Renminbi (RMB)
Renminbi is the official name of the currency of the People’s Republic of China. RMB is the common abbreviation, while yuan is the unit in which renminbi amounts are counted.
Also called: Chinese yuan
Renminbi means "people's currency" and is the name of the money itself, issued by the People's Bank of China. Contracts, invoices and bank instructions rarely use the full word; they use RMB in prose and CNY as the currency code. For a buyer paying a Chinese supplier, the practical point is that "renminbi" describes one currency, even though it trades in two markets with two prices: onshore inside Mainland China and offshore elsewhere.
That split matters more than the name. Renminbi held in a Mainland bank account sits inside China's foreign-exchange and capital-control framework. Renminbi held in Hong Kong, Singapore or London is the same currency but moves under different rules and is priced as CNH. An invoice that simply says "RMB 500,000" does not tell you which market the supplier expects to be paid from, or which rate your provider will use to buy it.
For an importer, the useful questions are therefore narrower than "can I pay in renminbi?" Ask whether the beneficiary account can receive RMB from abroad, whether your provider will deliver onshore or offshore RMB, and what rate and fees apply at each step. The China Payments guides walk through those choices for a typical supplier payment. Getting those answers in writing before the first order saves a query later.
In practice
Paying in renminbi is not automatically cheaper than paying in US dollars. The comparison depends on the rate your provider offers for the specific market it buys from, the fees on each leg, and whether the supplier prices differently in each currency.
Example
A furniture importer receives two quotes for the same order: USD 72,000 or RMB 500,000. At an illustrative rate of 7.10 RMB per dollar, the RMB quote costs about USD 70,400 before fees. If the provider's rate is 7.00, it costs about USD 71,430. The saving depends on the executable rate, not the headline currency.
Commonly confused with
| Term | How it differs |
|---|---|
| Yuan | Renminbi is the currency; the yuan is the unit amounts are counted in. Prices are quoted in yuan, but the currency being paid is renminbi. |
See also
- YuanThe yuan is the unit of account used to state an amount of renminbi, much as the pound is a unit of sterling. In everyday use, people often use yuan, RMB and CNY interchangeably, although they have different technical meanings.
- CNYCNY is the official ISO 4217 currency code for renminbi. In financial-market discussions, CNY also commonly refers to the onshore RMB market and exchange rate inside Mainland China.
- CNHCNH is the market convention used to identify renminbi traded and held outside Mainland China, particularly in Hong Kong. CNH is not a separate sovereign currency or an independent ISO 4217 currency code.
- Onshore RMBOnshore RMB refers to renminbi circulating within Mainland China’s domestic banking and financial system. It is generally associated with CNY pricing, Mainland liquidity and China’s foreign-exchange and capital-control framework.
- Offshore RMBOffshore RMB is renminbi held, traded or financed outside Mainland China, most prominently in Hong Kong. It gives international businesses access to RMB liquidity, but it does not provide unrestricted access to Mainland accounts.