Plot No. 71 · Everyday & Shopping
Currency Converter (Indicative Rates)
Convert an amount between major currencies using a fixed, manually set rate table, useful for rough budgeting and travel planning. These are indicative reference rates, not live market rates, so always check a live source before any real transaction.
Indicative reference rates only, set manually and last updated 2026-07-22. Not live market rates. Your bank or card provider will charge the actual rate at the time, plus any fees or margin.
The link saves your inputs so you can bookmark or share this exact result.
The reference rate table, and what one unit is worth
Every figure the converter returns comes from one small table of rates quoted as units per one pound sterling, set by hand on 2026-07-22. Reading it in both directions is where most people trip up: one pound buys 1.27 US dollars, which is the same statement as one US dollar being worth 0.7874 of a pound. The two numbers are reciprocals of each other, not alternatives, and a quote is only meaningful once you know which way round it is written.
| Currency | Units per £1 | 1 unit in GBP | 1 unit in USD | 1 unit in EUR |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GBP, Pound sterling | 1.00 | 1.0000 | 1.2700 | 1.1700 |
| USD, US dollar | 1.27 | 0.7874 | 1.0000 | 0.9213 |
| EUR, Euro | 1.17 | 0.8547 | 1.0855 | 1.0000 |
| JPY, Japanese yen | 189 | 0.0053 | 0.0067 | 0.0062 |
| AUD, Australian dollar | 1.93 | 0.5181 | 0.6580 | 0.6062 |
| CAD, Canadian dollar | 1.73 | 0.5780 | 0.7341 | 0.6763 |
| CHF, Swiss franc | 1.11 | 0.9009 | 1.1441 | 1.0541 |
| NZD, New Zealand dollar | 2.09 | 0.4785 | 0.6077 | 0.5598 |
Any pair not involving sterling is worked out through the pound, which is what a cross rate means. The USD to EUR rate the converter opens with, 0.9213, is simply 1.17 divided by 1.27, so 100 USD comes back as 92.13 EUR.
Common sterling amounts converted
Most holiday budgeting is done in round numbers, so these are the conversions people reach for most often. Read them as scale rather than as prices. A rate moving two percent, which is an ordinary month on a major pair, shifts the £1,000 row by roughly 23.40 euros, which is more than enough to matter on a large transfer and not nearly enough to matter on a coffee.
| Amount in GBP | USD | EUR | JPY |
|---|---|---|---|
| £10 | 12.70 | 11.70 | 1,890 |
| £20 | 25.40 | 23.40 | 3,780 |
| £50 | 63.50 | 58.50 | 9,450 |
| £100 | 127.00 | 117.00 | 18,900 |
| £200 | 254.00 | 234.00 | 37,800 |
| £500 | 635.00 | 585.00 | 94,500 |
| £1,000 | 1,270.00 | 1,170.00 | 189,000 |
| £2,000 | 2,540.00 | 2,340.00 | 378,000 |
What converting money actually costs
The rate above is the mid-market rate, the midpoint between the prices banks quote each other. Nobody sells currency to a consumer at it. What you are offered is that rate minus a margin, and the margin is where the cost sits, which is why a provider can advertise itself as commission free and still be the expensive option. The table works through £500 into EUR at typical 2026 margins for each kind of provider. These are ranges for a type of service, not quotes from any named company.
| Where you convert | Typical margin (as of 2026) | Rate you get (GBP to EUR) | You receive on £500 | Lost to the margin |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mid-market rateThe rate on this page and the one you see on a search engine or a rates site. Almost nobody sells you currency at it. | 0% | 1.1700 | 585.00 | None |
| Specialist transfer app or fee-free travel cardThe cheapest common option. Margins usually widen at weekends when the interbank market is shut. | 0% to 1% | 1.1642 | 582.08 | 2.92 EUR |
| High street bank, card payment abroadCharged as a non-sterling transaction fee on top of the rate. Cash withdrawals often add a separate fixed fee. | 2.5% to 3% | 1.1378 | 568.91 | 16.09 EUR |
| High street bureau de change, cashOften advertised as commission free, which describes the fee and says nothing about the spread. | 3% to 6% | 1.1232 | 561.60 | 23.40 EUR |
| Airport bureau de change, cashThe most expensive place to convert money in normal circumstances, because it sells convenience to people with no alternative. | 8% to 12% | 1.0647 | 532.35 | 52.65 EUR |
Ignore the mid-market row, since it is a benchmark rather than an offer, and the gap between the cheapest realistic option and the airport counter is still about 49.73 EUR on £500. That is a night of a holiday rather than a rounding error, and it comes from a single decision usually made in a hurry at a counter. The practical rule is that the cost of converting money is proportional, so it is worth ten minutes of comparison on a transfer and worth nothing at all on a taxi fare. To turn one of these margins back into a percentage of any amount, the percentage calculator does the arithmetic, and the unit price calculator is the one to use when comparing prices abroad where pack sizes differ as well as the currency. For working out what to leave on a restaurant table once you have the local figure, the tip calculator splits it.
How the currency conversion works
This converter holds one small table of exchange rates, each expressed as the number of units of a currency that one pound sterling buys. Converting between any two currencies is then two steps: divide the amount by the source currency's rate to get its value in pounds, then multiply that by the target currency's rate. Sterling is only the pivot, not a currency you have to be holding, which is why the tool can price yen against Australian dollars without a separate rate for that pair.
The single number that follows from this is the cross rate, and it is worth understanding because it is the number a bank quotes you. The rate from one currency to another is just the target's rate per pound divided by the source's. Dollars to euros at 1.17 euros and 1.27 dollars per pound gives 0.9213, so a dollar buys a little over ninety cents. Nothing in the calculation is compounded or time dependent, so doubling the amount exactly doubles the result.
The rates are set by hand and do not update. That is a deliberate limitation rather than a bug to work around: a fixed table gives a stable reference for sketching a budget, and it makes every figure on this page reproducible, but it is the wrong tool for a transaction. Real rates move by a fraction of a percent most days and by several percent across a month, and the rate you are actually offered is further from the market than that movement anyway, once a provider's margin is applied.
How to use the currency converter
- Enter the amount you want to convert in the amount field.
- Pick the currency you are converting from, meaning the currency the amount is currently in.
- Pick the currency you want the answer in.
- Read the converted amount, then check the reference rate underneath it so you know which direction the quote runs.
- Before spending or transferring anything, compare that reference rate against what your bank, card or transfer provider is actually offering.
Worked examples
Pricing a US purchase in euros
Inputs: 100 USD converted to EUR, which is what the page opens with.
Result: The result is 92.13 EUR at a reference rate of 0.9213 euros per dollar. The working is 100 divided by 1.27 to reach 78.74 pounds, then multiplied by 1.17. The same answer comes straight from 1.17 divided by 1.27, which is the dollar to euro cross rate.
A holiday spending budget in yen
Inputs: 500 GBP converted to JPY.
Result: 94,500 JPY, because one pound is set at 189 yen. Yen is displayed without decimal places, since one yen is worth about half a penny and a fractional yen is not a real amount. Expect a bureau de change to hand over meaningfully less than this, which is what the margin table on this page is for.
Limitations and common mistakes
Edge cases and limitations
- The rates are set manually and are not live. They carry the date they were set, and the further past that date you are reading, the more indicative the answer becomes.
- There is no fee or margin modelling in the tool itself. It converts at the reference rate only, so treat its output as the ceiling of what you will receive rather than the amount.
- Only eight currencies are covered, all of them widely traded. Pairs that involve a thinly traded or pegged currency behave differently and often carry much wider spreads than the ranges quoted here.
- Every non-sterling pair is computed through the pound, so any staleness in the two underlying rates shows up in the cross rate as well.
- Yen is rounded to whole units and everything else to two decimal places for display, so a very large conversion can be a fraction away from the exact arithmetic.
- Historical conversion is not supported. The table holds one set of rates, so you cannot price an amount as at a past date.
Common mistakes
- Reading a rate the wrong way round. One pound at 1.27 dollars and one dollar at 0.7874 pounds are the same fact, and mixing them up moves the answer by more than sixty percent.
- Treating the mid-market rate as a price. It is the benchmark you measure an offer against, and every consumer provider sits some distance below it.
- Accepting dynamic currency conversion, meaning the offer to be charged in pounds by a foreign card machine or website. The merchant's processor picks the rate, and it is usually several percent worse than your own bank's.
- Judging a provider on its fee alone. A commission free counter can be the most expensive option in the street, because the margin is buried in the rate rather than shown as a charge.
- Converting a large sum at an airport because the small conversions felt cheap. The cost is proportional, so the same margin that is trivial on a taxi fare is significant on a car hire deposit.
Frequently asked questions
Are these live exchange rates?
No. The rates on this page are set manually as a reference point and do not update in real time. Real exchange rates move constantly, so use a live source, your bank or card provider for anything you are about to spend or transfer.
Why use a fixed rate table at all?
It is useful for rough planning, such as sketching a holiday budget or comparing prices in another currency, where being off by a percent or two does not matter. For an actual transfer or purchase, the rate your bank or card charges is what counts, not this page.
Does this include bank or card fees?
No. Banks and card providers typically add a margin on top of the market rate plus a transaction fee. This calculator only converts using the reference rate, so your real cost converting cash or paying abroad will usually be a little higher.
How do I convert one currency to another by hand?
Divide the amount by the number of units of the source currency that one pound buys, then multiply by the same figure for the target currency. Converting 100 US dollars to euros with the table on this page: 100 divided by 1.27 gives 78.74 pounds, and 78.74 multiplied by 1.17 gives 92.13 euros. The shortcut is that the dollar to euro rate is simply 1.17 divided by 1.27, which is 0.9213.
What is the mid-market exchange rate?
It is the midpoint between the buying and selling prices banks quote each other on the wholesale market, and it is the rate you see quoted on a search engine or a rates website. It is a reference point rather than a price you can buy at. Almost every consumer provider adds a margin to it, so the mid-market rate is best treated as the benchmark you measure an offer against, not the rate you will receive.
Is it cheaper to pay in pounds or the local currency when abroad?
Choose the local currency. When a card machine or a website offers to charge you in pounds instead, that is dynamic currency conversion, and the merchant's payment processor picks the exchange rate rather than your card issuer. The margin is usually several percent worse than your own bank's, on top of any fee your bank charges anyway.
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