Ethiopia's Dollar Auction Jumped From 27% Filled to 70% in a Single Week

Ethiopia's dollar shortage eased sharply this week, even if it didn't disappear.

At Thursday's foreign-exchange auction, the National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE) allocated $500 million against $710.14 million in bids from 22 participating banks — a 70.4% coverage rate. A week earlier, on August 12, the picture was far worse: the NBE offered just $125 million against $470.17 million in demand, covering only 26.6% of what banks asked for.

The math behind the improvement

The clearest way to see the shift is in the demand-to-supply ratio. On August 12, banks were chasing nearly $3.80 for every dollar the central bank made available. By Thursday, that ratio had fallen to roughly $1.40 per dollar on offer — a function of the NBE quadrupling the auction size (from $125M to $500M) while demand grew far more modestly (from $470.17M to $710.14M, up 51%).

Pricing moved too, if only slightly. The weighted average exchange rate eased from 161.7994 birr per dollar on August 12 to 160.2144 on Thursday, with bids clearing in a tight band between 159.5003 and 160.2500 birr, and a marginal rate of 160.2121. Of the 22 banks that bid, 21 received an allocation.

Why it matters

These market-based auctions are a direct product of the July 2024 macroeconomic reforms, designed to give the private sector real access to foreign-currency reserves rather than routing everything through informal channels. A 70% coverage rate is still a rationed market — nearly a third of demand went unmet — but it's a meaningfully different rationing than one in four bids clearing two weeks ago. Whether the NBE can sustain a $500M auction size, or whether this week was a one-off response to a demand spike, is the thing to watch at the next auction.

Sources:

• Birr Metrics — "NBE Meets 70% of FX Demand With $500 Million Auction"
• Underlying data: National Bank of Ethiopia foreign-exchange auction results, August 12 and

August 20, 2026 (via Birr Metrics' reporting)

Editorial note: Written from Birr Metrics' published auction figures — the NBE's own auction results release was not independently located. Confirm against nbe.gov.et before publishing if a primary-source citation is required.