GBP/USD Exchange Rate History: Dollars per Pound Since 1971

GBP/USD, known in the market as ‘cable’, is one of the oldest and most-traded currency pairs. This dataset tracks the Federal Reserve H.10 noon rate, expressed as US dollars per British pound, distributed via FRED under the code DEXUSUK, with daily coverage since 1971. A higher number means a stronger pound; a lower number means a stronger dollar.

Dataset: GBP/USD Exchange Rate (1971–2026) · Updated 2026-05-29

Source: Federal Reserve Board · H.10 Foreign Exchange Rates (via FRED)

Macro Takeaway

Dataset Overview

Dataset Variables

The CSV and Excel files contain the following columns. Each row represents one business day.

Column names match the CSV headers exactly.

Download the Complete Dataset

The full dataset is available in CSV and Excel formats — daily observations spanning 1971–2026.

FRED Direct CSV Access

The underlying data is published in the Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) database under the series code DEXUSUK, sourced from the Federal Reserve Board’s H.10 release:

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.csv?id=DEXUSUK

The Eco3min dataset mirrors the same daily series, packaged in a stable, versionable CSV with consistent column names — designed for direct ingestion in Python, R, or any data pipeline. The URL never changes, making it suitable for automated scripts.

Direct CSV Access — Eco3min Structured Dataset

https://eco3min.fr/dataset/gbp-usd-exchange-rate.csv

This URL returns the complete dataset in CSV format. It can be used directly in pandas, R, curl, or any data tool.

Using the Dataset in Python

import pandas as pd

url = "https://eco3min.fr/dataset/gbp-usd-exchange-rate.csv"
df = pd.read_csv(url, parse_dates=["date"])

print(df.head())
print(df["gbp_usd"].describe())

df.plot(x="date", y="gbp_usd", title="GBP/USD Exchange Rate", legend=False)

Using the Dataset in R

library(readr)

url <- "https://eco3min.fr/dataset/gbp-usd-exchange-rate.csv"
df <- read_csv(url)

head(df)
summary(df$gbp_usd)

Both examples load the dataset directly from the URL — no download or API key required.

Methodology

The Federal Reserve reports the US dollars per British pound noon buying rate in New York, in its H.10 release.

The Federal Reserve publishes these rates daily in its H.10 release. Values are indicative noon or end-of-day rates, not transactable quotes, and there are no observations on weekends or US holidays. The series begins in 1971.

This dataset is updated via an automated pull from the FRED API (series DEXUSUK) by an Eco3min pipeline running on GitHub Actions, which regenerates the cleaned CSV and Excel files and refreshes the page metadata.

Data Quality & Provider Notes

The Federal Reserve H.10 rates are a standard, widely cited reference for bilateral exchange rates. A few provider-specific points matter when using this series.

• Indicative, not transactable. H.10 rates are reference rates collected at a set time of day. They will differ from the bid/ask a trader actually deals on, and from other fixings (ECB, WM/Refinitiv 4pm London).
• Gaps on non-business days. There are no observations on weekends or US public holidays, so the series is not strictly continuous in calendar time.
• Bilateral, not trade-weighted. This is a single currency pair. It is not the broad, trade-weighted dollar index, which aggregates many bilateral rates.
• Discontinued or restated quotes. The Federal Reserve has occasionally changed how a rate is reported; treat very long histories as broadly consistent rather than methodologically identical throughout.

Common Pitfalls When Using This Series

1. Reading the quotation direction backwards. This series is US dollars per British pound (the market convention, ‘cable’), so the number rises when the pound strengthens and falls when the dollar strengthens, the opposite of yen- or franc-per-dollar series. Getting the direction wrong inverts every move and every regime described below.
2. Treating gaps as missing data. Weekends and holidays have no H.10 observation; this is by design, not a data error. Resample carefully before computing returns.
3. Confusing a bilateral rate with the dollar’s overall strength. One pair can move on currency-specific news while the broad, trade-weighted dollar barely moves, and vice versa.

Historical Regimes

1971–1985 — Post-Bretton-Woods decline. Sterling fell from about 2.40 toward a record low near 1.05 in 1985 as the dollar surged.

1986–1992 — ERM and Black Wednesday. The UK joined the European Exchange Rate Mechanism in 1990 but was forced out on 16 September 1992, and the pound fell sharply.

1993–2007 — Recovery. Sterling recovered, trading back above 2.00 by 2007.

2008–2015 — Crisis and range. The financial crisis cut the pound toward about 1.40; it then traded in a 1.40-1.70 band.

2016 — Brexit. The June 2016 referendum drove sterling sharply lower, with a flash crash in October 2016.

2017–2026 — Aftermath and the Truss episode. The pound stayed weak; the September 2022 mini-budget briefly drove it to a record low near 1.035 before a recovery.

Related Macroeconomic Datasets

Developed Markets (ex-US) Hub

This dataset is part of the Eco3min repository of exchange rates, government bond yields, and policy rates for the major developed economies outside the United States, all sourced from the Federal Reserve and the OECD via FRED.

Explore the Developed Markets (ex-US) Hub

Sources

• Federal Reserve Board — H.10 Foreign Exchange Rates, GBP/USD
• Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis — FRED database, series DEXUSUK
• Federal Reserve H.10 noon buying rate, New York — basis underlying the FRED series

Dataset Reference

Eco3min Research. (2026). GBP/USD Exchange Rate — Daily (1971-2026). Source: Federal Reserve Board H.10 via FRED.<br> https://eco3min.fr/en/gbp-usd-exchange-rate-history-dataset/