Currency-api API

Beginner's Pick Currency Exchange / No Auth Required Beginner HTTPS CORS
Free to Use
85 A
Measured Score 0 50 100 Speed 29/30 Consistency 13/20 Security 20/20 Browser access 15/15 Transparency 8/15 TESTED 2026-08-10

Overview

Currency-api is a free, open-source currency exchange rates API hosted on GitHub with no rate limits, no authentication, and support for 150+ currencies. Data is provided as static JSON files updated daily, making it extremely reliable and fast for read-only use cases. It is an excellent choice for hobby projects, student projects, or any application that does not need sub-daily rate updates.

Beginner Tip

No API key or sign-up is needed. Fetch rates by calling the jsDelivr CDN URL, for example: https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/@fawazahmed0/currency-api@latest/v1/currencies/usd.json. Replace usd with any three-letter currency code in lowercase.

Measurement Record

What actually happened when we called this API from our own infrastructure. Every value below was recorded by the request, not copied from the provider's documentation.

Request
GET https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/@fawazahmed0/currency-api@latest/v1/currencies/usd.json
Result
HTTP 200 · application/json · 7,477 bytes · compressed
Response time
32 ms (median of 3) · fastest 27 ms
Transport
TLSv1.3 · TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 · certificate issued by Sectigo Limited
Browser CORS
Allowed — Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *
Served by
cloudflare
Recorded
2026-08-10

Fields Returned

Top-level fields present in the response we captured, with the type and value we actually received.

Field Type Value received
date string (date) 2026-08-10
usd object {15 fields}

Captured Response

Captured from a real request to https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/@fawazahmed0/currency-api@latest/v1/currencies/usd.json on 2026-08-10. Long arrays and nested objects are truncated to keep the shape readable.

JSON Response · Captured
{
  "date": "2026-08-10",
  "usd": {
    "1inch": 11.84304697,
    "aave": 0.010882112,
    "ada": 5.07044108,
    "aed": 3.6725,
    "afn": 65.51534419,
    "agix": 16.84881525,
    "akt": 2.00773673,
    "algo": 12.12945057,
    "all": 80.65099458,
    "amd": 365.16736053,
    "amp": 2575.2323448,
    "ang": 1.79705382,
    "aoa": 918.22630708,
    "ape": 7.64832087,
    "…": "(324 more fields)"
  }
}

Field Reference

date The date the exchange rates were collected.
usd Key-value pairs where each key is a target currency code (lowercase) and the value is the exchange rate relative to USD.

Implementation Example

Request skeleton. The URL below is this API's documentation page, not a live endpoint — swap in the path you need from the provider's docs before running it.

Request
const url = "https://github.com/fawazahmed0/currency-api";
const response = await fetch(url);
if (!response.ok) throw new Error(`Request failed: ${response.status}`);
const data = await response.json();
console.log(data);

What Can You Build?

Note: These code examples are AI-generated and unverified. Always refer to the official API documentation for accurate usage.

How This API Fails

We deliberately sent this API a broken request and recorded exactly what came back on 2026-08-10. Knowing the shape of an error before you hit it makes error handling much easier to write.

HTTP 404 Requesting a path that does not exist text/plain
Couldn't find the requested file /v1/currencies/usd.json/apisscore-nonexistent-path in @fawazahmed0/currency-api.

Common Errors & Troubleshooting

Generated guidance based on this API's documentation, not observed by us. Treat it as a starting point and check against the provider's own error reference.

404 Not Found for a currency Using uppercase currency codes instead of lowercase
Currency codes must be lowercase in the URL path: usd not USD. The base currency folder names are all lowercase.
Rates are outdated The static files are updated once per day, not in real time
This is expected behavior. If you need real-time rates, use a live API. For daily-updated rates this API is sufficient.
High latency from CDN CDN cache miss or geographic distance from the CDN edge node
Use the jsDelivr CDN URL which has global edge nodes. Alternatively cache the JSON file on your own server and refresh daily.

Measured Score Breakdown

Live HTTP request to the API endpoint

Speed 29/30
Consistency 13/20
Security 20/20
Browser access 15/15
Transparency 8/15
Endpoint Response Time 32ms

Fully tested on Aug 10, 2026

Technical Specifications

Auth No Auth
HTTPS REQUIRED
CORS YES
Difficulty Beginner
Endpoint last called: 2026-08-10

Alternatives to Currency-api

Technical alternatives for different use cases.

Open-source currency API with daily updates

Better For

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Trade-off

Open-source projects needing free currency data

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