De-Dollarization and BRICS: What IMF Reserve Data Show
De-dollarization is the idea that countries are moving away from the US dollar for their reserves, trade and borrowing. On the IMF's reserve data it is real but slow: the dollar was 57.13% of currency-identified foreign exchange reserves in early 2026, against 71.19% in 1999 and 64.68% at the end of 2016.
De-dollarization is shorthand for countries relying less on the US dollar: holding fewer dollars in their reserves, pricing less trade in dollars and borrowing less in them. It is a common theme in news about the BRICS group of countries.
For the reserve part, the IMF’s COFER survey is the official world record. This page reads it quarter by quarter back to 1999, sets it next to the dollar’s exchange rate and separates the share from the amount.
How it works
What is measured. Central banks and other monetary authorities hold foreign exchange reserves, assets in other countries’ currencies kept for paying abroad and for steadying their own currency. The IMF’s COFER survey records which currency those reserves are held in. It excludes gold, Special Drawing Rights and the reserve position in the IMF, so a central bank buying gold does not show up here at all; the gold page covers that side.
How the share is built. Reporters give the IMF their holdings in each currency, converted into US dollars at end-of-quarter exchange rates. The share is each currency’s amount divided by all the reserves whose currency is identified, which the IMF calls allocated reserves. Individual countries’ data are kept confidential, so COFER shows the world total, not who holds what.
Why the share moves. It can move because a holder buys or sells a currency, because a holder’s reserves grow in some currencies faster than others, or simply because exchange rates change. If the euro rises against the dollar, euro reserves are worth more dollars and the dollar’s share falls without anyone selling a dollar. The dollar index page covers how that exchange rate is measured.
A worked example
The share in 2026-Q1, from the IMF’s own amounts:
- Dollar reserves: $7,486.9 billion.
- All allocated reserves: $13,104.9 billion.
- Share: $7,486.9 / $13,104.9 = 57.13%.
Share and amount can move in opposite directions. Dollar reserves peaked at $7,677.2 billion in 2021-Q3, when the share was 59.87%. By 2026-Q1 the amount was 2.48% lower while total allocated reserves were 2.20% higher, and the share had fallen 2.74 points.
The original data
109 quarters, 1999-Q1 to 2026-Q1, from the IMF’s COFER data for the world. The dollar’s share was 71.19% in the first quarter, its highest was 72.13% in 1999-Q2, and its lowest was 56.42% in 2025-Q4. The euro went from 18.12% to 20.03% over the same span.
Where the 7.55 points went since 2016-Q4, the first quarter the IMF lists the renminbi separately:
| currency | 2016-Q4 | 2026-Q1 | change, points |
|---|---|---|---|
| US dollar | 64.68% | 57.13% | -7.55 |
| Other currencies | 2.57% | 6.18% | +3.61 |
| Japanese yen | 3.98% | 5.44% | +1.46 |
| Euro | 18.93% | 20.03% | +1.10 |
| Chinese renminbi | 1.00% | 1.99% | +0.99 |
| Canadian dollar | 2.13% | 2.48% | +0.35 |
| Australian dollar | 1.87% | 2.11% | +0.24 |
| Swiss franc | 0.18% | 0.24% | +0.07 |
| Pound sterling | 4.67% | 4.40% | -0.27 |
The quarterly shares and amounts, with the dollar index at each quarter end, are in the COFER data file.
Where BRICS fits
The group has grown. Per the official BRICS India 2026 site, BRIC was formalized at a foreign ministers’ meeting in 2006 and held its first summit in 2009; the members agreed in 2010 to add South Africa, which attended its first summit in 2011. Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the UAE became full members from Jan 2024 and Indonesia from Jan 2025, and ten countries joined as partner countries in 2025.
What the reserve data can and cannot say about it. COFER does not show which countries hold which currencies, so it cannot show what BRICS members did with their reserves. What it does show is the renminbi, the one BRICS currency it lists: 1.00% of allocated reserves in 2016-Q4, a peak of 2.85% in 2021-Q4, and 1.99% in 2026-Q1. Over the whole period since 2016 the renminbi took less of the dollar’s lost share than the yen or the euro did.
The largest single gain went to the smallest holdings. The IMF’s other-currencies group, everything outside the eight currencies it names, rose from 2.57% to 6.18% of allocated reserves between 2016-Q4 and 2026-Q1. COFER does not say which currencies are in that group, so it cannot show how much of it belongs to BRICS members.
When it fails
Exchange rates can look like a trend. Across 108 quarter-to-quarter changes, the dollar’s share and the dollar index moved in the same direction 80 times, and the correlation between the index’s percentage change and the share’s change was 0.735. In quarters when the index rose, the median share change was +0.25 points, and when it fell, -0.45 points. The biggest single move came in 2002-Q2: the index fell 10.55% and the share 2.71 points. Over the full span, though, the index ended almost where it started, 100.10 in Mar 1999 and 99.96 in Mar 2026, so the index’s move over the full span does not account for the long fall in the share.
The coverage has changed. In the four quarters of 1999 the IMF could put a currency to only 77.18% to 77.39% of reserves. In its current release every quarter from 2000 on is fully allocated, and since 2025-Q3 part of the total has been imputed by IMF staff, 10.65% of it in 2026-Q1. Early and late quarters are not measured in quite the same way.
Reserves are one piece. COFER covers official reserves only, not the currency used for trade invoices, bank loans, bonds or forex trading, so a change in reserve shares says little about those on its own.
A share is not an amount. The dollar’s share fell from 71.19% to 57.13% while the dollars held rose more than eightfold, from $882.3 billion to $7,486.9 billion.
Related
The dollar index measures the exchange rate that moves the share each quarter, and central banks are the holders COFER surveys. Gold covers the reserve asset COFER leaves out, and forex covers the market where these currencies trade.
Check whether a de-dollarization claim is about a share or an amount, and whether the dollar itself rose or fell that quarter. A falling share can be a stronger euro or yen, not a single sale of dollars.
— Michael Whitman
This page is educational, not financial advice. Test every idea on your own charts before risking money.