Central Bank Rates MCP Server — @allratestoday/central-bank-mcp
Give your AI assistant the official exchange rates that compliance, tax, and accounting actually require. A Model Context Protocol server that lets Claude Code, Cursor, Claude Desktop, Windsurf, and any MCP-compatible client fetch published central-bank and tax-authority rates from 60+ institutions — ECB, Fed, Bank of Japan, HMRC, US Treasury, and more — via the AllRatesToday API.
After installation, your assistant can answer questions like:
- "What is the ECB's official USD/EUR rate today?"
- "What HMRC rate should I use for this March invoice?"
- "Show me the Bank of Japan's official rate for every day of Q1."
- "Compare the official USD/LKR rate across every central bank that publishes one."
⚖️ Official rates vs mid-market rates
Everything this server returns is an official published rate: fixed once the institution publishes it, carrying that institution's own publication date — the number tax authorities, auditors, and customs require. It is not the live market rate. For live mid-market rates (price display, conversion, anything that should track the market), use the companion server @allratestoday/mcp-server. The two can diverge by several percent — pick by use case. Methodology: allratestoday.com/official-rates-methodology.
🚀 Why this server?
- 🏛️ 121 central banks + 3 tax authorities — central banks (ECB, Fed, BOJ, SNB, RBI, …) plus tax authorities (HMRC, US Treasury, …), each served from its own published tables
- 📅 Point-in-time correctness — ask for any date; weekends and holidays roll back to the rate legally in force, and the response tells you which publication date applied
- 📊 Cross-bank comparison — one call returns every institution's rate for a pair, with min/max/median and spread stats
- 🧮 Honest derivations — pairs a bank doesn't publish directly are cross-computed only within that bank's own table and flagged
derived; banks are never mixed - 🔓 Works with no API key — installs and answers out of the box; the latest published table of every source is open
- 🧰 Five focused tools — small surface, easy for the model to use correctly
- 🔌 Works everywhere MCP does — stdio transport, MCP 1.x; Claude Code, Cursor, Claude Desktop, Windsurf, or any generic host
🔓 Keyless mode — what works with no setup
Install it with no configuration at all and it starts, connects, and answers:
| Tool | Keyless | What you get |
|---|---|---|
list_central_banks | ✅ | Every covered institution, from a catalogue bundled with the package (no coverage dates). |
get_official_rates | ✅ | The latest published table of any source, or one pair from it, with the publisher's own rate_date. |
get_official_rates with a date | 🔑 | One sentence explaining how to get a key. |
get_official_rate_history | 🔑 | Same. |
compare_official_rates | 🔑 | Same. |
get_publication_calendar | 🔑 | Same. |
The keyless path reads the open, edge-cached /api/open/central-bank/{bank}
endpoint — free to use with a visible attribution link back to allratestoday.com
(the exact wording ships in each response's attribution field).
🔑 Get your API key (free)
A key adds historical dates, time series, cross-bank comparison and publication calendars. The free tier covers the latest published tables and light historical use — no credit card required. Deep history and dated tables need a paid plan.
- Register at allratestoday.com/register — 30 seconds
- Verify your email
- Copy your key from the dashboard (format:
art_live_xxxxx) - Use it as
ALLRATES_API_KEYin the configs below
Without one the server prints a short summary of keyless mode on stderr and keeps running — it never exits, because an MCP server that exits breaks the host client's whole configuration.
🧩 Easiest install: the Claude Code plugin
If you use Claude Code, install the plugin instead of configuring this server by
hand — it bundles both AllRatesToday MCP servers, two skills, and five slash
commands (/rate, /convert, /official-rate, /fx-history,
/add-currency-support):
Everything below still applies for other MCP clients.
☁️ Hosted endpoint — nothing to install
The same tools also run as a hosted Streamable HTTP MCP server (together with the tools of the sibling AllRatesToday server, nine in total). Paste the URL into any client that supports remote MCP — Claude.ai and Claude Desktop connectors, ChatGPT, Cursor, VS Code, Codex, Gemini CLI:
Works keyless. With a key, send Authorization: Bearer art_live_… or, where the client only takes a URL, connect to https://allratestoday.com/api/mcp?api_key=art_live_…. Registry name: com.allratestoday/mcp. One-click Cursor / VS Code buttons: https://allratestoday.com/mcp/#hosted
📦 Installation
Both commands launch the stdio MCP server and wait for a client to connect — your MCP client launches them as a subprocess.
🏁 Quick setup per client
Claude Code
Restart Claude Code. Verify by asking: "Which central banks can you fetch official rates from?"
Cursor
Edit ~/.cursor/mcp.json (or .cursor/mcp.json inside your project):
Claude Desktop
Edit claude_desktop_config.json (Settings → Developer → Edit Config) and add the same mcpServers block as the Cursor example above, then restart Claude Desktop.
🧰 Tools
| Tool | What it does | Plan |
|---|---|---|
list_central_banks | All covered institutions with codes, metadata, latest date | Free (keyless: bundled catalogue) |
get_official_rates | A bank's published table (or one pair), latest or for a given date | Keyless (latest) / Paid (dated) |
get_official_rate_history | Date-by-date official series for one pair | Paid, billed ~1 call per month covered |
compare_official_rates | One pair across every bank, with spread stats | Free (key required) |
get_publication_calendar | Dates a bank actually published (no values) | Free (key required) |
🔒 Privacy
Only the request parameters and your API key ever reach allratestoday.com — never conversation context.
📚 More from AllRatesToday
- Central bank REST API docs
- Per-bank npm SDKs
@allratestoday/mcp-server— live mid-market rates MCP server
License
MIT © AllRatesToday