The dinar (Cyrillic script: динар) was the currency of the three Yugoslav states: the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (formerly the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes), the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia between 1918 and 2003. The dinar was subdivided into 100 para (Cyrillic script: пара). In the early 1990s, there was severe and prolonged hyperinflation due to a combination of economic mismanagement and criminality. Massive amounts of money were printed; coins became redundant; inflation rates reached the equivalent of 8.51×1029% per year. The highest denomination banknote was 500 billion dinars; it was worthless two weeks after it was printed. This hyperinflation caused five revaluations between 1990 and 1994; in total there were eight distinct dinari. Six of the eight have been given distinguishing names and separate ISO 4217 codes.

In 1944, as Yugoslavia began to be reconstituted, the Yugoslav dinar replaced the Serbian dinar, Independent State of Croatia kuna and other occupation currencies, with the rates of exchanged being 1 Yugoslav dinar = 20 Serbian dinara = 40 kuna. In May 1945, a peg of 50 dinara = 1 U.S. dollar was established but was not maintained.

In 1944, the Democratic Federation of Yugoslavia issued notes for 1, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 500 and 1000 dinara.