Report on the Evolution of the Foreign Exchange Market and the Foreign Exchange Balance

We present a new edition of this monthly publication, corresponding to July 2025, which analyzes the evolution of purchases and sales of foreign currency made by entities with clients through the foreign exchange market.

Executive summary

In July, entities and their clients sold USD 866 million and USD 286 million in the foreign exchange market, respectively, while the National Treasury bought USD 1,229 million.
For its part, the BCRA did not operate in the spot exchange market and made net payments through the Local Currency Payment System (SML) for USD 76 million. The “Non-Financial Private Sector” was a net buyer of foreign currency for USD 282 million in the foreign exchange market.
Within this group, “Individuals” registered net outflows of USD 5,644 million, mainly due to net purchases of banknotes and foreign currency without specific purposes for USD 5,807 million. It should be noted that part of the funds acquired and registered in the banknote account are deposited in local accounts or can be used later for the cancellation of consumption with cards in foreign currency and do not necessarily constitute the formation of foreign assets as the final destination of these funds.
Similarly, as for foreign currency outflows, they can be partly used to cancel foreign liabilities (for example, for payments of foreign commercial and financial debt or profits and dividends).
On the other hand, the “Oilseeds and Cereals” sector was the main sector offering foreign currency, registering net revenues of USD 4,632 million, largely explained by its result in the “Goods” category.
In turn, the “Real Sector excluding Oilseeds and Cereals” recorded net sales of USD 623 million. In terms of the exchange balance, the operations of the current account of the foreign exchange balance registered a surplus of USD 1,374 million in July, explained by the net income of the “Goods” and “Secondary income” accounts of USD 3,887 million and USD 9 million, partially offset by the net expenditures in the accounts “Primary income” and “Services” of USD 1,595 million and USD 928 million. respectively.

Net expenditures were recorded for expenses with cards, trips and tickets for USD 963 million. It should be noted that in the annex to this report on the sheet “Annex cards and trips” an estimate of gross income and expenses for trips and tickets, net of payments for purchases of digital services and the estimate of payments for purchases of goods dispatched through postal services (For more information see Services section).
In turn, the foreign exchange financial account was in deficit of USD 2,434 million in July. This result was explained by the deficits of the “Non-Financial Private Sector” and the “National Government and BCRA” of USD 3,273 million and USD 1,278 million, partially offset by the net income of “Other Net Movements” and the “Financial Sector” of USD 1,664 million and USD 453 million, respectively.
The BCRA’s international reserves decreased by USD 1,107 million in July, ending the month at a level of USD 38,866 million. This result was mainly explained by the principal payments of public securities for USD 2,711 million, by the net interest payments of the public sector for USD 1,516 million, by the fall in the price in US dollars of the assets that make up the reserves for USD 75 million and by the net payments made by the BCRA through the Local Currency Payment System (SML) for USD 75 million.
The aforementioned movements were partially offset by the deposit of foreign currency purchases in the foreign exchange market by the National Treasury for USD 1,229 million, by the net income of capital and interest on loans from international organizations (excluding the IMF) for USD 1,089 million and by the increase in the holdings in foreign currency of the entities in the BCRA for USD 1,009 million.