Euro Converter (ECB Rates)

What does this euro converter do, and which rate does it use?

This euro converter turns euros into another currency, or back, at an official rate for a specific day. The rate matters more than the maths. On the same day, the ECB, your bank and your card provider can show three different figures. That is why the tool uses only official sources and names the source, rate and date under every result.

• ECB euro reference rates: one rate per currency for every TARGET business day, back to 4 January 1999.
• ECB monthly averages: the mean of a month's daily rates, which Germany's official VAT conversion list builds on.
• TCMB indicative rates: forex and cash rates of the Turkish central bank, for anyone who deals in Turkish lira.

I use it most in two cases: quoting a client abroad in euros, and booking a foreign currency invoice at home. In my e-commerce consulting work, we also agree on the reference rate before we build a single price list. In short, the server only fetches the rates, and your amounts never leave your browser.

How does the ECB set and publish its reference rates?

The ECB sets its reference rates after a daily concertation between central banks, normally around 14:10 CET. It then publishes them around 16:00 CET. However, there are no rates on weekends or TARGET closing days. Those include New Year's Day, Good Friday, Easter Monday, 1 May, 25 December and 26 December.

According to the ECB, the rates exist for information purposes only. The bank also strongly discourages using them for transactions. In other words, they are a neutral benchmark, not a price anyone has to trade at.

The list itself also changes over time:

• Bulgaria adopted the euro on 1 January 2026, so the lev left the list.
• The ECB suspended its Russian rouble rate in March 2022.
• Between December 2008 and January 2018 the ECB published no rate for the Icelandic krona.

For that reason, the currency menus load from the ECB's latest release, not from a fixed list.

How do you use the euro converter for a past date?

Checking an old invoice, a contract or a refund needs the rate of that day, not today's. Pick any date from 4 January 1999 to today. The converter then fetches that day's rate from the ECB Data Portal.

If the day falls on a weekend or a TARGET holiday, the ECB published no rate that day. In that case the tool steps back up to seven days and uses the last business day. A notice then shows the date it actually used, so a Sunday invoice date returns Friday's rate.

Two details matter for older dates:

• Before 2005, ECB lira values are old lira (TRL) divided by 1,000,000.
• Some currencies start later or have gaps. If the ECB has no rate that day, the converter says so instead of guessing.

Need a month rather than a day? Tick Monthly average rate and choose the month. And to count the days between two dates, the date calculator helps.

Why does your bank or card use a different rate?

An official rate is a benchmark; banks, card schemes and payment apps add a margin on top. So when you convert 1,000 euros, the amount that lands in your account can differ noticeably from the figure here. In other words, part of that gap is a visible fee, and the rest is a mark-up hidden inside the rate.

The EU made this easier to check. Regulation (EU) 2019/518 covers card payments between EU currencies. It requires providers to show their conversion charges as a percentage mark-up over the latest ECB reference rate. In practice you can measure your own mark-up in three steps:

1. Take the rate your bank applied from the statement.
2. Look up the ECB rate for the same day with this converter.
3. Divide the two and subtract 1; the percentage calculator turns the result into a clean percentage.

Abroad, when a card terminal offers to charge you in your home currency, choosing the local currency usually costs less. That is because with this dynamic currency conversion the merchant's provider sets the rate.

Which exchange rate should you use for VAT and bookkeeping?

It depends on the country whose rules you follow, so decide once and then apply the choice consistently.

• United Kingdom: VAT Notice 700 allows the UK market selling rate at the time of supply. As an alternative, you may use HMRC's period rate for customs. Other methods need HMRC approval, and HMRC publishes its monthly rates on the penultimate Thursday for the next month.
• Germany: section 16(6) of the VAT Act uses the monthly average the finance ministry announces. The tax office may allow a daily rate instead. Moreover, the ECB monthly average in this converter is the figure that list builds on.
• Türkiye: Turkish accounting rules refer to TCMB rates. Switch the source to TCMB to see its forex and cash rates.

For the tax itself, the VAT calculator adds or extracts VAT once the amount sits in the right currency. For critical filings, however, check the current guidance or ask your accountant.

How does the monthly average rate work?

The ECB derives a monthly average from its daily reference rates. It adds up the rates of every business day in the month, then divides by the number of rate days. The converter rounds that average to the ECB's own decimals for the currency. For example, that means four decimals for the US dollar and two for the yen.

I checked this against Germany's official VAT conversion lists, covering today's ECB currencies from January 2010 to August 2026. In total, 5,563 of 5,568 monthly values matched to the last decimal. Four of the five exceptions are typing errors in the list itself. The fifth is an exact halfway value that the list rounded down.

For example, the August 2026 average was 1.1593 US dollars per euro, so 10,000 dollars convert to 8,625.89 euros. Monthly averages therefore suit recurring bookkeeping, budgets and reports, because one rate covers a whole month. For a single payment, however, the daily rate of the payment date usually sits closer to what actually happened.

How do exchange rates affect international prices and ad budgets?

If you sell in one currency and pay costs in another, the exchange rate quietly moves your margin. Say you sell in euros and pay suppliers in pounds. When the euro weakens, your price stays the same, yet your margin shrinks. So build every foreign price list on a written rate assumption. Then review it on a fixed schedule with this converter.

• Price lists: note the rate assumption and the last review date for each market.
• Ad budgets: if your ad account bills in another currency, plan the monthly budget in your home currency too. The Google Ads budget calculator helps with that plan.
• Reporting: compare periods with the same source and the same rate type.

Before you enter a new market, read my guide to multilingual website SEO. For the budget side, see how to set a Google Ads budget.