BEAC Exchange Rate API: Official Central African CFA Franc Rates as JSON

The Bank of Central African States (BEAC) publishes the official exchange rates that accounting, tax, and customs practice in Central Africa 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 beac-exchange-rate npm package.

One bank, six countries

BEAC is the central bank of the whole CEMAC zone — Cameroon, Gabon, Chad, the Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea and the Central African Republic share the Central African CFA franc, so one source covers six countries’ official rates. The franc is pegged to the euro at 655.957 (unchanged since 1999); the daily table quotes buying and selling rates for 13 currencies, dollar and yuan included.

Why official rates, not market rates

A live mid-market feed answers "what is USD/XAF 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 Bank of Central African States (BEAC)’s published rates, and it never changes after publication.

Get the latest rates (REST)

curl "https://allratestoday.com/api/v1/central-bank/beac/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 beac-exchange-rate

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

// One pair at the official rate
const pair = await getRate('USD', 'XAF', { 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 'beac-exchange-rate';

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

const series = await getHistory(
  { source: 'USD', target: 'XAF', 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 Bank of Central African States (BEAC) does not print a pair directly, the API resolves it from the bank's published rates — an inverse, or a cross via XAF — 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

BEAC publishes only the current day’s table, so the archive builds forward from ingestion — the EUR peg row (655.957 both sides) doubles as a permanent sanity check.

FAQ

Does the Bank of Central African States (BEAC) 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 beac-exchange-rate npm package. The latest table is free.

How do I get the official Central Africa 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 the EUR rate always 655.957?

The Central African CFA franc has been pegged to the euro at exactly 655.957 XAF since 1999 (via the French Treasury guarantee). The moving numbers are the dollar, yuan and other crosses, which shift with EUR/USD.