You agree a price of €600,000. You pay from an account held in another currency. Between the handshake and the notary there are usually eight to sixteen weeks, and during those weeks the price in your own currency moves every single day, without anyone renegotiating anything.
This is the part of a cross-border purchase that people discover late.
The size of it
The property price is fixed in the seller's currency. Your cost is not.
On a €600,000 purchase, a 5% move in the exchange rate between agreement and completion is a €30,000 swing in what you actually pay. That is larger than the notary, the registry and the legal fees put together, and it is decided by currency markets rather than by anything about the property.
A 5% move over three months is unremarkable. It is not a worst case.
Where the exposure actually sits
The risk is not spread evenly across the purchase. It concentrates at specific moments.
The reservation deposit. Small, usually paid quickly, rarely worth managing.
The exchange of contracts. Often 10% of the price. Weeks after you agreed terms.
Completion. The remaining 90%, at the notary, on a date that can move.
Ongoing costs afterwards. Service charges, property tax and any mortgage payments are all in the local currency, for as long as you own the property. The exposure does not end at completion, it just gets smaller and more regular.
If the property earns rent in the local currency and you spend in another, the same gap runs in the opposite direction for the whole holding period.
The usual ways to handle it
There are three common approaches, and they trade certainty against flexibility.
Buy at spot on the day. You convert when you need the money. Simplest, and you take whatever the rate is. Fine on a small amount, uncomfortable on a completion payment.
Buy forward. You fix a rate now for a payment on a future date, usually against a deposit. You know your cost in your own currency from the moment you agree the price. You also give up the gain if the rate moves your way, and if the completion date slips you may need to extend the contract.
Split it. Fix part of the amount and leave part at spot. Reduces the size of the worst outcome without committing to the whole position.
Which of these fits depends on facts about you: how much of a swing you can absorb, whether the completion date is firm, and whether you hold income in the property's currency already. That is a conversation for a regulated firm, not for a marketplace.
Why Onora shows every listing in its own currency
You will notice that a Dubai listing shows a dirham price and a Portuguese one shows euros. That is deliberate.
Converting a listing price into your currency for display makes it look like a settled number, and it is not. The rate behind it changes daily, so a converted price is a snapshot presented as a fact. Onora shows the price the seller actually set, in the currency they set it in, and puts any converted figure beside it as a clearly secondary reference. You can change which currency that reference uses in the filter panel on the listings page, under Display.
The same reason is why prices are never converted for sorting or comparison between listings. Two properties in two currencies are not made comparable by running them through today's rate.
Getting help with it
"Currency and international payments" is one of the categories in the specialist directory. Those are offices that handle cross-border property payments for a living, and you contact them directly.
Onora is a marketplace that brings buyers and sellers together. We do not handle your money, we do not arrange your transfers, and nothing here is financial advice. See our disclaimer.
Written September 2026. Exchange rates and the products available to manage them change; confirm the current position with a regulated provider.
