What Is COFER and Why It Matters
COFER stands for Currency Composition of Official Foreign Exchange Reserves, the International Monetary Fund's official system for tracking how central banks allocate their reserves by country. This data is essential for understanding global finance because it reveals not only the scale of reserves central banks hold, about $13.14 trillion tracked as of Q4 2025, but also which reserve currencies central banks trust most.
Every three months, the IMF publishes updated COFER statistics with a lag of approximately three months. This means the latest available data reflects conditions from the previous quarter, allowing researchers, policymakers, and investors to track long-term trends in reserve currency preferences. With 149 reporting economies participating in the system, COFER provides a comprehensive snapshot of global reserve allocation and offers early signs of shifts in confidence or policy toward specific currencies.
How COFER Data Is Collected and Reported
Central banks voluntarily report their foreign exchange reserve holdings to the IMF, breaking down these reserves by currency. The reports are confidential at the country level: the IMF publishes only aggregates, never individual countries' allocations. Not every central bank reports with full granularity, which is why COFER distinguishes between allocated reserves, where the currency composition is known, and unallocated reserves, where the breakdown is uncertain.
As of Q4 2025, the global reserves dashboard tracks reserves across major currencies: the US Dollar at 56.77%, the Euro at 20.25%, the Japanese yen at 5.56%, the British pound at 4.64%, the Canadian dollar at 2.49%, the Australian dollar at 2.01%, the Chinese Yuan at 1.95%, the Swiss franc at 0.19%, and an "Other" category at 6.14%. These percentages represent the composition of allocated reserves, which form the basis for analyzing central bank behavior.
Interpreting Reserve Shares Over Time
The power of COFER data lies in its ability to reveal trends. Consider the dollar: in 2000, it represented approximately 71% of allocated reserves. Today, at 56.77%, it has declined by roughly 14 percentage points over a quarter-century. This is neither negligible nor apocalyptic; it reflects gradual de-dollarization driven by economic growth in other regions, institutional improvements in competing currencies, and deliberate diversification by central banks seeking to reduce concentration risk.
Similarly, the euro's emergence illustrates how institutional innovation affects reserve currency status. The euro launched in non-physical form in 1999 and circulated physically from 2002 onward, yet it now holds 20.25% of allocated reserves. This ascent reflects Europe's economic integration, the creation of a large unified financial market, and the euro's credibility as a store of value. The euro's share has proven stable despite periodic crises, underlining its resilience as a reserve currency.
The Chinese Yuan and Emerging Market Reserves
COFER data reveals perhaps the most discussed modern development: the rise of non-Western currencies in central bank portfolios. The Chinese Yuan presents a particularly instructive case. When the yuan joined the IMF's Special Drawing Rights basket in 2016, it marked official recognition of the currency as a legitimate reserve asset. COFER data subsequently showed yuan reserves climbing from near-zero to a peak of 2.8% in 2022.
Since that peak, yuan reserves have declined to 1.95% as of Q4 2025. This retreat reflects several factors, including capital controls, limited convertibility, and geopolitical considerations that make some central banks cautious about holding yuan. Yet the fact that central banks hold meaningful yuan reserves at all represents a substantial shift from a decade ago.
What COFER Does and Does Not Tell Us
COFER data is invaluable, but it has limitations. First, the three-month publication lag means the data is never current; trends take time to become visible. Second, country-level allocations are confidential, so the public data cannot show which specific central banks hold which currencies. Third, COFER measures allocated reserves, which represent only a portion of total reserves; the unallocated portion introduces some ambiguity.
Additionally, COFER does not capture why central banks hold the reserves they do. It shows that they hold dollars, euros, and yuan, but it does not explain whether they do so by choice, by necessity, or by historical inertia. Analysts must combine COFER data with central bank disclosures, policy documents, and market data to understand true motivations. This is also why country-level figures on this site are presented as estimates rather than official numbers.
Exploring the Data Yourself
The best way to understand COFER is to explore it firsthand. Visit our global reserves dashboard to see how central banks allocate reserves across currencies. You can examine trends for individual reserve currencies and compare shares over multiple quarters. By watching the data update each quarter, you can develop an intuition for which currencies are gaining or losing favor among central banks worldwide, and what those shifts might mean for global finance. For background on the forces behind these trends, read how central banks manage foreign exchange reserves.