Reference rates, not the rate you will get
The number here is a mid-market reference: the midpoint between what buyers and sellers are quoting. Nobody transacts at it. What you actually pay includes a spread that depends on how you are paying:
| Method | Typical spread over reference | | --- | --- | | Interbank transfer | smallest | | Card payment abroad | 1–3%, plus any bank fee | | Airport cash exchange | often 5–10% |
Knowing the reference rate tells you how much of what you are being charged is the exchange and how much is the fee.
Cross rates
Rates are quoted against a single base, so converting between two other currencies goes through it. That is standard and accurate to the precision the source provides, but it means a cross rate can differ slightly from a directly quoted pair.
The one networked tool
Every other tool on this site works with the network off, which is the point of building them in the browser. This one cannot: a rate is information about the world, not a calculation. It is fetched through this site's own endpoint and cached, so the provider sees one request an hour rather than one per visitor.
Questions
How current are the rates?+
Updated daily and cached for an hour. These are reference rates, not trading rates: a bank or an exchange will give you something worse, and a card payment abroad adds its own spread on top. Use this to understand a price, not to predict what you will be charged.
Why does this tool need the network when nothing else here does?+
Because exchange rates are external facts that change daily. Everything else on this site is computation your browser can do alone; a rate has to come from somewhere. It is fetched through this site rather than directly, so your browser never contacts the rate provider.
What rate will my bank actually give me?+
Worse than this one, typically by 1–3% for a card payment and more for cash exchange. The difference is the spread, and it is how currency exchange makes money. Treat the reference rate as the floor of what is possible.
Which currencies are included?+
Over 160, including the ones most reference tables omit — Russian rouble, Kazakh tenge, Kyrgyz som, Uzbek sum, Armenian dram and Georgian lari.