How the ECB sets its daily euro reference rates, and their limits

What the reference rates are

Each reference rate is the number of units of a currency that one euro buys. The euro is always the base currency, so the ECB publishes 1.1215 for the US dollar (dollars per euro) and 177.34 for the yen (yen per euro), not the other way round. The daily file for 20 October 2026, eurofxref-daily.xml, lists 29 currencies, from the US dollar to the South African rand. We counted them in the file itself.

The ECB’s framework document for the rates, dated 23 June 2026, sets out who is covered. The list includes the official currency of every EU member state outside the euro area, plus the currencies with the most liquid spot markets, and the ECB can add others. Currencies also leave the list. The historical file’s last Bulgarian lev rate is dated 31 December 2025, the day before Bulgaria joined the euro area; the last Croatian kuna rate is dated 30 December 2022. The Russian rouble was suspended in a different way: the ECB says it cannot set a rate representative of market conditions, and its last EUR/RUB rate was published on 1 March 2022.

How the daily fixing is set

The ECB’s page says the rates are based on a daily concertation procedure between central banks across Europe, which normally takes place around 14:10 CET, and are usually published around 16:00 CET on every working day except TARGET closing days. The framework names the ECB as administrator and the other participating central banks as calculation agents, and it states that the rates are not subject to the IOSCO principles for financial benchmarks.

The framework also describes the method. There is no panel and no polling of banks. For most currencies on the list the ECB uses firm quotes and, where available, trades from the major FX platforms, aiming for a rate traded directly against the euro. Where the rate is set from quotes, it is the mid, the arithmetic average of the bid and the ask. Every captured rate goes through tolerance checks, and a quote older than 30 seconds is not treated as actively traded unless the pair has moved little. For currencies that trade mainly against the dollar, the direct euro rate is compared with the rate via the dollar, and the dollar cross is used if the two differ significantly. ECB staff can apply judgement, especially in thinner markets.

One more rule matters for anyone storing the data: the ECB can amend or republish a rate, but never after the next business day’s rate for that currency has been published.

Why a broker’s quote differs at the same moment

The framework defines a reference rate as one not intended for use in market transactions, directly or as an underlying benchmark, and the ECB’s page says using the rates for transaction purposes is strongly discouraged. Three things separate the fixing from a dealing price.

First, timing. The reference rate reflects the market around 14:10 CET. EUR/USD trades around the clock on weekdays, so by the 16:00 CET publication the market has already moved on, and a chart of the fixing shows one point per day where the market traded continuously.

Second, the spread. Where it is set from quotes, the fixing is a mid. A bank or broker shows a bid below the mid and an ask above it, and adds its own markup, so a customer buying euros pays more than the reference rate and a customer selling receives less.

Third, rounding and coverage. The fixing is published to a fixed number of digits, while dealers quote finer prices, and a thinly traded currency can rest more on quotes and staff judgement than on trades. None of this makes the reference rate wrong; it is a different thing from a tradable price.

A worked example: inverting and building crosses

All the inputs are the ECB reference rates for 20 October 2026: USD 1.1215, GBP 0.84028, JPY 177.34 and CHF 0.9237, each per 1 euro.

Inverting. The euro in dollars is 1.1215, so the dollar in euros is 1 ÷ 1.1215 = 0.89166, or 0.8917 to four decimals. Because 1.1215 is itself rounded, the true fixing lay somewhere between 1.12145 and 1.12155, and the inverse between 0.89162 and 0.89170. The fifth decimal of an inverted rate carries no information.

Crosses. A rate between two non-euro currencies is the ratio of their euro rates, with the euro cancelling out. GBP/USD (dollars per pound) is 1.1215 ÷ 0.84028 = 1.33467. USD/JPY (yen per dollar) is 177.34 ÷ 1.1215 = 158.1275. USD/CHF is 0.9237 ÷ 1.1215 = 0.82363. The same rounding of the inputs limits these too: USD/JPY could be anywhere from 158.116 to 158.139, a spread of more than two hundredths of a yen.

The order of operations matters. Inverting EUR/USD first, rounding to 0.8917, and then multiplying gives USD/CHF 0.8917 × 0.9237 = 0.82366, or 0.8237, not the 0.8236 that the direct division gives. Dividing the unrounded published rates and rounding once at the end avoids the drift.

A cross built this way is two fixings divided, not a GBP/USD or USD/JPY price observed in the market, and it carries the same 14:10 CET timing. The arithmetic of turning rate gaps into forward rates, using these same 20 October fixings, is in our piece at /articles/interest-rate-differentials-forward-points-central-banks.

EUR/USD over 90 days, a month and a year

The ECB’s 90-day file covers calendar days, so on 21 October 2026 it held 64 fixings, from 23 July to 20 October 2026. In that window EUR/USD reached its highest fixing, 1.1699, on 21 August and its lowest, 1.1177, on 7 October. The simple average of the 64 fixings was 1.1463 (our calculation). The 20 October fixing of 1.1215 was 0.0248 below that average, 4.14% below the high (1.1215 ÷ 1.1699 − 1) and 0.0038 above the low.

For the month, 20 September 2026 was a Sunday, so we use the last fixing before it, 1.1460 on Friday 18 September. EUR/USD fell 0.0245, or 2.14% (1.1215 ÷ 1.1460 − 1). For the year, the 20 October 2025 fixing was 1.1655, so the fall was 0.0440, or 3.78% (1.1215 ÷ 1.1655 − 1). Comparison dates matter: the first fixing after 20 September, 1.1490 on 21 September, would give a monthly fall of 2.39% instead.

Where we use the ECB rate on PYE Markets

Our rates page at /rates carries a small table headed “ECB reference rates”. Our data pipeline, which runs every two hours, reads the latest observation for six currencies from the ECB Data Portal (the EXR series for USD, GBP, JPY, CHF, AUD and CAD against the euro) and keeps only currencies fixed on the same day, so every cross uses one fixing. EUR/USD is shown as the ECB reference rate itself. GBP/USD, AUD/USD, USD/JPY, USD/CHF and USD/CAD are labelled “derived from ECB reference rates”: they are divisions like the ones above, rounded to four decimals (two for yen). For 20 October 2026 the table showed EUR/USD 1.1215, GBP/USD 1.3347, USD/JPY 158.13 and USD/CHF 0.8236.

The table states the fixing date and says it is one daily value, not a quote to deal at. If a run cannot reach the ECB, the page keeps the last fixing it had and marks it as not refreshed on the last run. Our central bank tracker at /central-banks uses the ECB’s own data for policy rates, not these exchange rates.

How to check the numbers yourself

Every figure here can be redone from the ECB’s own files.

• The day’s rates: the ECB’s euro foreign exchange reference rates page, or eurofxref-daily.xml for the same numbers in machine-readable form.
• The 90-day window: eurofxref-hist-90d.xml. Count the dated blocks to see how many fixings it holds, and find the high and low for any currency.
• Full history since 4 January 1999: eurofxref-hist.zip, one CSV row per day, with N/A where a currency was not on the list.
• A single series with metadata: the ECB Data Portal series EXR.D.USD.EUR.SP00.A for EUR/USD; swap USD for another currency code. Its values match the XML files for the dates used here.
• For crosses, divide the unrounded published rates and round once at the end.