FLASH NEWS
Euro in a "rolling" mode, drops to 94.6 lekë
2026-06-18 17:43:51 / EKONOMI&SOCIALE
The exchange rate between the Euro and the Lek continues to fall rapidly. According to the official exchange rate of the Bank of Albania, the Euro was exchanged today for 94.62 Lekë, a new historical minimum.
The Euro exchange rate has fallen by 2.2% since the beginning of the year and by 3.5% compared to the same period a year ago.
Foreign exchange market agents believe that the acceleration of the Euro's decline is primarily due to seasonal factors and tourism. The start of the summer holiday season has naturally increased the number of foreign visitors and incoming foreign exchange flows. According to them, a shift to lower exchange rates during this period is expected and normal. Especially during weekends, when banks are closed, foreign exchange flows and demand for Lek become particularly high and sometimes difficult for exchange offices to cope with.
According to a survey conducted within the market with exchange agents at banks and the most important foreign exchange offices, expectations are that during the summer season the Euro could fall to the level of 92-93 lek.
The real estate market also remains an important source of foreign exchange inflows and its performance remains dynamic, especially in coastal areas. According to the Bank of Albania, foreign direct investments increased again in the first quarter of 2026. According to data from the Bank of Albania, they reached the value of 404 million euros, marking a new historical record for this period of the year. In particular, foreign investments in real estate are estimated to have reached 174 million euros, also marking a new historical record for the first quarter of the year.
The real estate sector is believed to attract significant amounts of income from criminal and informal activities. Just this month, the Special Prosecution Office announced the discovery of two large-scale money laundering schemes in the construction sector.
However, sources from the foreign exchange market say that this year there has been a significant strengthening of control over foreign exchange points, while the new regulation that the Bank of Albania approved last year has imposed restrictions on cash exchanges. According to them, today it has become more difficult to exchange large amounts of physical money, without going through bank accounts. Consequently, the sources believe that currently the impact of informal flows on the exchange rate should be decreasing.
Market pressure for the depreciation of the Euro is strengthening, making the interventions of the Bank of Albania less effective. According to market sources, the Central Bank has continued its interventions with direct foreign exchange purchases. The latest intervention was reported on Tuesday.
The value of these purchases is published with a time delay of approximately three months. For this reason, it is still not clear what the value of the purchases is and the impact that the Bank of Albania has had on the foreign exchange rate this year.
However, in the period 2024-2025 it purchased more than two billion euros in the domestic market and in the absence of its interventions the Euro-Lek exchange rate would be at significantly lower levels.
As inflation rises, the Bank of Albania's room to intervene in the market is shrinking significantly. With inflation reaching 3%, foreign exchange purchases can no longer be justified by the objective of price stability.
On the other hand, an additional impact on the strengthening of the Lek seems to be again provided by fiscal policies, through very large budget surpluses. At the end of May, the budget surplus was worth 53.7 billion Lek or approximately 565 million euros. The surplus has increased by 37% compared to the same period a year ago, highlighting a several-year trend of accumulating surpluses for most of the calendar year. The withdrawal of large amounts of money by the government also affects the reduction of the Lek supply and further emphasizes the appreciation tendencies of the domestic currency. /Monitor
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