Transfer Rates

You can retrieve the Flutterwave exchange rate for transfers in various currencies using the get transfer rates endpoint.

🚧

These rates are transfer estimation only and not for FX trading. They update 3–4 times daily based on currency fluctuations and may change at any time.

Get Exchange Rate

To use the exchange rate API, provide:

source_currency,

destination_currency,

andamount (the destination amount).

The API returns:

The ratewhich represents how much of the source currency is needed to obtain 1 unit of the destination currency.

The source.amount needed to send the specified destination amount. source.amount = rate × amount.

Example 1: Converting from NGN to USD

• John needs to send Paul $1000
• John only has an NGN balance in his Flutterwave Wallet. Therefore, he needs to know the amount in NGN required for a $1,000 transfer to Paul.
• Therefore,
  • source_currency is NGN
  • destination_currency is USD
  • amount is 1000
  • source.amount is unknown

To get the source.amount, John makes the following API call:

curl --request GET 'https://api.flutterwave.com/v3/transfers/rates?amount=1000&destination_currency=USD&source_currency=NGN' \
--header 'Authorization: Bearer YOUR_SECRET_KEY'

You'll get the response below:

{
    "status": "success",
    "message": "Transfer rates fetched",
    "data": {
        "rate": 1491.75,
        "source": {
            "currency": "NGN",
            "amount": 1491750
        },
        "destination": {
            "currency": "USD",
            "amount": 1000
        }
    }
}

{
	"status": "error",
	"message": "Unable to fetch rates at the moment",
	"data": null
}

This means at the time of the request, John needs 1491750 NGN to transfer $1000 to Paul. The applicable rate is 1491.75 NGN = 1 USD.

If John proceeds with the transfer, he would specify debit_currency as NGN in his transfer request.

Example 2: Converting from USD to NGN (Reverse Scenario)

Now let’s look at the reverse situation.

• Paul now wants to send John 100,000 NGN.
• Paul only has a USD balance in his Flutterwave Wallet. This means Paul needs to know how much USD will be required to send 100,000 NGN to John.
• Based on this,
  • source_currency = USD
  • destination_currency = NGN
  • amount = 100000
  • source.amount = unknown

To get the source_amount, Paul makes the following API call:

curl --request GET 'https://api.flutterwave.com/v3/transfers/rates?amount=100000&destination_currency=NGN&source_currency=USD' \
--header 'Authorization: Bearer YOUR_SECRET_KEY'

You'll get the response below:

{
    "status": "success",
    "message": "Transfer rates fetched",
    "data": {
        "rate": 0.000632,
        "source": {
            "currency": "USD",
            "amount": 63.2
        },
        "destination": {
            "currency": "NGN",
            "amount": 100000
        }
    }
}

{
	"status": "error",
	"message": "Unable to fetch rates at the moment",
	"data": null
}

This means that at the time of the request, Paul needs approximately $63.2 to transfer 100,000 NGN to John. The applicable rate is 0.000632 USD = 1 NGN.