Banco Central de Honduras Exchange Rate API: Official HNL Rates as JSON

The Banco Central de Honduras publishes the official exchange rates that accounting, tax, and customs rules in Honduras 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 bch-exchange-rate npm package.

What the BCH publishes

• The daily USD reference rate — the precio promedio the Honduran banking system and tax practice reference.
• History back to 2019 in our API — queryable by exact date or as a time series.
• The bank's own publication date on every response, so a rate is always citable.
• Weekend-aware — Saturday's rate spans the weekend by the bank's own convention, and non-publication days are flagged explicitly.

The lempira trades under a managed crawl against the dollar; the BCH reference price is the number that appears in Honduran invoices, customs paperwork and bank spreads alike.

Why official rates, not market rates

A live mid-market feed answers "what is USD/HNL 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 Banco Central de Honduras's published rates, and it never changes after publication.

Get the latest rates (REST)

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

The response is the bank's most recent published data — 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 bch-exchange-rate

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

// One pair at the official BCH rate
const pair = await getRate('USD', 'HNL', { 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 'bch-exchange-rate';

// The official rates for an invoice date — non-publication days return
// the most recent published date, flagged via published_on_requested_date.
const day = await getRatesForDate('2026-06-30', { apiKey: 'art_live_...' });

// Time series for one pair
const series = await getHistory(
  { source: 'USD', target: 'HNL', 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 BCH does not print a pair directly, the API resolves it from the bank's published rates — an inverse, or a cross rate via HNL — 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 managed crawl since 2019

Our archive tracks the lempira from just under 24.5 per dollar in 2019 to the high-26s today — a slow, steady official crawl. For a filing that needs the reference price on a given date, one call returns it with the publication date attached.

FAQ

Does the Banco Central de Honduras have an official exchange rate API?

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

How often do Banco Central de Honduras rates update?

Once per business day. The Saturday publication spans the weekend by the bank's convention — the API resolves Sunday and Monday-morning queries to it and flags the carry-over explicitly.

Can I get the BCH rate for a past date, like an invoice date?

Yes. The /central-bank/bch/rates-for-date endpoint returns the official rates for any archived date. Non-publication days resolve to the most recent published date and are flagged, so your audit trail stays honest. Historical dates require a paid plan; latest rates are free.