Free Invoice Generator

Exchange rate risk calculator

Invoice in your client's currency and the amount that reaches you depends on the rate on the day they pay. Enter the invoice and how long payment takes, and the sheet shows how much that has moved over the same wait in the past ten years.

The invoice

The currency your costs and your tax are in.

From the invoice date: your terms, plus however late this client usually is.

An invoice already paid Optional

Both dates, and the sheet adds what that invoice gained or lost to the rate.

GuideInvoicing clients abroadHow this works, and where the figures go wrong →

How the exchange rate risk calculator works

The page holds every euro reference rate the European Central Bank published from 4 January 2016 to 5 October 2026. For any pair of currencies it works out the rate between them through the euro, and then, starting from every day in that time, how much an invoice's value in your currency had changed by the day it would have been paid. The sheet reports the spread of those changes: the middle-sized move, the moves that only 1 stretch in 20 went past, and the worst.

For example, over every 60-day stretch since 2016, an invoice in US dollars changed in value in pounds by 2.2% either way in a typical stretch. One stretch in 20 it lost 4.7% or more, and at worst 12.3%. On a $10,000 invoice at the latest rate, 76p to the dollar, a typical stretch is £163 and 1 in 20 loses £352 or more. The change ran both ways: it lost value in 51% of them.

Reading the answer

  • The typical move is the median size of the change, either way. Half the stretches moved more than this.
  • 1 time in 20 is the 5th and 95th percentile: 95% of stretches lost less than the first figure, and 95% gained less than the second.
  • The buffer is the loss 1 stretch in 20 went past, as a percentage. Add it to the price, as the foreign currency invoice calculator does, and the rate alone would have left you short only 1 time in 20.
  • An invoice already paid uses the last rate published on or before each date. The ECB publishes on working days only.

What this does not tell you

  • It is not a forecast. It shows what rates did, not what they will do. A shock bigger than any in the last ten years is always possible.
  • It leaves out conversion costs. Your bank or payment service converts at its own rate, usually a margin away from the reference rate, and may charge a fee on top. The payment fee calculator works those out.
  • Reference rates are mid-afternoon figures. The ECB sets them once a day at about 16:00 CET, for information. No one trades at exactly that rate.
  • It does not keep anything. Nothing is written to your browser's storage and nothing you type is sent to us.

Ways to carry less of the risk

  • Invoice in your own currency. The client then carries the risk. Many will accept it, especially if you say so before the work starts.
  • Shorten the wait. Shorter terms, or a deposit up front, leave less time for the rate to move. Deposits and progress billing covers how.
  • Hold the currency. An account in the client's currency lets you wait and convert when it suits you, or spend it on costs in that currency.
  • Price in a buffer. The figure on the sheet, added to the price, covers all but the worst stretches.

The figures, and where they come from

Source: European Central Bank, euro foreign exchange reference rates (series EXR.D, units of each currency per euro), 4 January 2016 to 5 October 2026, from the ECB Data Portal. The rates between two currencies other than the euro, and every change and percentile on this page, are our own calculations from those rates, not figures the ECB publishes. The rates were last refreshed on 6 October 2026.

Related

The guide to invoicing clients abroad covers the currency on the invoice, VAT across borders and getting paid. Before a client's first payment, the IBAN checker confirms the account details you send are in the right format.

Last updated 6 October 2026