The key facts
- Demand for currency over nine months of 2026 was $50.4 billion; supply excluding Central Bank operations was $43.8 billion
- The gap narrowed from $7.8 billion to $6.6 billion but remains above the 2024 figure ($0.85 billion)
- The population sold $18.9 billion in currency to banks — $7.9 billion more than it bought
The gap between supply and demand has narrowed
The Central Bank has published a review of the domestic foreign exchange market for the first nine months of 2026, as cited by Gazeta. According to the regulator's data, total demand for foreign currency from January to September amounted to $50.4 billion, up 17.9% compared with the same period of 2025. Supply, excluding the Central Bank's operations, grew by 25.3% to $43.8 billion.
Dynamics over three years
As a result, the excess of demand over supply narrowed from $7.8 billion a year earlier to $6.6 billion — roughly 15%. Demand still exceeds supply, however, if the regulator's operations are not counted. Central Bank statistics show how much the indicator has changed over three years: in January–September 2024 the gap was only $0.85 billion, while in 2025 it rose sharply — demand grew by 23.7% that year, and supply by just 3.7%. In 2026 supply grew by a quarter and outpaced demand, yet the gap remains significantly larger than the level of two years ago.
Who shapes demand and supply
Enterprises account for the bulk of demand: legal entities purchased $39.4 billion worth of currency (+15.3%). Demand from individuals came to almost $11 billion, up 27.9%. Supply from legal entities grew by 26.7%, outpacing the growth rate of their demand.
Exporters and the population
The key source of supply is export revenue. Over nine months it grew by 28.1% to $16.6 billion, of which companies sold $9.5 billion, or 57.2%, on the domestic market — 33% more than a year earlier. The share of revenue sold has been rising steadily: about 53% in 2024, 55% in 2025 and 57.2% in 2026; over two years the volume of sales increased by roughly 63%.
Operations of the population
Over nine months, the population sold $18.9 billion worth of currency to banks (+23.4%) and purchased $11 billion (+27.9%). The positive balance amounted to $7.9 billion, compared with $6.7 billion a year earlier; over two years, the volume of currency sold to banks grew by about 60%. At the same time, in 2026 citizens' purchases grew faster than their sales — 27.9% versus 23.4%. According to data cited by Gazeta with reference to earlier publications, for the whole of 2025 the difference between the population's sales and purchases of currency reached $9.7 billion — 1.4 times the previous year's figure.
