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Currency Composition of Official Foreign Exchange Reserves (COFER)
The Currency Composition of Official Foreign Exchange Reserves (COFER) dataset includes the world total of official foreign exchange reserves by currency. The currencies identified are: U.S. dollar, Euro, Chinese renminbi, Japanese yen, Pounds sterling, Australian dollar, Canadian dollar, and Swiss francs, and “Other currencies”.
Foreign exchange reserves data reported to COFER are consistent with the "other reserve assets" classification of reserve assets as outlined in the seventh edition of the IMF's Balance of Payments and International Investment Position Manual (BPM7). They are reserve assets other than Monetary gold, Special Drawing Rights (SDRs), and Reserve position in the IMF; and consist of the monetary authorities' claims on nonresidents in the form of: Currency and deposits, Securities, Financial derivatives, and Other claims.
The IMF’s Statistics Department conducts the COFER survey quarterly. COFER data are reported to the IMF voluntarily; data for individual countries are kept strictly confidential. Data are reported to the IMF in U.S. dollars, converted using end-of-period market exchange rates. At present there are 147 reporters, consisting of the monetary authorities of IMF member countries and non-IMF member countries/economies and of other foreign exchange reserves holding entities. COFER includes a list of the economies that agreed to disclose their participation. SDDS Plus adherents are required to participate in the COFER database and to disclose their participation.
The COFER database has been changed and updated several times.
Starting in 2025Q3, with revisions back to 2000Q1, the IMF eliminated the “unallocated” portion of the COFER dataset to provide a complete currency composition—expressed in both dollars and shares—that accounts for 100 percent of the world’s foreign exchange reserves. Also starting with 2025Q3, the IMF publishes the share of total reserves that have been imputed. More information is available in the November 2025 technical note: “Improving the Analytical Usefulness of the IMF’s COFER Data”.
Until 2025Q3, the COFER dataset included “allocated” and “unallocated” foreign exchange reserves. “Allocated” foreign exchange reserves were the category in which reporting countries identify and report the currency of denomination of their foreign exchange reserves. “Unallocated” foreign exchange reserves were a residual category consisting of the difference between total foreign exchange reserves sourced from the International Liquidity database (formerly International Financial Statistics) and the total allocated reserves in COFER. “Unallocated” foreign exchange reserves had two components: (i) the total foreign exchange reserves of nonreporting countries; and (ii) the discrepancy (if any) between the International Liquidity database total foreign exchange reserves of COFER-reporting countries and the total allocated foreign exchange reserves in COFER.
Starting in 2016Q4, COFER expanded its currency range, separately identifying the Chinese renminbi, which was previously included indistinguishably in “other currencies”.
On September 30, 2015, the IMF published the list of COFER reporters for the first time. At this time, the IMF stopped providing a breakdown for advanced and emerging market economies in the COFER dataset. COFER originally included a breakdown for advanced economies and emerging market economies but stopped in 2015 to prevent residual disclosure of country-specific data. In December 2025, this breakdown was removed entirely back to 2000Q1 with the introduction of the revised series eliminating the unallocated portion of the COFER dataset.
Starting in 2012Q4, COFER expanded its currency range, separately identifying two currencies -- the Australian dollar and the Canadian dollar – which were previously included indistinguishably in “other currencies”.
Prior to the introduction of the Euro in 1999, several European currencies were separately identified in COFER: European Currency Unit, Deutsche mark, French franc, and the Netherlands guilder.
Annual data are available from 1995 to 1998; quarterly data are available starting from the first quarter of 1999.
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