Forex Exchange Intelligence — ECB Currency Rates API

Track real-time and historical currency exchange rates from the European Central Bank — USD, EUR, GBP, JPY, CHF, and 30+ world currencies.

Built for fintech apps, accounting tools, e-commerce platforms, treasury teams, and anyone needing reliable FX data without paying for an expensive forex API.

What you get

• Official ECB reference rates — authoritative, central-bank-sourced data
• 30+ world currencies with cross-rate calculations
• Historical lookup — any past date or date range
• Currency conversion between any base + target pair
• Free, official data source — no API key, no rate-limit headaches
• Pre-built dataset Overview in Apify Console for instant inspection

Why this scraper (vs. alternatives)

	Paid FX API	Build your own	This actor
Cost	$50-500/mo subscriptions	Free but you maintain it	Pay-per-result, no subscription
Data source	Varies	You wire up ECB	Official ECB rates
Historical + ranges	Often premium tier	Manual	Built-in
Cross-rate calc	Sometimes	Manual	Built-in

Input

Field	Type	Description
baseCurrency	enum	Base currency: USD, EUR, GBP, JPY, CHF, CAD (default USD)
targetCurrencies	string[]	Target currencies (empty = all available)
historicalDate	string	Single past date (YYYY-MM-DD) for a historical snapshot
dateRange	bool	Enable a date range instead of a single date
startDate / endDate	string	Range bounds (YYYY-MM-DD) when dateRange: true
maxResults	int	Maximum number of rate records (default 100)

Example Input

{
  "baseCurrency": "EUR",
  "targetCurrencies": ["USD", "GBP", "JPY", "CHF"],
  "dateRange": true,
  "startDate": "2026-01-01",
  "endDate": "2026-05-01",
  "maxResults": 100
}

Output (sample)

{
  "base_currency": "EUR",
  "target_currency": "USD",
  "rate": 1.0842,
  "date": "2026-05-01",
  "inverse_rate": 0.9223,
  "source": "European Central Bank",
  "scraped_at": "2026-05-28T14:00:00+00:00"
}

Use cases

• Fintech / accounting apps — convert invoices and transactions accurately
• E-commerce — display localized prices with up-to-date FX
• Treasury / finance teams — track currency exposure over time
• Reporting / BI — build FX trend dashboards from historical ranges
• Backtesting — pull historical rates for financial model validation

Pricing

Pay-Per-Event — far cheaper than subscription FX APIs:

• $0.001 per rate record
• $0.00005 actor-start fee

Example runs

Use case	Records	Cost
Today's rates (10 currencies)	10	$0.01
4-month history (4 pairs, daily)	350	$0.35
Full multi-currency dataset	1,000	$1.00

Tips

• Leave targetCurrencies empty to pull all available currencies for the base
• Use dateRange: true + startDate/endDate to build historical trend datasets
• ECB publishes rates on business days — weekends/holidays carry the prior business-day rate
• Schedule a daily run to maintain your own FX history database

FAQ

Q: Where does the data come from?
A: The European Central Bank's official reference rates — authoritative and free.

Q: How often are rates updated?
A: ECB updates around 16:00 CET on business days. Schedule your runs accordingly.

Q: Can I get rates for a specific past date?
A: Yes — set historicalDate to any YYYY-MM-DD.

Q: Are weekend rates available?
A: ECB doesn't publish on weekends; the most recent business-day rate applies.

Related actors

• yahoo-finance-scraper — stock + financial data
• crypto-intelligence — cryptocurrency market data
• stock-sentiment-intelligence — market sentiment

Legal & compliance

Uses the European Central Bank's publicly available reference-rate data. ECB rates are published for public use. You remain responsible for compliant downstream use in financial applications.

Support & feature requests

Open an issue on the Actor page or contact via Apify Console messaging. Custom features welcome.