# Exchangerate.host

> Exchangerate.host is a lightweight REST API for current and historical foreign exchange rates, precious metals, and crypto exchange rates, built and maintained by APILayer GmbH in Vienna, Austria. It is used to power currency converters, e-commerce and checkout pricing, invoicing and accounting systems, spreadsheets and BI dashboards, and any application that needs a rate lookup without operating a market data feed. Coverage is roughly 168 forex currencies with 19 years of historical data, sourced from financial data providers and banks including the European Central Bank. Historical rates are end-of-day: the previous day's values become available at 00:05 GMT and are time stamped one second before midnight. Responses are portable JSON delivered in milliseconds over HTTPS, with an average uptime near 99.9%. Exchangerate.host is part of the APILayer suite (one account, one API key, one dashboard across the APILayer product family).
A free API key is available at https://exchangerate.host/signup/free — the Free Plan includes 100 requests per month with daily-updated rates, historical rates, and HTTPS, restricted to non-commercial use and without support; paid plans add commercial-use rights, standard support, faster refresh, source-currency switching, and the conversion, time-frame and change endpoints in stages. Paid tiers are Basic ($14.99/month, 10,000 requests, hourly updates, adds source-currency switching and currency conversion), Professional Plus ($59.99/month, 100,000 requests, 10-minute updates, adds time-frame queries), and Business ($99.99/month, 500,000 requests, 60-second updates, adds currency-change queries), with custom Enterprise pricing and up to 15% off on annual billing. To call the API, append your access_key as a query parameter. The base URL is api.exchangerate.host. A single lookup is one HTTP GET request: api.exchangerate.host/live?access_key=YOUR_KEY. The endpoints are Symbols (/symbols, every supported currency), Live (/live, latest rates), Historical (/historical with a date parameter, YYYY-MM-DD), Convert (/convert with from, to and amount), Time-Frame (/timeframe between a start_date and end_date), and Change (/change, margin and percentage movement between two dates). The source parameter switches the base currency on paid plans, and currencies limits output to a comma-separated set of codes. Two practical notes from the documentation: responses are cached by default, so appending a &v= parameter with the current date or hour forces a fresh result if a stale date appears; and a failed query returns success set to false alongside an HTTP 404 or 521 status rather than an error object. All requests are rate limited, with live usage statistics returned in response headers. Usage notifications are sent at 75%, 90%, and 100% of the monthly allowance, after which overage fees apply.
## Getting Started
- [Exchangerate.host Homepage](https://exchangerate.host/): Real-time and historical forex and crypto exchange rate API
- [API Documentation](https://docs.apilayer.com/exchangerate/docs/api-documentation): Full reference — endpoints, parameters, response objects, errors, and code examples
- [Free API Key Signup](https://exchangerate.host/signup/free): Create a free account with 100 monthly requests
- [Login](https://exchangerate.host/login): Access your dashboard, API key, and usage statistics
- [Pricing](https://exchangerate.host/pricing): Free and premium plan tiers with request volumes, refresh rates, and endpoint access
## Tools
- [Overage Billing Documentation](https://exchangerate.host/billing-overages-documentation): How per-request charges apply once a plan's monthly quota is reached
## Resources
- [FAQs](https://exchangerate.host/faq): Common questions on data sources, EOD historical rates, rate limits, caching, and error responses
- [API Glossary](https://exchangerate.host/api-glossary): Definitions of common forex and API terms
- [APILayer Blog](https://blog.apilayer.com/): Tutorials, use cases, and product updates
## Support
- [Contact Us](https://exchangerate.host/contact): Sales, technical support, and bug reports
- [Get a Quote](https://exchangerate.host/contact/quote): Custom and high-volume plan inquiries