Exchange Rate Service
We have consolidated the locations that exchange rate data is made available into one place to make it easier for users to find the data they’re looking for, and to facilitate HMRC process automation. The new service is available here - Exchange Rates. It can be found in the ‘Tools’ section of the UK Trade Tariff pages.
The new exchange rate service will list all rate types applying to 2021 (inclusive). The old service will no longer be updated and can be found in the National Archives.
What are the different Rate types?
| Rate type | Description |
|---|---|
| Monthly | These are published on the penultimate Thursday of every month. For traders, they apply to the following calendar month. |
| Spot | This is published on 31st March and 31st December every year. It reflects the exchange rates at that point in time. |
| Average | This is also published on 31st March and 31st December every year. It reflects the mean average of all exchange rates which have been present in all Monthly exchange rate files that apply to the 12 month period leading up to the given publication date (e.g. January - December). |
A new API
An API is now available for exchange rates. It can be used to look up Monthly and Spot rates back to 2021 (inclusive) as well as newly published rates. Average rates will be available in the API for files published from December 2023 onwards. You can find our Exchange Rate API documentation here - Exchange Rate API.
Expect more changes:
HMRC is currently reviewing the taxonomy of country names, ISO codes, and currencies associated with each country, to better align across multiple systems and Departments. Please be aware this will result in changes to some country names, ISO codes, and currencies. Changes should then be expected to keep pace with new country names, ISO codes, and which currencies they use over time. This is particularly important to consider for API users when building their integrations and automated processes.