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Malawian kwacha to US dollar (MWK/USD)
The rate both ways, how far the kwacha has moved against the dollar this year, and what that does to a return earned on the MSE. Everything on this page comes from the same snapshot as every other figure on this site — a converter that pulled its own live rate would contradict the stock pages it sits beside.
The rate, both ways
reference rate, 4 Oct 2026, 16:11 UTCMid-market reference rate — the midpoint between buying and selling. No bank, broker or bureau will quote you exactly this figure; the note under the converter below says how wide that gap can run.
MWK: Official rate only — a parallel market trades well above it. Malawi operates a managed exchange rate alongside an active parallel market, and the two have diverged by a wide margin. Dollar figures here use the official rate, because it is the only one that can be sourced reliably each day. Reported parallel rates have run far above it — as high as around K5,000 to the dollar, easing to roughly K3,000 after the Reserve Bank of Malawi intervened in early 2025, against an official rate near K1,734. Treat any dollar figure on a Malawian listing as an official-rate conversion rather than an amount anyone could actually realise.
Reserve Bank of Malawi official rate; parallel-market levels per news reporting. Last checked 2026-08-09.
This year, against the dollar
since JanuaryThe kwacha's official rate is essentially where it started the year against the dollar (+0.1% in units per dollar).
Why this rate matters on the MSE
The Malawi Stock Exchange quotes the 17 listings we track in kwacha, and every dollar figure on its pages here is converted at this reference rate. A return earned in kwacha and the same return measured in dollars differ by exactly the currency’s move — and on markets like this one that difference is routinely as large as the return itself.
See the Malawi Stock Exchange page for its listings and index, or Africa vs World for every index here adjusted to dollars the same way.
Convert
reference rates, 4 Oct 2026, 16:11 UTC1 MWK = 0.000582 USD
These are mid-market reference rates — the midpoint between buying and selling. No bank, broker or bureau trades at the midpoint, and on thinly traded African currencies the spread you are offered can be several percent wide. Treat this as the yardstick, not as a quote. Where a country operates exchange controls, the official rate may also differ from the rate at which currency can actually be obtained or repatriated.
What a return is actually worth
local currency → dollarsA +40.0% return in MWK was worth +39.9% to a dollar investor this year.
The MWK weakened 0.1% against the dollar since January, which takes 0.1 points off the headline figure.
Computed as (1 + 0.400) ÷ (1 + 0.001) − 1. Subtracting the currency move instead is the common shortcut and it overstates the result — here it would give +39.9%.
Every currency we price in
7 markets · 7 reference| Currency | Market | Per $1 | vs $ this year |
|---|---|---|---|
| BWP | BSEBotswana | 13.436 | +3.2%weaker |
| EGP | EGXEgypt | 52.200 | +9.4%weaker |
| MWK | MSEMalawi | 1,717.0official | +0.1%weaker |
| NGN | NGXNigeria | 1,327.7 | -8.9%stronger |
| UGX | USEUganda | 3,961.9 | +10.6%weaker |
| XOF | BRVMUEMOA (8 countries) | 582.7 | +4.4%weaker |
| ZAR | JSESouth Africa | 16.675 | +0.5%weaker |
| CAD | Reference only | 1.424 | +4.0%weaker |
| CNY | Reference only | 6.704 | -4.2%stronger |
| EUR | Reference only | 0.888 | +4.4%weaker |
| GBP | Reference only | 0.755 | +1.7%weaker |
| GHS | Reference only | 11.720 | +7.5%weaker |
| GNF | Reference only | 8,794.0 | +1.1%weaker |
| XAF | Reference only | 582.7 | +4.4%weaker |
“Weaker” means it now takes more of that currency to buy a dollar than it did in January — so a return earned in it is worth less to someone holding dollars. This is the single largest reason a headline return on an African market and the return an overseas investor actually received are different numbers.
Every pair we publish
17 pagesAgainst the dollar
naira to dollar (NGN/USD) · rand to dollar (ZAR/USD) · Egyptian pound to dollar (EGP/USD) · CFA franc to dollar (XOF/USD) · pula to dollar (BWP/USD) · shilling to dollar (UGX/USD)
Crosses
naira to pound (NGN/GBP) · rand to pound (ZAR/GBP) · rand to euro (ZAR/EUR) · Egyptian pound to euro (EGP/EUR) · CFA franc to euro (XOF/EUR)
From Canada
Canadian dollar to Guinean franc (CAD/GNF) · Canadian dollar to West African CFA franc (CAD/XOF) · Canadian dollar to Central African CFA franc (CAD/XAF) · Canadian dollar to Nigerian naira (CAD/NGN) · Canadian dollar to Ghanaian cedi (CAD/GHS)
Or start from the currency converter, which holds every rate in one table.