USD/GTQ Annual Average Exchange Rate 2015-2026 (Banguat Reference) — and Which Rate a U.S. Filing Actually Uses

Almost no English-language source publishes an annual average for the Guatemalan quetzal. Diaspora filers, accountants and researchers need one, so we built it from the central bank’s own daily series — and then checked, separately, which authority actually publishes a rate for U.S. purposes. The two answers do not match, and this page shows both rather than reconciling them.

In short: Across 2015-2026 the USD/GTQ Banco de Guatemala reference rate has stayed inside a Q7.26935-Q7.93024 band. The annual mean ranged from Q7.35086 (2017) to Q7.83367 (2023). 2026 is a year-to-date figure — 223 published days through 11 August 2026, not an annual average. Separately: the IRS yearly-average table does not list the quetzal at all, and the U.S. Treasury publishes its own quarterly Guatemala-Quetzal rate that differs from Banguat’s. Today’s live rate is Q7.62 (2026-08-11).

Annual USD/GTQ, 2015-2026 (Banguat reference rate)

Quetzales per one U.S. dollar. Average and median are different statistics and are both shown by name.

Two readings worth naming, both recomputed from the daily series rather than eyeballed. 2018 is the only year in the twelve where the mean and the median diverge by more than three centavos — 7.51908 against 7.48295, a gap of 0.03613. The next widest is 2016 at 0.02446; every other year sits under two centavos, and 2019 is almost exactly symmetric (0.00006). A wide mean-median gap means the rate trended across the year rather than oscillating around a centre. And the 2026 year-to-date mean is lower than every complete year from 2019 through 2025; the last full year with a lower mean than 2026’s partial figure was 2018.

Year-end closing rate, and what the U.S. Treasury published

Year-end matters separately from the annual mean because U.S. reporting rules that fix a point in time land on 31 December. These are two different instruments from two different bodies. We are not reconciling them — both are shown, each named.

The Treasury series is quarterly. Its two 2026 observations to date are 7.64 as of 31 March 2026 and 7.62 as of 30 June 2026 (Bureau of the Fiscal Service, retrieved 2026-08-11).

Which authority publishes what

That IRS gap is the single most useful fact on this page, and it is a verified silence rather than an assertion: the page was fetched in full on 2026-08-11 and searched for both “Guatemala” and “Quetzal”, with zero matches in either case. For currencies it omits, the IRS page states: “For additional exchange rates not listed below, refer to the governmental and external resources listed on the Foreign currency and currency exchange rates page or any other posted exchange rate (that is used consistently).”

The companion IRS page, Foreign currency and currency exchange rates (last reviewed 22 May 2026), states: “Use the exchange rate prevailing when you receive, pay, or accrue the item. If there is more than one exchange rate, use the one that most properly reflects your income.” It also warns that “The exchange rates referenced on this page do not apply when making payments of U.S. taxes to the IRS.”

A Banguat reference rate is Guatemala’s central-bank rate. It is not automatically the rate a U.S. filing requires. The IRS page linked to the Treasury series but did not, in its own text, state a conversion rule for FBAR. The IRS Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR) page (last reviewed 30 July 2026) gives the filing threshold — aggregate value of foreign financial accounts exceeding $10,000 at any time during the calendar year reported — and links to the Treasury rates, but no conversion rule appears in the text of that page itself. That same page names the body the report actually goes to: the FBAR is filed on Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) Form 114, not on an IRS form. This page reports that silence; it does not fill it.

Monthly averages, 2025 and 2026

August 2026 covers 11 days. Months with fewer than a full complement of days are partial and are labelled with their day count rather than rounded up to a month.

Methodology

Reproduced from the dataset’s own source block:

• Publisher: Banco de Guatemala (Banguat).
• Endpoint: https://www.banguat.gob.gt/variables/ws/TipoCambio.asmx
• Method: TipoCambioRango SOAP call, one call per half-year, USD/GTQ reference rate (tipo de cambio de referencia).
• Definition: “Banguat’s published daily reference rate. It is NOT a bank counter rate and NOT an IRS filing rate.”
• Averaging method: “Unweighted arithmetic mean of every day Banguat published in the period. Banguat publishes a rate on non-business days as well; no interpolation and no gap-filling is performed.”
• Retrieved: 2026-08-11. Coverage: 2015-2026.

Three consequences follow from that method and are worth stating plainly. A day Banguat did not publish is absent, not estimated. A weekend rate counts the same as a Tuesday rate, so this is a calendar-day mean rather than a business-day mean. And years before 2015 are not in this dataset — no figure for them appears anywhere on this page, because we did not retrieve one.

The underlying file is published at /data/exchange-rates/annual-averages.json for anyone who wants to recompute it.

Related on this site

• Today’s exchange rate — the live daily Banguat reference.
• Currency hub — USD, EUR, GBP, MXN and JPY against the quetzal.
• Exchange rate history — narrative history and seasonal patterns.
• The 1% U.S. remittance tax — the statute, and what each provider publishes about funding.

This page reports a published series and states which body publishes what. It is not tax advice. Consult a qualified tax professional about which rate your own filing requires.

Sources