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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US dollar | 87.62 | 4 458 | USD | United States |
| 2 | European Euro | 31.27 | 1 591 | EUR | 19 states of the EU |
| 3 | Japanese yen | 21.56 | 1 097 | JPY | Japan |
| 4 | Pound sterling | 12.78 | 650 | GBP | United Kingdom |
| 5 | Australian dollar | 6.94 | 353 | AUD | Australia |
| 6 | Canadian dollar | 5.13 | 261 | CAD | Canada |
| 7 | Swiss franc | 4.78 | 243 | CHF | Switzerland |
| 8 | Chinese Yuan Renminbi | 3.97 | 202 | CNY | China |
| 9 | Swedish krona | 2.22 | 113 | SEK | Sweden |
| 10 | Mexican peso | 2.20 | 112 | MXN | Mexico |
| 11 | New Zealand dollar | 2.06 | 105 | NZD | New Zealand |
| 12 | Singapore dollar | 1.79 | 91 | SGD | Singapore |
| 13 | Hong Kong dollar | 1.73 | 88 | HKD | Hong Kong (China) |
| 14 | Norwegian krone | 1.67 | 85 | NOK | Norway |
| 15 | South Korean won | 1.65 | 84 | KRW | South Korea |
| 16 | Turkish lira | 1.40 | 71 | TRY | Turkey |
| 17 | Indian rupee | 1.14 | 58 | INR | India |
| 18 | Russian ruble | 1.14 | 58 | RUB | Russia |
| 19 | Brazilian real | 1.00 | 51 | BRL | Brazil |
| 20 | South African rand | 1.00 | 51 | ZAR | South Africa |
| 21 | Danish krone | 0.83 | 42 | DKK | Denmark |
| 22 | Polish zloty | 0.69 | 35 | PLN | Poland |
| 23 | New Taiwan dollar | 0.63 | 32 | TWD | Taiwan |
| 24 | Thai baht | 0.43 | 22 | THB | Thailand |
| 25 | Malaysian ringgit | 0.41 | 20 | MYR | Malaysia |
