Most apps that advertise multi-currency support only convert foreign transactions into one budget currency. That is the weakest of the three things the phrase gets used for, and it is usually the one on the marketing page.
If your money genuinely crosses a border, the distinction decides whether the app works for you or quietly produces numbers you cannot trust.
What does multi-currency support actually mean?
| What it does | What you get | What still breaks |
|---|---|---|
| Converts at entry | Foreign spending appears in your one budget currency | Your history is unreadable: a rate move looks identical to a change in spending |
| Holds each account in its own currency | Original amounts stay intact, conversion happens for reporting | Budget targets are still set in the base currency, so a fixed foreign bill moves every month |
| Denominates targets too | Envelopes, goals and limits can sit in the currency the bill actually arrives in | Nothing, for this particular problem |
The second is the meaningful threshold. The third is what makes a budget stop needing maintenance every time the rate moves.
Which budgeting apps support multiple currencies?
These are volatile facts and vendors change them, so each one below is what the vendor’s own documentation said in July 2026. Check before you commit.
YNAB: one currency per budget. You pick a currency when you create a budget and everything in it is expressed in that currency. YNAB’s own guidance is that “when using more than once currency, we recommend creating a separate budget”. That genuinely works, and it costs you a combined view, a single net worth figure, and duplicated setup in each budget. There is a longer piece on this: does YNAB support multiple currencies?
Actual Budget: no, and it says so. The documentation states plainly that “the Actual Budget software is currency agnostic and does not support multi-currency”. There is an experimental workaround using rule templating to convert amounts, and the docs describe ongoing work toward real support. If you are self-hosting and want this today, it is not there yet.
PocketSmith: yes. Its features page describes tracking “accounts, assets and liabilities from different countries” with “automatic currency conversion based on daily rates”. That puts it at the second threshold above, and it is a genuinely good answer for people who want forecasting across countries.
Spendly: yes, including targets. Each account holds one currency and transactions inherit it, conversion happens when totals roll up rather than at entry, and envelopes, sinking funds and savings goals each hold their own currency. A 400 euro grocery envelope stays 400 euros whatever the dollar did this week.
We have deliberately left out apps whose current behaviour we could not check against their own documentation. A comparison table built on guesses is worse than a shorter one.
Why does converting at entry cause problems?
Say you spend exactly 45 euros on groceries in March and exactly 45 euros in April. You changed nothing.
Converted at entry, a dollar report might show 49 and then 52, and your grocery category looks like it grew 6%. It did not. You have measured the currency market and filed it under your own behaviour.
Convert only when totals roll up and both facts survive: the euro column says you spent the same, the dollar column says it cost you more. That is the difference between a record you can reason about and one that quietly misleads you.
Choosing between them
If all your money is in one currency, none of this matters and you should pick on other criteria entirely. YNAB’s method is excellent and the single-currency limit costs you nothing.
If you want forecasting across countries, PocketSmith is a serious option and has been doing this for a long time.
If you self-host and want multi-currency, you are waiting on Actual Budget, or you are not self-hosting.
If you need budget targets and envelopes denominated in the currency you actually pay, that is the narrow case Spendly was built for. It is also the case most apps do not cover, which is why the distinction is worth understanding before you migrate a year of history into something.
What to check before you commit
Whatever you pick, these four questions separate real support from the marketing version:
- Can an account hold a currency other than the base one? If not, everything else is conversion.
- Is the original transaction amount preserved? Ask what the app stores, not what it displays.
- Can a budget target or envelope be set in a foreign currency? This is where most apps stop.
- What happens to net worth when the rate moves? A tool that hides this is hiding something real.
Trial each with one month of real transactions before migrating anything. Exporting your history back out of a budgeting app is reliably harder than getting it in.
Related reading
- Does YNAB support multiple currencies? on the one-budget-per-currency limit in detail
- Managing personal finances in multiple currencies for the method, whichever tool you use
- Which budgeting method survives a second currency on envelopes, zero-based and 50/30/20 across borders