Why does the US dollar dominate almost every forex trade?
The dollar sits on one side of about 88% of all currency trades — even in pairs that do not include it. Here is why, and what it means for reading strength.
JUL/24/2026 · 2 min read
About 88% of all forex trades have the US dollar on one side — even many that don't seem to involve it at all.
The number
According to the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) — the central banks' global survey of the currency market — the US dollar sits on one side of roughly 88% of every foreign-exchange trade. Since each trade has two currencies (so the shares add up to 200%), that leaves every other currency on Earth to split what's left. No other currency comes close.
Why the dollar is everywhere
Part of it is trade and reserves — oil, commodities and most cross-border invoicing are priced in dollars. But the bigger reason is that the dollar is the market's vehicle currency. To swap a smaller currency for another, it's often cheaper to route through the dollar than to trade the pair directly: buy dollars with the first, sell them for the second. So even a "non-dollar" trade quietly passes through the greenback.
Is that changing?
You'll hear the word everywhere right now. It's worth understanding what de-dollarization actually means — and how slowly a shift of this size really moves. For a trader, the dollar's gravity is still the single biggest force on the board.
What it means for you
- Strength is read against the dollar. That's why a currency-strength tool like the FOTSI oscillator orbits the dollar — move the dollar and you move almost everything.
- Your pairs are more related than they look. Because so much runs through USD, "different" pairs often move together — the trap behind currency correlation.
- One event, many pairs. A single US data release can ripple across your whole watchlist, precisely because the dollar is on both sides of your screen.
ForexCommand did-you-know, not financial advice. The 88% figure is from the BIS Triennial Central Bank Survey.
