Migrate from a Dead Free Exchange Rate API in One Line
exchangeratesapi.io, the Fixer free tier and exchangerate.host all stopped being free. AllRatesToday serves each of their JSON shapes from the ECB reference table, keyless for latest rates, so a broken project is a hostname change away from working.
Three free exchange rate APIs powered a decade of tutorials, notebooks and side projects, and all three now require paid keys. Because every one of them served the European Central Bank's daily reference table, the fix is mechanical: AllRatesToday reproduces each response shape, field for field, from the same ECB data. Change the hostname and the rest of your code keeps working.
| You were using | What broke | Shape served | Guide |
|---|---|---|---|
| exchangeratesapi.io | Sold to apilayer in 2021; keys, 100 calls/month, no HTTPS on free | { base, date, rates } | One-line fix |
| Fixer.io free tier | HTTP-only, EUR base only, 100 calls/month | { success, timestamp, base, date, rates } | One-line fix |
| exchangerate.host | Joined apilayer in 2023; keyless requests started failing | { success, base, date, rates } | One-line fix |
| Frankfurter | Still free; use this as a mirror or fallback | { amount, base, date, rates } | /api/compat/frankfurter/latest?from=USD&to=GBP |
What every compatible endpoint has in common
- Latest rates are keyless, over HTTPS, with CORS, any base currency, edge-cached. Public displays must link back to allratestoday.com.
- Dated tables and ranges need a free API key sent as
Authorization: Bearer art_live_…. Ranges are billed one request per month covered and limited to a year per call. - Numbers are the ECB reference rates, once per business day. Non-EUR bases are cross-rates inside the table, as the originals computed them.
- Two extra top-level fields,
source and attribution. Nothing is removed or renamed.
Then, when you are ready
The same key unlocks what those APIs never had: real-time mid-market rates
for 160+ currencies, and the official tables of 116 central banks and tax
authorities for invoices, VAT and customs work. Or skip the API and take the
whole archive as CSV.
Related