Invoicing clients in another currency

Sooner or later a client asks to pay in their own currency. Saying yes can win the work. It also means someone carries the exchange rate risk, someone pays a conversion fee, and you still have to report the income in your home currency.

None of this is hard once you decide it on purpose. Here is how to choose the invoice currency, what conversion costs at processors and banks, and how the IRS and the CRA expect you to record foreign-currency income.

Choose the currency before you quote

You have three realistic options:

• Invoice in your own currency. You know exactly what you will receive. The client converts, pays any fees on their side, and carries the risk that the rate moves. This is the simplest default for small clients and one-off jobs.
• Invoice in the client’s currency. Paying is easier for them: no conversion, and the amount matches their budget or purchase order. Large clients sometimes insist on it. You carry the risk and usually the conversion cost.
• Client’s currency, with a review clause. Quote in their currency but agree in the contract that prices are reviewed if the rate moves by more than a set amount, for example 5%, or every six months on a long retainer.

A few questions settle most cases. How big is the client, and how long is the engagement? Do you have costs in that currency, such as contractors or software billed in euros? If you do, earning in that currency and spending it there is a natural hedge (money in and money out in the same currency, so rate moves cancel out). If you’re in Canada with US clients, you can bill in US dollars and keep them in a US-dollar account until you actually need Canadian dollars.

Whatever you choose, write the currency code on the invoice: USD, CAD, EUR. “$” alone is ambiguous when your client is on the other side of the US and Canadian border.

Exchange rate risk, explained simply

An exchange rate is the price of one currency in another. It moves every day. The risk is the gap between the rate when you send the invoice and the rate when the money arrives.

Here is an example with made-up rates. Say you are in the US and invoice a client in Germany €5,000 on Net 30 terms, and they pay 15 days late.

Nobody did anything wrong, and you received $200 less than you expected. The rate could just as easily move the other way. What you control is how long you are exposed and how much of your income depends on it:

• Keep terms short on foreign-currency invoices. Net 15 is half the exposure of Net 30. Our guide to invoice terms covers deposits and reminders.
• Take a deposit, so part of the fee is converted early.
• Build a small buffer into foreign-currency prices if the work is large or long.
• Hold the foreign currency if you will spend it later, instead of converting every payment.

What conversion actually costs

Conversion fees are easy to miss because they are often built into the rate rather than listed as a separate line.

Card processors. Stripe publishes its standard prices. As listed in October 2026, they are:

So a US account charging a UK card in pounds, converted to dollars, pays roughly 2.9% + 1.5% + 1% = 5.4%, plus 30¢. On a payment worth $1,000 that is about $54.30, compared with $29.30 for a domestic card. Stripe’s Canadian disclosures describe its conversion fee as 2% above the daily mid-market rate (the midpoint between the buy and sell prices on the wholesale market). Your own account may have different pricing, so check your Stripe dashboard.

You can sometimes avoid conversion altogether. Stripe’s multi-currency settlement lets you add a bank account in another currency, and charges in that currency then settle without conversion. Canadian Stripe accounts can use US-dollar bank accounts. Stripe notes a fee applies when funds settle into a non-primary currency, so compare before you switch.

Banks. When a wire in a foreign currency lands in a US or Canadian dollar account, the bank converts it at its own rate. That rate usually includes a markup over the wholesale rate. Wells Fargo’s business disclosures, for example, say exchange rates applied to business customers typically contain a markup, and that the markup on incoming foreign-currency wires is disclosed in the account agreement. Some banks also charge a flat fee to receive a wire.

To see what you actually paid, compare the rate on your deposit with a published rate for the same day, such as the Bank of Canada’s daily rate. The gap is the markup. If you receive foreign currency often, ask your bank about business foreign exchange pricing or a foreign-currency account.

Recording foreign-currency income for taxes

You report income in your home currency, whatever the invoice said. Keep the processor or bank record that shows the original amount, the rate and the fees for every foreign payment.

United States

• Report in US dollars. For most US freelancers and small businesses, the functional currency (the currency you keep your books and figure your tax in) is the US dollar.
• Use the spot rate. The IRS says to translate foreign-currency income and expenses into dollars at the exchange rate prevailing (the spot rate) when you receive, pay or accrue the item.
• Any posted rate, used consistently. The IRS has no official exchange rate and generally accepts any posted rate you use consistently. It also publishes yearly average rates, currently covering 2021 through 2025. Ask your tax preparer whether an average is acceptable for your situation.
• Cash or accrual matters. On the cash method you record income when you receive it, so the rate on the payment date applies. On the accrual method you record income when you invoice. Under section 988 of the Internal Revenue Code, the difference between that rate and the rate when you are paid is generally a foreign currency gain or loss, taxed as ordinary income or loss.

Canada

• Report in Canadian dollars. The CRA’s default is the Bank of Canada exchange rate in effect on the day the amount arises.
• Where the rates come from. The Bank of Canada publishes one daily average rate per currency by 16:30 ET each business day, plus monthly and annual averages. Its 2025 annual average for the US dollar was 1.3978 Canadian dollars. The Bank calls these indicative rates, so they won’t necessarily match the rate your bank gives you.
• Other sources. The CRA accepts a rate from another provider, such as Bloomberg, Thomson Reuters or OANDA, if it is widely available, verifiable, published by an independent provider on an ongoing basis, and used consistently from year to year.
• Averages. The CRA may accept an average rate over a period for certain income items, but generally not when exchange rates fluctuate significantly.
• GST/HST. If you charge GST/HST on a foreign-currency invoice, CRA GST/HST Memorandum 3-6 says to convert at the exchange rate on the day the tax becomes payable (generally the earlier of when the client pays and when the amount is due, such as the invoice date), or another day the CRA accepts. Many services supplied to non-residents are zero-rated, with exceptions. Our sales tax and GST/HST guide has the basics.

This is general information, not tax advice. Foreign currency rules depend on your accounting method and business structure, so check with a tax professional.

Practical tips

1. Decide the currency in the contract, not on the invoice. Include who pays transfer and bank fees.
2. Put the currency code on every invoice and in the payment link.
3. Keep a separate account per currency if you earn in more than one. It keeps conversions deliberate and your records clean, the same idea as keeping business and personal money separate.
4. Record each payment at the right rate on the day it lands, and save the rate source. Doing it during your monthly close beats reconstructing a year of rates in April.
5. Review foreign-currency prices once a year, or when the rate has moved enough to change your margin.
6. Watch the effect on cash. A weaker client currency shrinks what you actually receive, which shows up in your runway and burn before it shows up anywhere else.

How Mintas helps

• You choose the currency on each invoice, and clients pay by card, Apple Pay or Google Pay through your own Stripe account.
• Bank and card accounts in the US and Canada sync through Plaid, read-only, and Mintas works with multiple currencies under one base currency, so reports show one total.
• Receipts you forward are read for vendor, date, total, currency and tax, and suggested as a match for the bank transaction, including across currencies, for you to confirm.
• Converted totals in Mintas are for running the business. For your tax return, use the rates your tax authority expects, as described above. Mintas does not convert or move money.