Brazilian real (BRL) exchange rate API

Brazil is Latin America’s largest economy and a major exporter of commodities such as soybeans, iron ore and oil. The real is widely traded for an emerging-market currency and can move sharply with commodity prices, domestic politics and global risk appetite. The fxapi BRL exchange rate API returns real rates against 190+ currencies – and, unusually, its history covers the currency’s switch to a floating exchange rate.

BRL facts for developers

• Where it’s used: Brazil.
• Symbol and formatting: R$ before the amount, a period as thousands separator and a comma as decimal separator: R$ 1.234,56.
• Minor unit: 2 decimals (centavos).
• Central bank: Banco Central do Brasil (BCB), which also publishes the PTAX reference rate.
• Regime: free float with an inflation target. The real was introduced in 1994 under the Plano Real and initially managed against the US dollar.
• Events in the historical data: after a devaluation attempt on 13 January 1999, Brazil let the real float on 15 January 1999 – the sample date on this page – and it lost a large part of its value against the dollar in the following weeks. Election-related volatility in 2002 and the 2015–2016 recession also left clear marks in the data.

Get BRL rates with the fxapi API

/v1/historical and /v1/latest work on every plan. This JavaScript snippet (Node 18+) compares USD/BRL before and after the 1999 float with today’s rate and formats a converted amount for Brazilian users:

const API = "https://api.fxapi.com/v1";
const headers = { apikey: process.env.FXAPI_KEY };
const brl = new Intl.NumberFormat("pt-BR", { style: "currency", currency: "BRL" });

async function usdBrl(date) {
  const path = date ? `historical?date=${date}&currencies=BRL` : "latest?currencies=BRL";
  const res = await fetch(`${API}/${path}`, { headers });
  if (!res.ok) throw new Error(`fxapi ${res.status}`);
  return (await res.json()).data.BRL.value;
}

for (const date of ["1999-01-12", "1999-01-29", null]) {
  const rate = await usdBrl(date);
  console.log(`${date ?? "latest"}: US$1,000 = ${brl.format(1000 * rate)}`);
}

For a percentage change over any period, the free fluctuation endpoint does it in one request. More: historical exchange rates API, JavaScript guide, and the other big Latin American currency, the Mexican peso.

Things to watch

• PTAX vs market. Contracts and tax rules in Brazil often specify PTAX – use it where required, and fxapi for pricing and analytics.
• Locale formatting. R$ 1.234,56 is easily misparsed by code that expects 1,234.56; never parse formatted strings back into numbers.
• Volatility. The real can move several percent in a week; refresh cached rates accordingly.

Popular BRL pairs

Request any of these pairs – or any other combination of the 190+ supported currencies – with base_currency=BRL:

Monthly averages and fluctuation for BRL

# Monthly average BRL rates for 2025 (IAS 21 / ASC 830)
curl -G "https://api.fxapi.com/v1/average" \
  -d date_from=2025-01-01 -d date_to=2025-12-31 -d period=month \
  -d base_currency=BRL -d currencies=USD,EUR,ARS \
  -H "apikey: $FXAPI_KEY"

# How did BRL move over the last year?
curl -G "https://api.fxapi.com/v1/fluctuation" \
  -d date_from=2025-10-01 -d date_to=2026-10-01 \
  -d base_currency=BRL -d currencies=USD,EUR,ARS \
  -H "apikey: $FXAPI_KEY"

See the historical exchange rates API, average rates API and documentation for every parameter.

BRL is one of 190+ currencies in fxapi, the foreign exchange rates API for developers – live rates, daily history since 1999 and monthly averages with one API key.

Frequently asked questions