Convert USD to JPY US dollar ↔ Japanese yen Free Online Secure
Type an amount in US dollar and read it in Japanese yen at once. The page uses the European Central Bank's reference rate, and tells you which day that rate is from.
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Common amounts — Convert USD to JPY (US dollar ↔ Japanese yen)
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The last thirty days
Where these codes and rates come from
The three letters in EUR, USD or JPY are not an abbreviation someone invented for a website: they are ISO 4217, a standard in which the first two letters are the country's own code and the third is usually the initial of the currency. The figures on this page come from the European Central Bank, which publishes one set of reference rates each working day, around 16:00 Central European time, agreed between the central banks of the Eurosystem. They are a daily snapshot meant for statistics and accounting, not a live trading feed — which is exactly why they are the same number for everyone, rather than whatever one bank happened to quote at one moment.
Where you meet an exchange rate
You meet an exchange rate four or five times a year without thinking about it: booking a trip, paying an invoice issued abroad, buying from a foreign shop, reading a salary offer in another currency, or checking what a card charge really cost. In all of these the reference rate is the honest middle, and the price you actually pay sits a little to one side of it. Knowing the middle is what lets you see how wide that margin is.
Questions people ask
Is this the rate my bank will give me?
No, and no page can promise one. This is the European Central Bank's reference rate: the midpoint published once a day for statistics. A bank, a card scheme or an exchange office adds its own margin on top — usually between half a percent and three percent, sometimes more at an airport counter. Use this figure to judge the offer you are given, not to predict it.
How often does the figure change, and what happens at weekends?
The European Central Bank publishes once each working day, in the afternoon, Central European time. There is no publication on Saturdays, Sundays or TARGET holidays, so on those days the page shows the last working day's rate and says which day it belongs to. The chart alongside is one year of the same daily series.
Is the answer exact?
Where both units are defined in terms of one another by whole numbers, yes — the page says so above the figure, and the only rounding is in how many digits are shown. Where the ratio has no finite decimal, the page shows twelve significant digits and says the relation is approximate rather than pretending otherwise.
Does anything I type leave my device?
No. The arithmetic runs in your browser; nothing is uploaded and there is no server to upload it to. Load the page once and it keeps working with the network switched off.
Dollar and yen in ten dates
The exchange rate between the American dollar and the Japanese yen is the most closely watched pair in Asia and one of the three biggest in the world. It has a past full of deals, panics and interventions, and anyone who needs to Convert USD to JPY today is standing at the end of a long story. This page does the arithmetic with the European Central Bank's reference rates and shows the date of those rates; the text below tells the story through ten dates, because every one explains a habit of the market that still shapes the number you see. Whatever you type stays in your browser.
1871: the yen is born
Japan, newly modernised, created the yen by law in 1871 as a decimal currency modelled on Western coins. The name means round object. At the beginning one yen was close in value to one US dollar, a coincidence that older books like to point out, and it helps explain why the yen carries a symbol so similar to the dollar's.
1949: three hundred and sixty
After the Second World War, the American occupation fixed the yen at 360 to the dollar, a rate chosen as much for its convenience (360 degrees in a circle) as for economic reasons. It held for more than two decades and helped Japan rebuild as an exporter. A traveller of that time would have paid 360 yen for every dollar and found Japan unbelievably cheap.
1971: the Nixon shock
In August 1971 President Nixon ended the dollar's link to gold and imposed a surcharge on imports. The yen was revalued to 308 and then began to float in 1973. For a country built on exports, the end of the fixed rate was a blow, and the Japanese still call it the Nixon shock.
1985: the Plaza Accord
In September 1985 the finance ministers of five rich countries met at the Plaza Hotel in New York and agreed to push the dollar down. Within two years the dollar fell from about 240 yen to 120. Japan's exporters suffered, the central bank lowered rates to help them, and the cheap money fed a bubble in land and shares that burst in the early 1990s, beginning what Japanese call the lost decades.
1995: below eighty
In April 1995 the dollar touched 79.75 yen, the lowest ever. Japanese exporters pleaded for help, the authorities intervened, and the dollar recovered. The episode is why people say that the yen strengthens when the world is frightened: Japanese investors bring money home, and foreign investors buy yen as a refuge.
1998: the Asian crisis and intervention
During the Asian financial crisis the yen weakened sharply to about 147 per dollar, and in June 1998 Japan and the United States jointly intervened to support it. It was the last coordinated action of that kind for years, and the pair settled in a range for a while.
2011: a record after a disaster
After the earthquake and tsunami of March 2011, the yen strengthened to a record of about 75.3 per dollar, as investors expected Japanese insurers to bring money home to pay for the damage. The G7 intervened together to hold the rise back, a rare show of solidarity.
2013: Abenomics
From the end of 2012, prime minister Shinzo Abe's economic programme combined easy money, public spending and reforms, and the yen fell from about 80 to over 120 per dollar in two years. The Bank of Japan bought bonds on a vast scale and kept interest rates near zero or below, a policy that lasted for a decade.
2022: the weakest in a generation
As the Federal Reserve raised rates in 2022 and the Bank of Japan did not, the yen fell towards 150 per dollar, the weakest in thirty-two years. In September, Japan intervened to buy yen for the first time since 1998. Another intervention followed in 2024, when the dollar approached 160.
Today: the carry trade and the exit
Because Japanese interest rates are so low, investors borrow yen cheaply and invest elsewhere, a strategy called the carry trade. When rates change or markets get nervous, that trade unwinds and the yen can jump. The sudden move of August 2024, when it strengthened by several per cent in days, was an example. For anyone who has to Convert USD to JPY for a payment some weeks away, the lesson is that the calm can end quickly.
Using the converter
Dollars in, yen out
Each time you Convert USD to JPY here, the answer has no decimals, because yen are always written as whole numbers.
Type the amount in dollars. The page combines the dollar and yen rates against the euro, since the central bank publishes its rates against the euro, and shows the yen with the date. The result has no decimals, since yen are written as whole numbers. At weekends and on holidays you see the last published rate, and the page says so.
The table and the line
Visitors who Convert USD to JPY several times a day find the table quicker than retyping each price.
Beneath the converter, a table lists common amounts from one dollar to five thousand, and a line follows the last thirty days. For a traveller in Japan, the table is the quickest way to judge a price in a shop or a menu.
Back to dollars
For yen to dollars, for instance when a Japanese supplier sends an invoice, Convert JPY to USD applies the same rates in the opposite direction.
Practical Japan for an American
What a dollar buys
Before a Convert USD to JPY for a day's budget, check whether hotel prices include tax and breakfast.
When the yen is weak, Japan is a bargain. A bowl of ramen costs the equivalent of six to eight dollars, a convenience-store meal four, a metro ride two. A mid-range hotel is seventy to a hundred and twenty dollars a night, and the Shinkansen from Tokyo to Kyoto about a hundred and ten. A traveller who Converts USD to JPY for these figures at home will soon see that the cost of a Japanese trip is mostly the flight.
Cash and cards
In practice you rarely need to Convert USD to JPY in cash at home; a card plus a convenience-store withdrawal does the job.
Large stores and hotels take cards, but smaller restaurants, shrines and rural inns often prefer cash. Convenience-store machines accept foreign cards and are the easiest source of yen. If a screen asks whether you want to be charged in dollars, decline and take yen.
Tax-free shopping
Visitors can buy goods free of consumption tax at shops that display a tax-free sign, provided they spend above a threshold and show a passport. Cameras, cosmetics and electronics are the usual targets. The saving is ten per cent, which matters on a large purchase.
Time and distance
Japan is thirteen to fourteen hours ahead of New York, so the day has turned by the time you wake. Convert EST to IST shows the same principle with another Asian country, and a tool for Japan itself would follow the same logic. Distances are in kilometres, and the Shinkansen reaches 320 kilometres per hour, which Convert KMH to MPH puts at about 199 miles per hour.
American money in Japan
Troops and civilians on base
Service members who Convert USD to JPY for off-base spending often time larger purchases around the allowance adjustments.
About fifty thousand American military personnel are stationed in Japan, with large bases at Yokosuka, Okinawa and Misawa. They are paid in dollars and receive allowances adjusted for the cost of living. When the yen weakens, their dollars go further, and the allowances are adjusted twice a year. The effects are felt in the towns around the bases.
Baseball and big contracts
Japan sends its best baseball players to the major leagues, and Shohei Ohtani's contract of 2023, worth 700 million dollars with most of it deferred, became a global headline. Japanese fans calculate every number in yen, and the figure has a different feel in each currency.
Carmakers and exports
Analysts who Convert USD to JPY for a company's results separate the effect of the rate from the growth of the business.
Toyota, Honda and Nissan sell millions of cars in the United States. A weak yen raises their profits when they bring dollars home, and a strong yen reduces them. Analysts read their quarterly results with the exchange rate in mind.
Teaching English in Japan and other jobs paid in yen
The JET Programme and private schools
New teachers usually Convert USD to JPY for the first deposit and the first month before the first salary arrives.
Every year thousands of Americans move to Japan to teach English, many of them through the Japan Exchange and Teaching Programme, which places assistants in public schools, and others through private conversation schools. Salaries are paid in yen at the end of each month and typically fall between 250,000 and 330,000 yen, enough to live on and save a little. When the yen is weak, the same salary buys fewer dollars at home, and teachers who plan to send money back or repay student loans feel the change at once.
A new teacher usually converts a first sum of savings before the move, enough for the deposit on a flat and the first month. After that, a monthly transfer of a fixed amount of yen to a dollar account is the usual pattern. If you Convert USD to JPY for the planning stage and then Convert JPY to USD for each month's transfer, you can see at a glance whether your savings target is realistic, and whether a weak yen has changed the maths.
Tech, finance and research jobs
Tokyo's financial and technology sectors employ foreign professionals, some paid in yen and others, in multinational firms, partly in dollars. Contracts that specify a salary in yen carry currency risk for the employee. Contracts that specify dollars carry it for the employer. It is common to see a clause that adjusts the yen amount if the rate moves by more than a set percentage.
Taxes and the treaty
The United States taxes its citizens on worldwide income, and Japan taxes residents on theirs, so Americans in Japan rely on the tax treaty and foreign tax credits to avoid paying twice. The yen amounts are converted to dollars for the American return using an official yearly average or the rate on the date of each payment. A tax adviser who knows both systems earns the fee quickly.
Starting a business
Anyone who must Convert USD to JPY for a company's minimum capital should ask the adviser which date the authorities use.
Foreigners who start a company in Japan generally need a business-manager visa and must show a minimum capital, a sum fixed in yen whose cost in dollars changes with the rate. The requirements are revised from time to time, so check the current figure and time the transfer with care.
A two-week trip to Japan with a dollar budget
Splitting the budget
Couples who Convert USD to JPY for the full itinerary often add a daily buffer of ten per cent.
A common itinerary of two weeks covers Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka with a side trip to Hiroshima or Nara. For a couple, a comfortable budget is around 20,000 to 30,000 yen per person per day for hotels, food, local transport and entrance fees, which is a moderate sum in dollars when the yen is weak and a larger one when it is strong. The flight and the rail pass come on top. Convert USD to JPY for the daily figure and for the total, and decide in advance how much of the savings is reserved for shopping.
The convenience-store lifeline
Japanese convenience stores sell hot meals, fresh sandwiches, coffee and rice balls for two to five dollars, operate around the clock and have cash machines that accept foreign cards. For a traveller on a budget, they are a lifeline: breakfast costs under three dollars and is better than in many American restaurants.
Rail passes and the economy of speed
A national rail pass, valid for seven, fourteen or twenty-one days, was a bargain until its price rose sharply in 2023. Today, it pays off only if you take several long trips. A single Shinkansen ticket from Tokyo to Kyoto costs about 14,000 yen. Compare the pass with the sum of the tickets you expect to buy before you decide.
Seasons and crowds
Cherry blossom time in late March and early April and the autumn colours of November are the busiest and dearest seasons. Hotels in Kyoto cost twice as much and book out months ahead. Winter and early summer are quieter and cheaper, although the rainy season of June can be humid.
The yen in your investment account
Japanese shares and funds
Many American investors hold Japanese shares or exchange-traded funds that track the Nikkei or the Topix. The return in dollars is the sum of two things: the change in share prices in yen and the change in the exchange rate. In years when the yen weakens, a Japanese fund can rise in yen and fall in dollars, which surprises investors who did not look at the currency. Some funds are hedged, which removes the currency effect at a small cost.
Bonds, pensions and the world's biggest creditor
Europeans who follow the same flows use Convert EUR to USD and Convert AUD to JPY to see how other majors move against the same two currencies.
Japan is the largest foreign holder of American government debt, together with China, and Japanese pension funds invest trillions of yen abroad. When they shift their allocations, the yen can move noticeably. For individuals the lesson is modest: the currency is a part of every foreign investment, and a quick conversion shows how much of the return came from it.
Reading the headlines
Business news often says that the yen has fallen to a record low against the dollar when it has fallen to a multi-year low. The distinction matters: the record is 360 in 1949 or 75.3 in 2011, depending on whether you mean weak or strong. Check the date of the comparison before you draw a conclusion.
Neighbours of the pair
The euro and the pound
Japanese trade with Europe is large too. Convert USD to EUR and Convert EUR to JPY complete the triangle, and for Britain there is Convert GBP to JPY.
The other safe haven
The Swiss franc and the yen are often called twin havens. For the dollar side of the franc, Convert USD to CHF is the page to open.
Mistakes when you Convert USD to JPY
Counting zeros
A price of 12,000 yen is about eighty dollars, not twelve thousand. Check the size of the result against the table.
Confusing yen and yuan
The Chinese yuan has a nearly identical symbol and a very different value. The code JPY says which one you mean.
Paying in dollars
If a terminal offers to charge you in dollars, choose yen. The conversion by the operator is usually three to six per cent worse than your bank's.
An old rate
A rate from last month may be out by several per cent. The date next to the result is there precisely to prevent that.
Short answers
How do I Convert USD to JPY here?
Type the dollars in the first field. The page shows the yen at the latest reference rates, with the date.
Is the amount stored?
No. It stays in your browser.
Your amount stays with you
Only the table of rates is fetched. The number you type never leaves your browser, and no account is needed. It is a quiet way to Convert USD to JPY without telling a website what you plan to spend.
In short
To Convert USD to JPY, type the dollars and read the yen at the latest reference rates of the European Central Bank, with their date. The result has no decimals, the figures look large, and the rate can swing sharply on news. Pay in yen, withdraw at a convenience-store machine and compare every quote with the reference.