BCEAO Exchange Rate API: Official CFA Franc (XOF) Rates as JSON

The Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO) publishes the official exchange rates that accounting, tax, and customs practice in the WAEMU countries reference — published official rates, not moving market prices. This guide shows how to pull them as JSON: via a REST endpoint or the zero-dependency bceao-exchange-rate npm package.

One bank, eight countries

The BCEAO is the common central bank of Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo. Its daily reference table quotes the CFA franc against about 27 currencies: the euro is the fixed 655.957 parity that has anchored the franc since 1999, and every other cross — dollar, yuan, pound — moves through that peg daily. One integration covers invoicing and compliance for the whole monetary union.

Why official rates, not market rates

A live mid-market feed answers "what is USD/XOF trading at right now?" — the right tool for checkouts and dashboards. But accountants, auditors, and tax authorities ask a different question: "which rate were you required to use for this date?" That answer comes from the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO)’s published rates, and it never changes after publication.

Get the latest rates (REST)

curl "https://allratestoday.com/api/v1/central-bank/bceao/latest" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"

The response is the bank's most recent published table — every rate and the publication date. The latest rates are available on every plan, including the free tier (300 requests/month, no credit card).

The npm SDK

npm install bceao-exchange-rate

import { getRate, getLatestRates } from 'bceao-exchange-rate';

// One pair at the official rate
const pair = await getRate('USD', 'XOF', { apiKey: 'art_live_...' });
console.log(pair.rate, pair.rate_date);

// The bank's full published table
const table = await getLatestRates({ apiKey: 'art_live_...' });
console.log(table.rate_date, table.rates.length);

Zero dependencies, TypeScript types included, and it runs anywhere fetch exists — Node 18+, Bun, Deno, and edge runtimes.

Historical rates for an invoice date

import { getRatesForDate, getHistory } from 'bceao-exchange-rate';

const day = await getRatesForDate('2026-08-18', { apiKey: 'art_live_...' });

const series = await getHistory(
  { source: 'USD', target: 'XOF', from: '2026-01-01' },
  { apiKey: 'art_live_...' }
);

Historical dates and time series need a paid plan; the latest rates stay free.

Published vs derived pairs

If the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO) does not print a pair directly, the API resolves it from the bank's published rates — an inverse, or a cross via XOF — and flags it derived: true with the method used. Official and computed values are never silently mixed, which is exactly the distinction an auditor will ask about.

The archive

The reference-rate series is loaded from January 2014, the start of the bank’s current published archive.

FAQ

Does the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO) have an official exchange rate API?

The bank publishes its official rates on its own site, and AllRatesToday serves the same published rates as clean JSON via REST or the bceao-exchange-rate npm package. The latest table is free.

How do I get the official the WAEMU countries exchange rate for a past date?

The rates-for-date endpoint returns the official table for any archived date; non-publication days resolve to the most recent published date and are flagged, so audit trails stay honest. Historical dates require a paid plan; latest rates are free.

Why is EUR/XOF always exactly 655.957?

Because it is the legal parity: the CFA franc is pegged to the euro at 655.957, guaranteed under the WAEMU arrangement. The peg is the official rate — the moving crosses price everything else through it.