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What is Base Currency?

The base currency is the first currency in a currency pair.

It compares the values between the first currency and the second currency in a currency pair.


The base currency, which is also known as the transaction currency, is the first currency appearing in a currency pair quotation.

The second part of the currency quotation is called the quote currency or the counter currency.

Base and Quote Currency

For example, if you were looking at the EUR/USD currency pair, the euro would be the base currency and the U.S. dollar would be the quote currency.



EUR/USD and USD/CAD are two examples of this format.



Currencies showing a currency pair are usually separated with a slash character. The slash is sometimes removed but it means the same thing.