Dollar’s Share of Reserves Held Steady in Second Quarter When Adjusted for FX Moves

IMF Blog, October 1, 2025

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COFER tracks currency composition of global foreign exchange reserves based on voluntary, confidential reports by 149 economies.
Reported reserve shares are denominated in US dollars, so shifts in exchange rates change reported shares even if central banks do not buy or sell assets.
Movements in interest rates can also affect reported currency shares, but the impact on currency shares was relatively small in the second quarter.

The DXY index fell more than 10 percent in the first half of the year, its biggest drop since 1973.
The dollar depreciated by 7.9 percent against the euro in the second quarter, and by 10.6 percent in the first half.
The dollar fell by 9.6 percent against the Swiss franc in the second quarter, and by more than 11 percent in the first six months, its weakest first-half performance against the franc in more than a decade.

Raw COFER data: dollar’s share of allocated reserves fell to 56.32 percent at the end of the second quarter from 57.79 percent at the end of the first quarter, a decline of 1.47 percentage points.
Exchange-rate–adjusted figure: holding exchange rates constant, the dollar’s share would have been 57.67 percent at the end of the second quarter.
Currency movements explain 92 percent of the reduction of the dollar’s share during the three months through June.
For the euro:
- Reported share rose to 21.13 percent in the second quarter from 20.00 percent in the prior three months, an increase of 1.13 percentage points.
- Valuation effects accounted for 1.17 percentage points of this increase.
- Holding exchange rates constant, the euro’s share would have fallen to 19.96 percent in the second quarter (a decline of 0.04 percentage points).
For the pound: the valuation effect obscures the direction of change—reported share appears to have gone up while holding exchange rates constant the share would have gone down.

Much of the apparent shift away from the US dollar in COFER data for the second quarter is attributable to exchange-rate valuation effects rather than active portfolio reallocations by central banks.
Exchange-rate-adjusted COFER figures provide a more accurate view of how central banks are managing reserve portfolios and of the dollar’s underlying share in global reserves.
The latest reserves data, once adjusted for exchange rate changes, suggest that the dollar share of central bank reserve holdings has not declined to the extent that unadjusted figures indicate.

Source: IMF Chart of the Week, October 1, 2025.