You can calculate anexchange rateby dividing the amount of the currency you start with by the amount of the foreign currency you’ll get back. For example, if you have $100 and you get€80 back, your exchange rate would be 100 divided by 80, or 1.25 Euros per dollar.
Most of the time, someone else will calculate the exchange for you. Credit cards automatically handle currency conversion when you make a purchase from a foreign merchant. However, understanding how exchange rates work is vital to make sure you don’t get taken advantage of while traveling. There are a few more things you should know about the process, too.
Here’s how to calculate exchange rates:
- Check your card network’s website.
The two worldwide card networks – VisaandMastercard– publish daily exchange rates from U.S. Dollars to all other major currencies. And those rates are quite a bit lower than what banks and airport kiosks charge for exchanging hard currency. In fact, using a Visa or Mastercard credit card with no foreign transaction fee can save you up to 9% on all your international spending, according toWalletHub’s exchange rate study.
Discover and Amex don’t publish this information, but card network exchange rates tend to be very similar.
- Use the exchange rate formula.
The formula is: Starting Amount (Original Currency) / Ending Amount (New Currency) = Exchange Rate.For example, if you exchange 100 U.S. Dollars for 80 Euros, the exchange rate would be 1.25. But if you exchange 80 Euros for 100 U.S. Dollars, the exchange rate would be 0.8.
- Calculate the foreign currency amount.
It will generally be more useful for you to know how to calculate the amount of a foreign currency you’ll get based on the exchange rate. You can do that with simple division. Divide your starting amount by the exchange rate to get the converted amount. For example, $100/1.25 =€80.
While it’s good to be conscious of exchange rates when you go abroad, using a credit card to automatically access the best conversion rates is a great way to make things simple and relatively inexpensive.
Just make sure to avoidDynamic Currency Conversion. That’s when a foreign merchant converts your purchase total to U.S. Dollars, supposedly as a convenience but really to apply a high exchange rate and turn a bigger profit. So always pay in the local currency.
This answer was first published on 05/06/18 and it was last updated on 05/13/22. For the most current information about a financial product, you should always check and confirm accuracy with the offering financial institution. Editorial and user-generated content is not provided, reviewed or endorsed by any company.
