Currency converter
Convert between 20 currencies, with the rate and its age shown so you know what you are relying on.
Runs entirely in your browser. Nothing you enter is uploaded.
How this works
How the conversion works
Every rate in the table is quoted against a single base currency. Converting between any two currencies is therefore two steps: divide out of the source currency into the base, then multiply into the target.
result = amount / rate(from) × rate(to)
This is why the table can grow without the arithmetic changing. It also means all cross-rates are internally consistent: converting A to B to C gives exactly the same answer as converting A to C directly, which is not always true of quoted retail rates.
Mid-market versus what you pay
The rate shown here is the mid-market rate — the midpoint between the best bid and the best offer on the interbank market. It is the rate you see quoted in news reports, and it is the rate almost nobody actually transacts at.
| Where you change money | Typical spread over mid-market |
|---|---|
| Specialist transfer services | 0.3–0.7% |
| Card networks (Visa/Mastercard) | 0.5–1%, plus any issuer fee |
| High street bank transfer | 1.5–3%, often plus a fixed fee |
| Airport bureau de change | 7–15% |
The practical consequence is that where you convert matters far more than when, for any amount an individual is likely to move. A 12% airport spread wipes out a year of favourable rate movement in a single transaction.
Dynamic currency conversion
When a foreign card terminal asks whether you want to pay in your home currency, it is offering dynamic currency conversion. It sounds helpful — you see a familiar number — but the conversion is performed by the merchant's payment processor at a rate it sets, commonly 3–6% worse than the network rate. Always choose the local currency and let your own card network do the conversion.
Why the rate age is on the page
Most converters show a number with no indication of when it was true. In a calm week, a rate three days old is within a fraction of a percent of the current one and perfectly usable for estimating a holiday budget or checking an invoice. In a week where a central bank moves, it can be several percent out.
Rather than hide that, the tool prints the capture date and the age in days, and warns when the table is more than a couple of days old. If you are about to send money, check a live source; if you are working out roughly what a hotel costs, this is fine.
A note on rounding
Currencies do not all have the same number of decimal places. Japanese yen and Korean won have none; most others have two; a few have three. The amounts here are formatted using each currency's own convention, so a yen figure will not show cents. The underlying calculation keeps full precision, and only the display is rounded.
Common questions
- Are these rates live?
- No, and the page tells you so. The rate table is captured on a date shown under the result, and the tool reports how many days old it is. Keeping the rates as a static file is what lets the whole converter run in your browser with nothing to call and nothing to log — the trade-off is freshness, and the honest thing is to show it rather than imply a live feed.
- Why does my bank give me less than this?
- Because this is the mid-market rate: the midpoint between what buyers and sellers are quoting on the interbank market. Nobody sells to retail customers at that price. Banks and card networks add a spread, typically 0.5% to 3%, and may add a fixed fee on top. Treat the figure here as the ceiling of what you could get.
- How much does the spread actually cost me?
- On a 2,000 holiday budget, a 3% spread costs 60 and a 0.5% spread costs 10. The gap between a bad card and a good one on a single trip is usually larger than any amount of shopping around for a better mid-market rate, because the mid-market rate is the same for everyone.
- Which rate applies to my card transaction?
- Usually the network rate on the day the transaction settles, not the day you spent. That can be one to three days later, which matters in a volatile week. If a shop offers to charge you in your home currency instead of the local one, decline it — that conversion is done at a rate the merchant chooses, and it is nearly always worse.
- Can I add a currency?
- The rate table is a plain list keyed by currency code, and the conversion goes through the base currency, so a new currency is one line. If one you need is missing, ask and it can be added.