Cross Currency Converter
Fetching live exchange rates…
When No One Quotes the Pair You Actually Need
The major currency pairs are quoted everywhere. The pair you need — say a Thai baht to Chilean peso rate — often is not quoted at all, because there is no meaningful direct market between them. The answer is to route through a currency that both are quoted against, almost always the US dollar. Multiply the two legs together and you have a synthetic rate for a pair nobody trades directly. That synthetic figure is the cross rate, and this calculator builds it from the two legs you supply.
The Formula
The cross rate is the product of the two legs, and the conversion then applies it once:
Converted Amount = Amount × Cross Rate
The cross rate is rounded to eight decimal places — deliberately more precision than the two-decimal output — because rounding the intermediate rate too early is exactly how cross-currency errors creep in on large amounts. Both legs must be positive; the amount may not be negative.
Chaining Two Legs
| Rate A→B | Rate B→C | Cross rate A→C | 1,000 A becomes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.90 | 0.85 | 0.765 | 765.00 C |
| 1.10 | 0.75 | 0.825 | 825.00 C |
| 1.25 | 0.80 | 1.0 | 1,000.00 C |
| 0.50 | 2.00 | 1.0 | 1,000.00 C |
Illustrative leg rates, not market quotes. The last two rows are the instructive ones: when the legs are exact reciprocals, the cross rate is 1.0 and the amount returns unchanged — a useful way to sanity-check that you have entered the legs in the right direction.
Getting the Directions Right
Both legs must point the same way down the chain: A into B, then B into C. This is where the calculation goes wrong in practice, because published quotes do not care about your chain. If a source quotes B/A rather than A/B, you need the reciprocal — 1 divided by the quoted figure — before entering it here. The reciprocal test in the table above is the quickest check: if you suspect a leg is inverted, feed the chain a pair you know should cancel and confirm it returns 1.0.
Where Cross Rates Are the Only Option
- Exotic pairs — two thinly traded currencies with no direct market between them, both quoted against the dollar.
- Multi-leg settlement — a payment that genuinely converts twice on its way to the beneficiary, where the two-step cost is real rather than notional.
- Consolidating group accounts — subsidiary figures translated into a reporting currency via an intermediate.
- Benchmarking a quote — a provider offering a direct exotic rate can be checked against the dollar-routed cross to see what the convenience costs.
How to Use This Calculator
- Optionally label Currency A, Currency B and Currency C with codes such as USD, EUR and GBP — B is the intermediate you are routing through.
- Enter the Amount in Currency A.
- Enter Rate A -> B: units of B per one unit of A, from a current source.
- Enter Rate B -> C: units of C per one unit of B.
- Submit to see the cross rate and the converted amount in currency C.
Related Calculations
- Currency Arbitrage Calculator — extend the chain to three legs and back to the start to test whether the loop closes.
- Currency Converter — a single-leg conversion when a direct rate does exist.