NEW YORK, January 3, 2026, 06:05 ET
- Venezuela’s central bank set the official exchange rate at 301.37 bolivars per U.S. dollar, up sharply from early 2025.
- The parallel market rate is near 560 bolivars per dollar, widening the gap that shapes everyday prices.
- Traders and analysts link the currency slide to tighter U.S. pressure on Venezuela’s oil trade and shrinking hard-currency inflows.
Venezuela’s official cost of buying a U.S. dollar has risen nearly 480% over the past 12 months, highlighting a steep loss of value in the bolivar as U.S. pressure on the country’s oil trade tightens.
The slide matters now because Venezuela relies on oil exports for hard currency and imports, and sanctions-related disruption can quickly show up in exchange rates and prices.
It also deepens the split between the government’s official rate and the parallel market, an unofficial exchange rate set outside state controls. That gap drives prices for many everyday goods while most wages are still paid in bolivars.
Venezuela’s central bank set the official exchange rate at 301.37 bolivars per dollar on Wednesday, Dec. 31, a rate that was in effect through Jan. 2, according to figures reported by Euronews. The same report put the official rate at 52.02 bolivars per dollar at the start of 2025. 1
In the parallel market, the dollar is trading close to 560 bolivars — a premium of at least 85% over the official rate, the Euronews report said.
That price discovery increasingly happens on crypto-based platforms, which Venezuelans use as an informal marketplace for dollars when access to official exchange channels is limited.
Economists estimate most currency exchanges now run through those crypto-linked channels, Agence France-Presse reported in a dispatch published by The Times of India. 2
The widening gap has immediate effects. Many prices for food, rent, transport and imported goods are set using the parallel rate, while paychecks remain bolivar-based, steadily eroding purchasing power.
The deterioration comes despite government claims of growth. President Nicolás Maduro has said the economy grew by nearly 9% in 2025, while private-sector estimates cited by Euronews suggest inflation could exceed 500% in 2026.
Venezuela has been under a U.S. oil embargo since 2019. As sanctions have tightened and some oil shipments have been seized, the country has increasingly moved crude through unofficial channels at steep discounts, limiting dollar inflows and reinforcing the cycle of depreciation and rising prices, Euronews said.
Analysts have warned that new restrictions on oil logistics can choke off foreign currency in both cash and cryptocurrency, which businesses use to pay for imports. “This could be one of the strongest actions by the United States,” economist Alejandro Grisanti said in December, referring to a U.S. blockade of sanctioned oil tankers. (Reuters report)
