About the AUD/MVR rate
The AUD/MVR rate is how many MVR one Australian dollar buys. It moves constantly with interest-rate expectations, commodity prices and global risk sentiment - see what moves the rate. Tradergy shows the mid-market reference rate and does not forecast where it’s heading. For the 52-week highs and lows and a daily table, see the AUD/MVR rate history.
Reading the same rate from the other side: the reverse rate, MVR → AUD, is on the receiving Maldivian rufiyaa view, and sending Australian dollars to the Maldives is covered on the AUD → MVR transfer page. Every AUD pair sits on the convert hub, and to work in more than one currency at once there is the currency converter.
How the Maldives converts its visitors into reserves
Legislation in the Maldives fixes the country's supply of foreign exchange, and prices it per head. The Foreign Currency Act, Law No. 32/2024, took effect on 1 January 2025. It requires operators in its first category, which covers tourist resorts, integrated tourist resorts, private islands and resort hotels, to convert into rufiyaa either an amount equal to US$500 for each tourist arriving in a calendar month, or 20 per cent of the establishment's gross foreign currency sales for that month. The operator chooses which.
A second category in the Act, covering tourist vessels, hotels and guesthouses, carries the same structure with a smaller figure: US$25 per tourist, or the same 20 per cent of gross foreign currency sales.
The chain does not stop at the commercial bank. Under section 13 the bank must in turn sell a percentage of the foreign currency it receives to the Monetary Authority, at a proportion and within a period the Authority determines, which is what converts a rule about resorts into a reserve accumulation mechanism.
The counting rules matter to the arithmetic and are set out explicitly. Tourists staying less than twenty four hours are excluded, as are those under the age of twelve, guests staying free of charge or on a complimentary basis, and guests visiting under special privileges from the government.
The whole scheme is a carve-out from a more general rule. Section 3 provides that all monetary transactions or obligations carried out in the Maldives be offered and settled in rufiyaa; accepting foreign currency for goods and services sold to tourists is a permitted exception. Failing to convert what the Act requires attracts a fine of up to 0.5 per cent of the amount that should have been converted, chargeable per day.
Sources: Maldives Monetary Authority, Foreign Currency Act, Law No. 32/2024