balance

Three permitted uses sit in the framework:

Transfer it abroad, once the supporting documentation for the transfer has been satisfied. This is the single most valuable feature of the account for anyone with obligations outside Sudan — tuition, medical treatment, family support, or supplier payments. Note the condition: the documentation comes first.

Withdraw it in cash, but according to your bank's own internal policy. The rules hand this decision to the bank rather than setting a universal entitlement, which means the answer genuinely varies between institutions and, during the war, between branches. Never assume a cash withdrawal in hard currency will be available on demand. Ask what your specific branch will actually do, and ask again if time has passed — this is exactly the kind of policy that moves.

Sell it to a bank or exchange company at their declared rate. This converts your balance into Sudanese pounds through the formal channel.

That third route deserves care, because the rate you get is the bank's declared rate, not the parallel-market rate. CBOS publishes daily indicative foreign-currency rates on its own website, and comparing those against what your branch actually quotes is a five-minute check worth doing before you convert a meaningful sum.

One practical trap: conversion inside a banking app may only run one way. Bank of Khartoum's published rules for its Premium Foreign Account state that currency conversion via the Bankak app is available from foreign currency into Sudanese pounds only. You can convert out of hard currency on your phone; you cannot convert back into it the same way. If your plan depends on moving in and out of dollars flexibly, that asymmetry will break it. How Bankak works covers the app's wider limits, which have been revised more than once during the war.

What changed in January 2025 — and why it matters most

In late January 2025, CBOS is reported to have issued a circular tightening the rules on free foreign-currency accounts in two specific ways: prohibiting the replenishment of free accounts with foreign currency through cash supply, and prohibiting the use of customers' own free-account resources to import goods. The stated rationale was to reduce demand for hard currency on the parallel market and slow the pound's decline.

Treat that as reported rather than settled. The description above comes from news coverage; the primary circular text is not publicly retrievable, so confirm the current position with CBOS or your own bank before planning around it.

It matters because it changes the answer to the two questions people most often have. If cash replenishment is restricted, then physically carrying dollars into a branch and depositing them may no longer be an available route to funding your account — leaving international transfer and salary payment as the practical channels. And if using your own free-account balance to import goods is restricted, then a trader who assumed a hard-currency account was a way to self-finance imports needs a different plan.

There is a visible tension worth naming honestly. Bank of Khartoum's published product page for its Premium Foreign Account still lists "cash deposit" among permitted deposit sources. That may reflect a page not yet updated, a distinction between account types, or a subsequent relaxation. It is not something to resolve by guessing. Ask the branch directly whether cash deposits into your specific account are currently accepted, and treat any published page — theirs or anyone else's — as needing confirmation.

Is the money protected?

Sudan has a Deposit Guarantee Fund Act among the legislation CBOS lists, and a Banks Deposit Security Fund exists to administer deposit protection. What is not something you should take on trust is whether foreign-currency balances are covered, and up to what limit. Protection schemes commonly define their covered-deposit list narrowly and exclude specific categories.

We could not confirm the current scope from the Fund's own materials while preparing this guide, so we are not going to tell you your dollars are protected. Ask your bank to show you, in writing, whether your foreign-currency balance falls within the Fund's covered deposits and what the limit is. If the branch cannot answer, that is itself information.

Deciding whether it is worth it

A hard-currency account solves one problem extremely well and creates a few others.

The case for it is straightforward in an economy where the pound has lost value rapidly and unpredictably. Money held in dollars does not erode against the dollar. If you earn in foreign currency, have obligations abroad, or are saving toward something priced in hard currency, holding the currency you will eventually spend removes an entire layer of risk.

The case against it is access. Your balance is only as useful as your ability to reach it. Cash withdrawal is at the bank's discretion, transfers abroad require documentation, and conversion may only run one way through the app. A balance you cannot get to in an emergency is not an emergency fund. Many households sensibly split the difference — keeping a working amount in pounds that they can actually spend day to day, and holding longer-horizon money in hard currency.

The case for looking closely at the specific product is that the rules leave real discretion to banks, which means two accounts governed by the identical CBOS framework can behave very differently. Compare on the things that will actually bind you: what the branch will do about cash withdrawals, whether the account is current or investment and how profit-sharing works if the latter, what documentation the bank wants for an outward transfer, and how conversion is priced against the CBOS daily rate. The same discipline applies to local-currency saving, and comparing two banks' savings products in Sudan sets out the method. You can also model what a balance does over time with our savings calculator, and see what accounts are listed on compare bank accounts.

There is one more consideration specific to Sudan right now: documentation you cannot easily reproduce. These accounts run on retained supporting documents, and the war has separated a great many people from their paperwork. If you are displaced or your records are with a branch you cannot reach, resolve the documentation question before you commit to a product that depends on it.

Frequently asked questions

Can I be forced to convert an incoming transfer into Sudanese pounds? A CBOS directive issued in December 2017 required banks to hand expatriate remittances over in the same currency as the transfer, through designated branches. That is a longstanding principle rather than a current guarantee — it predates the devaluation and the war by years. Ask your receiving bank what it will actually pay out in today, and in what currency, before you rely on receiving dollars.

Can I deposit dollars I bought from an exchange bureau? No. The framework specifically excludes amounts purchased from banks or exchange companies from the permitted funding sources for a free account. The account is built to receive foreign currency you have earned or been sent.

Can I open one for my registered company? Sudanese legal persons — companies registered in Sudan — fall within the category banks may open free foreign-currency accounts for without referring the application to CBOS. Government bodies and public institutions may not. If your business is in tourism, higher education, contracting, or a free zone, ask whether the category-specific circular for your sector applies to you instead of the general one.

How much can I transfer at a time? CBOS has set and repeatedly revised transfer ceilings during the war, and any figure quoted online is likely to be out of date. We are deliberately not printing a number. Ask your bank for its current limits on the day you need them, and expect them to have changed since the last time you asked.

What if my branch has closed? Foreign-currency accounts are held with the bank, not the branch, but in practice access has depended heavily on which branches are operating. Do not assume your balance is unreachable, and do not assume it is easily reachable either — contact the bank through its app or head office to establish where your account can currently be serviced, and see how to choose a bank when your branch is unreachable.

Is a foreign-currency savings account better than a current account? They do different jobs. A current account is for holding and moving money; a savings or investment account participates in profit-sharing and is intended for money you can leave alone. Note that for non-Sudanese holders, savings and investment accounts carry a minimum one-year wait before the money may be reinvested abroad — check whether that applies to you before choosing.

Reviewed 4 August 2026. Rules governing foreign-currency accounts in Sudan have changed repeatedly during the war, and the primary text of the most recent restrictions was not publicly retrievable when this was written. Confirm the current position with the Central Bank of Sudan or your own bank before acting on anything here.

This is general information, not financial advice. It does not take account of your circumstances.