The electronic absorption and fluorescence spectra of coumarin and 11 substituted coumarins were measured in several solvents (dioxane, ethyl ether, ethyl acetate, ethanol, dimethylformamide, acetonitrile, and dimethyl sulfoxide). Ground-state dipole moments were determined in dioxane at 298 K. The results were used to obtain the first excited singlet-state dipole moments of the coumarins under study by the solvatochromic shift method (Bakhshiev, Kawski-Chamma-Viallet, McRae, and Suppan correlations). Also, the ground- and the first excited singlet-state dipole moments were calculated using a combination of the PPP method (π-contribution) and the vector sum of the σ-bond and group moments (σ-contribution). In general, the first excited singlet-state dipole moments of the coumarins are noticeably higher than the corresponding ground-state values, indicating a substantial redistribution of theπ-electron densities resulting in a more polar excited state. There is a reasonably good agreement between the calculated and the experimental dipole moments.