Top 25 most traded currencies

Being the largest and most attractive for traders worldwide the global foreign exchange market is growing year by year. Large financial institutions and dealers are buying and selling here a huge amount of different currencies (its daily turnover already exceeds $5 trillion). And among them, the most actively traded is the US dollar.

Why is it so? All the important commodities in the global market are traded in US$. Most of the international transactions between countries and companies are conducted in dollars. It also remains the dominant reserve currency for central banks and many institutional funds worldwide.

Such a high demand makes the US dollar the number one among currencies in the forex market, followed by the Euro, Japanese yen, and Pound sterling. These leaders are represented in the most traded pairs in the forex: EUR/USD, USD/JPY, GBP/USD, AUD/USD, USD/CAD, USD/CHF and their combinations.

The vast majority of trading activity is concentrated in the large financial centers located in the United Kingdom, the United States, Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong and Switzerland.

List of the top 25 most traded currencies with their shares of daily turnover

* Note: the total of percentage shares of all currencies is 200%, instead of 100%, since each transaction involves two different currencies.

Rank Currency Share of turnover
(%)*
Average turnover
(Billion US$)
ISO 4217 code Country or territory
1US dollar87.624 458USDUnited States
2European Euro31.271 591EUR19 states of the EU
3Japanese yen21.561 097JPYJapan
4Pound sterling12.78650GBPUnited Kingdom
5Australian dollar6.94353AUDAustralia
6Canadian dollar5.13261CADCanada
7Swiss franc4.78243CHFSwitzerland
8Chinese Yuan Renminbi3.97202CNYChina
9Swedish krona2.22113SEKSweden
10Mexican peso2.20112MXNMexico
11New Zealand dollar2.06105NZDNew Zealand
12Singapore dollar1.7991SGDSingapore
13Hong Kong dollar1.7388HKDHong Kong (China)
14Norwegian krone1.6785NOKNorway
15South Korean won1.6584KRWSouth Korea
16Turkish lira1.4071TRYTurkey
17Indian rupee1.1458INRIndia
18Russian ruble1.1458RUBRussia
19Brazilian real1.0051BRLBrazil
20South African rand1.0051ZARSouth Africa
21Danish krone0.8342DKKDenmark
22Polish zloty0.6935PLNPoland
23New Taiwan dollar0.6332TWDTaiwan
24Thai baht0.4322THBThailand
25Malaysian ringgit0.4120MYRMalaysia