Which exchange rate goes in a budget: card, Wise, ECB or mid-market?

For spending, the exchange rate that belongs in your budget is the one you actually paid: your card's or your bank's rate, fee included, worked out from your statement. When you do not know it yet, use a reference rate for that day, such as the mid-market rate, and never convert the entry again later because the rate moved. For balances, such as savings or a loan in another currency, use today's reference rate.

The reason is that the two answer different questions. Spending answers "what did this cost me?", and only the rate you paid answers it. A balance answers "what is this worth now?", and no single payment rate describes that, so a neutral daily rate is the honest choice. This is the rate step of how to budget in two currencies, and it is how multi-currency budgeting in Tavala works.

The four rates, and what each one is for

Mid-market. Wise describes the mid-market rate as "the midpoint between the buy price and the sell price" of two currencies (Wise). It is the reference most converters show. Wise itself says it uses "only" the mid-market rate and charges a separate conversion fee, "from 0.23%" depending on the currency, as of 24 October 2026 (Wise pricing). That makes a Wise conversion easy to record: the rate is the reference, and the fee is a visible line.

The ECB reference rates. The European Central Bank publishes euro rates "usually updated at around 16:00 CET every working day", based on a daily concertation between central banks (ECB). On 23 October 2026, 1 euro was 1.1193 US dollars and 0.83728 pounds. The ECB says they are "published for information purposes only" and that using them for transactions "is strongly discouraged". A budget does not trade at the rate; it records what something was worth on a date. Two limits: there is no rate on weekends and on the ECB's holidays, and the list is short (29 currencies on 23 October 2026). The Macedonian denar, for example, is not on it.

Card network rates. When you pay abroad with a card, the network converts the amount at its own rate, and your bank may add a foreign transaction fee on top. In the United States, the official interpretation of Regulation Z measures that fee against a market rate the bank does not control: "Any amount in excess of that dollar amount is a foreign transaction fee" (CFPB, Regulation Z, comment 4(a)-4). In the European Union, the card issuer and anyone converting at a terminal or cash machine must state the total conversion charge as a percentage mark-up over the ECB's latest reference rate, before you pay (Regulation (EU) 2021/1230 on cross-border payments). In the EU, that mark-up is the number to look for.

Your bank's rate. A bank that converts a transfer, or exchanges cash at a branch, uses its own rate, which usually includes its margin. You see it only in the result: what left your account and what arrived.

How to work out the rate you paid

Divide what your account was charged by the foreign amount.

Say you take 200 US dollars out of a cash machine with a euro account, and your statement shows €182.40. Your rate was 182.40 ÷ 200 = 0.912 euros per dollar. At the ECB rate for 23 October 2026 (1 EUR = 1.1193 USD, so 1 USD = 0.8934 EUR), the same 200 dollars would have been €178.68. The €3.72 difference is 2.08 percent over the reference rate: that is what the withdrawal cost you in conversion, on top of the cash. Record the entry as €182.40 and the cost is in your budget, where it belongs.

How to record a fee

It depends on how your statement shows it.

• The fee is a separate line (a cash machine fee, a "foreign transaction fee", a transfer service's fee). Record it as its own expense, in a category such as bank fees. Record the payment itself at the rate shown. At year end, it tells you what two currencies cost you.
• The fee is inside the rate (the statement shows one euro amount for the purchase). Record the euro amount. The rate you work out from it already includes the fee, and you do not need to split it out.
• You paid cash you exchanged earlier. Use the rate you bought the cash at. If you do not remember it, use the reference rate for the day you exchanged it.

Never record the payment at a reference rate and drop the fee: the budget then says the trip cost less than your account does, and the balance stops matching the bank.

Dynamic currency conversion: "pay in your currency?"

At a card terminal or cash machine abroad, you may be asked whether to pay in the local currency or in your home currency. Choosing your home currency is dynamic currency conversion (DCC): the merchant's or the machine's provider converts the amount at its rate, instead of your card network and bank.

EU rules require the provider to show you, before you pay, the amount in both currencies, the mark-up over the ECB reference rate, and the option to pay in the payee's currency. Since 19 April 2021, card issuers in the EU must also send you an electronic message with the mark-up after a card payment in another EU currency (Central Bank of Malta). So you can compare: the terminal's mark-up against your own card's, which your bank publishes.

For the budget, DCC changes nothing about the rule. If you accepted it, your statement already shows the amount in your home currency. Record that amount, in your home currency, and put the local amount in the note. The rate you paid is the terminal's.

Pending payments, and why the past stays put

A card payment often shows a provisional amount for a few days before the final one posts. Record it the day you pay, at a reference rate for that day. When the statement posts a different figure, correct the entry once to the posted amount.

That correction fixes a fact. Converting last month's entries again at this month's rate rewrites one. If you paid €182.40 for 200 dollars in October, that is what October cost, even if 200 dollars buys €170 in January. A budget that re-converts history has past months that change every time a rate moves, and two reports of the same month that disagree.

Balances are the opposite case: a dollar account's value in euros should follow today's reference rate, because it really is worth more or less.

How Tavala labels the rate

Tavala converts at daily reference rates and labels every conversion with where its rate came from (how Tavala converts currencies):

To match a statement, open the entry in the full form, tap the pencil on the conversion card and type your rate: for the cash machine above, 0.912, and the card reads €182.40 (use your own exchange rate for one entry). The rate applies to that one entry: it changes what that entry charged its wallet, and nothing else. There is no setting for one rate across a wallet or a currency. Each entry keeps its rate once saved; wallet balances use today's rate. If an amount still looks off, a converted amount looks wrong goes through the usual causes. Bank connections exist only for banks in the United States and Canada, so for most accounts elsewhere the posted amount is typed by hand.