Venezuela’s currency closes 2025 with an 82.7% devaluation against the dollar

Caracas.- The Venezuelan currency, the bolívar, closed 2025 with a devaluation of 82.7% against the US dollar in the official market, marking a wide gap compared to the parallel rate, according to the latest quotation of the year released this Tuesday by the Central Bank of the South American country.

At the end of the last working day of the year, a US currency was trading at 301.37 bolivars, an amount 479.33% higher than at the beginning of the year when it started at 52.02 bolivars. The dollar is used as a reference in Venezuela to estimate prices of products and services. In addition to the official exchange rate set daily by the BCV, there is also a parallel market and this same Tuesday it was trading above 560 bolivars.

With the official value of the dollar, the country’s minimum wage remained at 0.43 cents of a dollar, since the income has remained at 130 bolivars since 2022.

Exchange Rate Gap and Inflation Figures

In recent years, the Venezuelan government has supplemented the salary with government bonuses of up to 160 dollars, paid at the exchange rate of the issuing body to public employees and without affecting the calculation of labor benefits. Government bonuses to public employees are made up of one called “economic war income” which is equivalent to 120 dollars, and another for food, of 40 dollars, which private workers also receive. On the eve, opposition leader and elected deputy Henrique Capriles warned that the difference between the exchange rates in Venezuela is a “silent tax” that punishes Venezuelans with income in the local currency. In a message posted on X, Capriles stated that no one stops the economic chaos in the South American country and highlighted that “prices are set at the highest dollar, but incomes are adjusted to the lowest” and this, he added, results in “more poverty”. The Central Bank also does not publish inflation figures since October 2024, when the exchange rate gap between the official dollar and the black market dollar began to widen.