Post Office Travel Money Exchange Rate API: GBP Buy and Sell Rates as JSON

Post Office Travel Money is the foreign-currency service of the UK Post Office, provided with Bank of Ireland UK and sold in about 2,500 branches. Its online calculators give the price of foreign bank notes and the buy-back rate for leftover notes for about 55 currencies. This guide shows how to read that board as JSON: what the rates mean, how they compare with the Bank of England official rate and with other banks in the United Kingdom, and the calls that return them.

What the Post Office board shows

• 55 currencies against the pound sterling: AED, AUD, BBD, BDT, BHD, BMD, BND, BRL, CAD, CHF, CLP, CNY, COP, CRC, CZK, DKK, DOP, EGP, EUR, FJD, GTQ, HKD, HUF, IDR, ILS, ISK, JMD, JOD, JPY, KES, KRW, MUR, MXN, MYR, NOK, NZD, OMR, PEN, PHP, PLN, QAR, RON, SAR, SEK, SGD, THB, TRY, TTD, TWD, USD, UYU, VND, XCD, XPF and ZAR. Every value is GBP per 1 unit of the foreign currency.
• The travel money (bank notes): sell / buy-back pair. UK banks quote foreign currency per 1 pound, and most publish only travel-money note prices rather than a transfer board; the rates here are inverted to pounds per unit. The Bank of England publishes daily spot rates around 16:00 London time. The Bank of England official rate is shown next to each row.
• USD on 15 November 2026: Post Office bought at 0.6623 and sold at 0.7962 GBP, a spread of 18.37%. The Bank of England official rate was 0.7554, so the bank's mid sat -3.47% from it.
• No timestamp on the bank's page. Post Office does not print a last-updated time, so bank_updated_at is null and captured_at (when AllRatesToday read the page) is the only time available.
• Every day's board is kept permanently, from 14 November 2026. Read one past day with ?date=, or a range for one currency with the /history endpoint (paid plans).

Spreads across the board

On the 15 November 2026 board the tightest spreads were USD (18.37%), AUD (18.91%), EUR (19.34%) and the widest EGP (60.52%), COP (32.89%), ISK (32.15%). Spread is (sell − buy) ÷ mid: what a round trip through the bank costs, before any fees. The API returns it on every row as spread_pct, so you can rank currencies or alert when a bank widens its board.

USD at Post Office and other banks in the United Kingdom

USD on the 7 boards AllRatesToday reads in the United Kingdom, all captured on 15 November 2026 (the Bank of England official rate was 0.7554):

Post Office had the 7th narrowest USD spread of the 7. One call to /api/v1/bank-rates/gb returns every board in the table at once.

Get the board (REST)

You need an API key; the free key works. The full board:

curl "https://allratestoday.com/api/v1/bank-rates/gb/postoffice" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer art_live_your_key"

What comes back (the 15 November 2026 board, first three rows):

{
  "bank": "postoffice",
  "name": "Post Office Travel Money",
  "country": "gb",
  "quote_ccy": "GBP",
  "bank_updated_at": null,
  "basis": "Travel money (bank notes): sell / buy-back",
  "captured_at": "2026-11-15T11:52:35.908Z",
  "rates": [
    {"ccy":"AED","buy":0.17152659,"sell":0.22158701,"mid":0.1965568,"spread_pct":25.469,"official":null,"vs_official_pct":null},
    {"ccy":"AUD","buy":0.44843049,"sell":0.54206418,"mid":0.49524734,"spread_pct":18.906,"official":0.5144562197756971,"vs_official_pct":-3.734},
    {"ccy":"BBD","buy":0.32258065,"sell":0.41992105,"mid":0.37125085,"spread_pct":26.22,"official":null,"vs_official_pct":null},
    … 52 more currencies
  ],
  "disclaimer": "…",
  "attribution": { … }
}

One currency, with the row fields at the top level:

curl "https://allratestoday.com/api/v1/bank-rates/gb/postoffice?ccy=USD" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer art_live_your_key"

{
  "bank": "postoffice",
  "name": "Post Office Travel Money",
  "country": "gb",
  "quote_ccy": "GBP",
  "bank_updated_at": null,
  "basis": "Travel money (bank notes): sell / buy-back",
  "captured_at": "2026-11-15T11:52:35.908Z",
  "ccy": "USD",
  "buy": 0.66225166,
  "sell": 0.79617834,
  "mid": 0.729215,
  "spread_pct": 18.366,
  "official": 0.7554011179936546,
  "vs_official_pct": -3.467,
  "disclaimer": "Retail buy/sell rates as displayed on each bank’s own website at capture time, quoted as home currency per 1 unit of foreign currency. Indicative only: banks change these through the day, apply them at the counter or in-app, and they are not official or reference rates. For the rate a regulation names, use the central-bank endpoints.",
  "attribution": {
    "source": "Board rates published by Post Office Travel Money on its own website, collected by AllRatesToday",
    "bank_url": "https://www.postoffice.co.uk/travel-money/currency-buy-back",
    "url": "https://allratestoday.com/bank-exchange-rate-api/gb/postoffice/",
    "terms": "Public pages that show the rates need a visible link to allratestoday.com"
  }
}

The board as it stood on a past day:

curl "https://allratestoday.com/api/v1/bank-rates/gb/postoffice?date=2026-11-14" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer art_live_your_key"

One currency over a date range, one row per day (paid plans; add &format=csv, xml or xlsx for a file):

curl "https://allratestoday.com/api/v1/bank-rates/gb/postoffice/history?ccy=USD&from=2026-11-14&to=2026-11-15" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer art_live_your_key"

JavaScript

npm install @allratestoday/sdk

import { AllRatesToday } from '@allratestoday/sdk';

const client = new AllRatesToday({ apiKey: 'art_live_your_key' });

// Post Office Travel Money's USD row
const r = await client.bankRates('gb', { bank: 'postoffice', ccy: 'USD' });
console.log(`Post Office buys USD at ${r.buy}, sells at ${r.sell} GBP`);

// The board as it stood on a past day
const past = await client.bankRates('gb', { bank: 'postoffice', date: '2026-11-14' });
console.log(past.snapshot_date, past.rates.length);

Python

import requests

r = requests.get(
    "https://allratestoday.com/api/v1/bank-rates/gb/postoffice",
    headers={"Authorization": "Bearer art_live_your_key"},
    timeout=10,
)
r.raise_for_status()
for row in r.json()["rates"]:
    print(row["ccy"], row["buy"], row["sell"], row["spread_pct"])

Board rate or official rate?

The Bank of England rate is the one tax, accounting and customs rules in the United Kingdom name; nobody transacts at it. Post Office's board is the price a customer actually gets. The API puts both on every row: official is the central bank's rate for the same currency and vs_official_pct is how far the bank's mid sits from it. Use the board to show customers a real price, compare banks for a remittance, or keep a dated record of what the bank quoted; use the Bank of England endpoint when a rule asks for the official rate.

FAQ

Where do the Post Office Travel Money rates come from?

From the bank's own public rates page (https://www.postoffice.co.uk/travel-money/currency-buy-back), read hourly. AllRatesToday does not change the numbers: each row is the buy and sell price Post Office shows, with the mid, the spread and the Bank of England rate added.

Are these the official GBP exchange rates?

No. They are Post Office's retail prices for customers. The official rate in the United Kingdom is the Bank of England rate, which the API returns as official on each row where the central bank has one, and in full from the central-bank endpoint.

How often is the Post Office board updated?

AllRatesToday reads the page every hour. The bank prints no timestamp, so captured_at tells you when the rates were read.

Can I get Post Office rates for a past date?

Yes, from 14 November 2026 onward; every day's board is kept permanently. Add ?date=YYYY-MM-DD for one day: the response is the board captured that day, or the nearest earlier day within five days, with date_requested and snapshot_date added. For a range, /history?ccy=USD&from=…&to=… returns one row per day as JSON, CSV, XML or XLSX on paid plans.

Do I need an API key?

Yes. Commercial bank boards need an API key; any plan works, the free key included, and each call counts against the plan. Public pages or widgets that show the rates need a visible link to allratestoday.com.