NBE Will Auction 840 Million Dollars Over Six Rounds to December

The National Bank of Ethiopia will offer 840 million US dollars through six foreign exchange auctions in the second quarter of the 2026/27 fiscal year, with each auction carrying an allocation of 140 million dollars.

The schedule runs every two weeks from 13 October through 22 December.

A calendar is the news, not the amount

Importers have spent two years managing foreign currency as an unpredictable event. A published schedule changes the planning problem: an importer now knows there are six dated opportunities between now and Christmas, and roughly how much is on the table at each.

That matters more than the headline figure. A letter of credit, a shipping booking and a supplier's payment terms all have to be timed against when hard currency can realistically be obtained. Six fixed dates make that arithmetic possible. An unannounced auction does not.

What 140 million dollars does and does not cover

The allocation per round is fixed. Demand is not. Nothing in the schedule guarantees that an eligible bid is filled — only that there will be a bid date.

For businesses, the practical reading is that the central bank is signalling predictability of timing rather than sufficiency of volume. Those are different promises, and only the first has been made.

Open

The NBE has not said how the 140 million dollars per round will be allocated across sectors or priority import categories, nor whether the quarterly total will be revised if reserves or demand move. Nor has it published the coverage ratio from the first-quarter auctions, which is the number that would tell importers what their odds actually are.

Sources: Birr Metrics, 6 October 2026