Smaller currencies' share of world reserves has more than doubled
Share of world foreign exchange reserves, %, "other currencies" vs named currencies, Q4 2017 vs Q2 2026.
- 1. Mexico, not China, now sells America the most goods
- 2. China's ASEAN trade is now almost double its US trade
- 3. Central banks now hold more gold than Treasuries or euros
- 4. China now pays the world mostly in yuan
- 5. Migrants now send home four times all foreign aid
- 6. Tether now holds more US Treasuries than the UAE
- 7. Developing countries' interest bill has nearly tripled since 2010
- 8. America's duty-free parcels grew almost tenfold in nine years
- 9. Poles edge past the Japanese in income per person
- 10. In dollars, Nigeria's economy has more than halved since 2014
- 11. Argentina's monthly inflation fell from 25.5% to 1.9%
- 12. Guyana now produces more per person than America
- 13. Mexico's factories now outproduce Britain's and France's
- 14. Ukraine received four times the aid of any other country
- 15. The UAE sold more goods abroad than France in 2025
- 16. Singapore now draws twice as much foreign investment as China
- 17. The EU now buys more US gas than Russian gas
- 18. Malaysia again sells more to America than to China
- 19. 22 governments now owe more than a year's national output
- 20. Brazil mines 93% of the world's niobium
- 21. More Vietnamese now work in industry than on farms
- 22. Money sent home to Guatemala nearly quadrupled in ten years
- 23. In purchasing power, Russia's economy is now bigger than Japan's
- 24. Indonesia set to use more palm oil than it exports
- 25. Factories now make more of Cambodia's economy than China's
- 26. China now buys more from Brazil than from Germany
- 27. Kazakhstan now sells Russia more than Germany does
- 28. China fell to third among America's suppliers in 2025
- 29. Colombians abroad now send home more than foreigners invest
- 30. 72 countries now pay China more than it lends them
- 31. Pakistan rose to first place in Chinese energy finance
- 32. America overtook China as Taiwan's biggest export market
- 33. Mongolia's coal exports hit a record 90 million tonnes
- 34. Viet Nam's ports now handle more containers than Japan's
- 35. Money sent home now tops half of Tajikistan's economy
- 36. Liberia overtook Panama as the biggest flag by ship capacity
- 37. Pakistan passed India in tech's share of services exports
- 38. Mongolia leapt from 2% to 58% paying utilities by phone
- 39. Smaller currencies' share of world reserves has more than doubled
- 40. Nickel made Indonesia the world's fifth-biggest iron and steel exporter
Currencies the IMF does not name held 6.06% of the world's foreign exchange reserves in Q2 2026, up from 2.48% at end-2017.
Taken together they now rank behind only the dollar (56.7%) and euro (20.6%), ahead of the yen (4.96%) and pound (4.57%).
Held in these currencies in Q2 2026, up from $284 bn: the biggest part of the dollar's lost share (62.7% to 56.7%) went to them, not to the renminbi.
the numbers & method
| Q4 2017 (%) | Q2 2026 (%) | |
|---|---|---|
| other currencies | 2.5 | 6.1 |
| Japanese yen | 4.8 | 5.0 |
| Pound sterling | 4.7 | 4.6 |
| Canadian dollar | 2.1 | 2.5 |
| Australian dollar | 2.0 | 2.3 |
| Chinese renminbi | 1.2 | 2.1 |
| Swiss franc | 0.2 | 0.3 |
Claim types Fact · Estimate · Interpretation
IMF COFER, world (G001), end-quarter currency shares of world foreign exchange reserves, IMF data portal release of 30 Sep 2026 (COFER v7.0.1), latest quarter 2026 Q2; Q2 2026 shares match the IMF data brief of 30 Sep 2026 (dollar 56.70%, euro 20.60%, renminbi 2.11%, yen 4.96%, total US$13.22 trillion). Since 2025 Q3, with revisions back to 2000 Q1, the IMF no longer has an 'unallocated' part: COFER now gives a complete currency composition of 100% of world reserves, with the part for non-reporters imputed by the IMF (so the series includes IMF estimates; the series codes still say 'allocated'). Both quarters re-read from the IMF's own COFER SDMX API and matching the progrss vault. "Other currencies" is COFER's own category: reserves in currencies not separately identified, i.e. everything except the US dollar, euro, yen, pound, Canadian and Australian dollar, Swiss franc and renminbi. COFER does not say which currencies these are; IMF staff research (Arslanalp, Eichengreen and Simpson-Bell, IMF WP/22/58) points to currencies such as the Korean won, Singapore dollar and Nordic currencies (Interpretation, not a COFER number). The baseline is Q4 2017 because the renminbi was only split out of "other" from Q4 2016 (Australian and Canadian dollar from Q4 2012), so earlier "other" figures are not comparable. Shares, Q4 2017 → Q2 2026: other 2.481 → 6.058; yen 4.777 → 4.965 (4.96 rounded); pound 4.738 → 4.573; Canadian dollar 2.121 → 2.472; Australian dollar 1.969 → 2.245; renminbi 1.230 → 2.114; Swiss franc 0.178 → 0.268; US dollar 62.707 → 56.705; euro 19.798 → 20.602 (dollar and euro left off the chart, they dwarf the scale). Amounts: other US$283.9 bn → 800.6 bn; total reserves US$11,442.7 bn → 13,216.8 bn. Crossings (Fact): other first passed the pound in 2024 Q2 (4.90% vs 4.78%) and the yen in 2025 Q4 (6.18% vs 5.81%), before most of the yen's fall. Other peaked at 6.18% in 2025 Q4 and eased to 6.06% in Q2 2026; the 2026 fall in the yen's share (5.81% in 2025 Q4 to 4.96%) came from active selling, higher Japanese bond yields and a weaker yen, per the IMF data brief (shares move with exchange rates as well as with central bank choices). Derived by progrss: 6.058 ÷ 2.481 = 2.44×; dollar lost 6.0 points, other gained 3.58 (60% of it), renminbi 0.88. Takeaway 3's second clause is an interpretation of these shares. Licence: IMF permission (IMF Rights and Permissions): charts and figures allowed with the IMF attributed as source and a link to COFER (https://data.imf.org/en/datasets/IMF.STA:COFER); the raw data must not be redistributed or republished; no IMF endorsement implied. So the chart image only, never COFER numbers in a downloadable table or paid data pack.
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