The IMF Special Drawing Right (SDR) is an international reserve asset whose value is defined by a basket of five major currencies. This reference lists each basket currency with its official weight and the fixed currency amount used to compute the daily SDR value, based on the 2022 quinquennial review.
How the SDR value is calculated
The SDR’s value is the sum of fixed amounts of five currencies, each converted to US dollars at the day’s market exchange rate:
SDR value (USD) = Σ ( fixed_amount_i × USD_per_unit_i )The “weights” set at each review determine those fixed amounts. The IMF chooses amounts so that, on the day the new basket takes effect, the value share of each currency exactly equals its assigned weight percentage. Because the fixed amounts are then frozen for five years, the live weights drift as exchange rates move — so the USD share may be slightly higher or lower than 43.38% on any given day.
2022 basket weights
The 2022 quinquennial review took effect on 1 August 2022. The assigned weights are:
| Currency | Code | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| US dollar | USD | 43.38% |
| Euro | EUR | 29.31% |
| Chinese renminbi | CNY | 12.28% |
| Japanese yen | JPY | 7.59% |
| Pound sterling | GBP | 7.44% |
The next regular review is scheduled for 2027, unless economic conditions trigger an earlier review.
How weights are determined
The IMF sets weights using a formula that reflects each currency’s international role across two dimensions:
- Trade: the currency’s share in the value of goods and services exported by IMF members.
- Finance: a composite of the currency’s share in foreign-exchange reserves held by other IMF members, in international banking liabilities, and in international debt securities.
The US dollar’s dominant weight reflects its central role in both global trade invoicing and as the world’s primary reserve currency. The euro’s weight reflects the Eurozone’s large trade share. The renminbi’s 12.28% weight — up from 10.92% at the 2016 review — reflects China’s growing share in world exports and international financial transactions.
The renminbi’s inclusion
The Chinese renminbi was added to the SDR basket on 1 October 2016, making it the first emerging-market or developing-country currency to be included. Inclusion required the IMF Executive Board to certify that the renminbi was “freely usable” — widely used to settle international transactions and actively traded in the major foreign-exchange markets. This represented a significant milestone in the internationalisation of Chinese monetary policy.
SDR vs. SDRi
The SDR valuation basket (covered here) determines how much an SDR is worth in US dollars each day. Separately, the SDR interest rate (SDRi) is the rate IMF members pay on SDR allocations and receive on SDR holdings. The SDRi is set weekly based on a weighted average of short-term interest rates in the five basket currencies and is not the same as the valuation calculation.
What the SDR is used for
The SDR is not a currency you can spend. It is a unit of account and international reserve asset used primarily:
- As the unit of account for IMF financial statistics and lending arrangements
- As a reserve asset held by member countries’ central banks
- In international contracts that require a stable, multi-currency unit of account (including the Warsaw Convention for aviation liability)
SDRs can be exchanged among IMF member countries for freely usable currencies, and new SDR allocations can be made by the IMF to increase global liquidity — as occurred in 2021 with a $650 billion allocation to support members during the post-pandemic recovery.