# Currencylayer

> Currencylayer is a real-time and historical foreign exchange (forex) rates REST API, trusted by 250,000+ companies to power currency converters, mobile apps, e-commerce pricing, and back-office and accounting systems. It delivers reliable, bank-grade exchange rates for 168 world currencies and precious metals (including Gold "XAU" and Silver "XAG"), sourced from a broad base of commercial providers and banks, with historical end-of-day data going back to 1999. Rates are returned as currency pairs at the representative "mid" market value, in lightweight JSON (with JSONP callbacks, HTTP ETags, and CORS/Access-Control support). Update frequency depends on plan: daily on Free, every 60 minutes on Basic, every 10 minutes on Enterprise, and every 60 seconds on Enterprise+. Currencylayer is part of the APILayer suite (one account, one API key, one dashboard across the APILayer product family).
A free API key is available at https://currencylayer.com/signup/free — the Free Plan includes 100 monthly API requests, daily-updated rates, historical rates, 256-bit HTTPS encryption, and a USD base currency, restricted to non-commercial use; paid plans add commercial-use rights, more requests, faster refresh (60-minute, 10-minute, and 60-second), source-currency switching, standard support, and the conversion, timeframe, and change endpoints. Paid tiers are Basic ($14.99/month, 10,000 requests), Enterprise ($59.99/month, 100,000), and Enterprise+ ($99.99/month, 500,000), with discounts on annual billing. A single lookup is one HTTP GET request: api.currencylayer.com/live?access_key=YOUR_KEY. The base URL is api.currencylayer.com (also served as apilayer.net/api). The API offers up to 6 endpoints: List (all supported currencies), Live (most recent real-time rates), Historical (rates for a specific past date via the date parameter, YYYY-MM-DD), Convert (single currency conversion with from, to, and amount), Timeframe (rates between two dates, up to 365 days), and Change (margin and percentage change between two dates). The currencies parameter limits results to a comma-separated set of 3-letter currency codes; source-currency switching (source parameter) is available on paid plans. An optional format=1 parameter returns prettified JSON for debugging. Code examples and integration guides are provided for multiple languages.
## Getting Started
- [Currencylayer Homepage](https://currencylayer.com/): Free, real-time and historical currency exchange rate API
- [API Documentation](https://docs.apilayer.com/currencylayer/docs/api-documentation): Full reference — endpoints, parameters, response objects, errors, and code examples
- [Free API Key Signup](https://currencylayer.com/signup/free): Create a free account with 100 monthly requests
- [Login](https://currencylayer.com/login): Access your dashboard, API key, and usage statistics
- [Pricing](https://currencylayer.com/#pricing_plan): Free and premium plan tiers with request volumes, refresh rates, and features
## Tools
- [API Status](https://currencylayer.com/api-status): Real-time updates on API performance and uptime
- [Overage Billing Documentation](https://currencylayer.com/billing-overages-documentation): How per-call charges apply once a plan's monthly quota is reached
## Resources
- [FAQs](https://currencylayer.com/faq): Common questions on real-time accuracy, historical data, data sourcing, plans, and integration
- [APILayer Blog](https://blog.apilayer.com/): Tutorials, use cases, and product updates
## Support
- [Contact Us](https://currencylayer.com/contact): Sales and technical support
- [Get a Quote](https://currencylayer.com/contact/quote): Custom and high-volume plan inquiries