A cloud cost report in euros and pounds stays consistent only when both currencies come from the same starting amounts, converted at rates from one named source and one named date; otherwise the two views drift apart while usage stays the same. The typical European case is a group consolidating in euros with UK companies in pounds, or a UK group with euro-area subsidiaries. AWS, Azure and Google Cloud price in US dollars, so euros and pounds enter through the invoice currency of individual accounts or through your own conversion. How the providers set invoice currency and rate is covered in invoice currency and exchange rates, how several providers meet in one reporting currency in multi-cloud reporting in one currency. This page adds the case of two reporting currencies side by side.
How it works
Each company can be invoiced in its own currency; for euros and pounds the providers document the following.
AWS
Accounts billed by Amazon Web Services EMEA SARL (AWS Europe) can pay in euros, pounds, US dollars and five other currencies, according to AWS, set per account or with payment profiles per seller. Direct debit follows the currency: SEPA in euros from an account in a SEPA country, Bacs in pounds from a UK bank account.
Azure
Under a Microsoft Customer Agreement, the legal address given at signing sets the billing geography and currency: pounds for the United Kingdom, euros for Germany, Austria, France and Ireland among others. The billing profile takes the billing account's country and currency and cannot change them. Microsoft calculates the month's cost in US dollars and converts it at a London closing spot rate captured in the two business days before the last business day of the previous month, which holds for the whole month.
Google Cloud
For self-serve accounts, Google lists pounds for the United Kingdom and euros for Germany and Ireland. As a Cloud Billing account keeps its currency once created, a group invoiced in both needs two billing accounts; Google sets its conversion rates at the start of each month.
Rate sources
Three sources serve your own conversion, each published for a different purpose:
| Source | Quoted as | Published | Intended for |
|---|---|---|---|
| ECB euro reference rates | foreign currency per euro, USD and GBP among them | around 16:00 CET every working day except TARGET closing days, from a concertation between central banks around 14:10 CET; monthly averages and end-of-month values on the data portal | information; the ECB strongly discourages using them for transactions |
| Bank of England | foreign currency per pound, USD and EUR among them | daily spot rates, plus averages and end-of-period values per month, quarter and year | statistics; the Bank states they are not official rates |
| The provider's rate | on the invoice or in the export, by provider | per invoice or per month | matching the invoice |
For customs and, as an optional method, for VAT, HMRC publishes monthly rates of its own; how they differ from a management report's rates is covered in cloud costs in the UK.
Two routes to pounds
A dollar amount reaches pounds directly, with a rate in dollars per pound, or through the euro report, with a rate in pounds per euro. The ECB publishes no dollar to pound rate; it follows as the ratio of its two euro rates for the same day. With both rates from the same source and date, the two routes give the same result, because the euro cancels out. When source or date differ, one dollar amount yields two pound amounts, and the gap is arithmetic, not usage.
Invoices that already arrive in pounds or euros have one route only: the UK company's pound invoice is converted into euros for the group report and then carries two rates, the provider's and the group's.
What it means for your cost
The pound report is the euro report times the rate used in pounds per euro. The monthly change in pounds is therefore the change in euros times the change in the rate, and the two reports trend differently for the same usage. On the ECB's monthly averages the rate rose from 0.85606 pounds per euro in August 2026 to 0.85813 in September: an amount flat in the euro report rises 0.24% in pounds. On the end-of-month values it fell from 0.85648 to 0.85463, and the same amount falls 0.22% in pounds. The direction depends on the rate date, not on usage.
Which view serves which purpose:
| View | Currency | Rate | Matches |
|---|---|---|---|
| Group report | euro | the group's rate, with source and date | the group budget |
| UK company report | pound | the same rate inverted, or a dollar rate from the same source and date | the company budget |
| Invoice reconciliation per company | invoice currency | the provider's rate | the invoice |
| Usage trend | US dollar | none | earlier months without currency effect |
Which rate the books use is set by the accounting policy with the auditor; the report only states what it calculates with. A budget's planning rate is covered in an exchange-rate policy for cloud budgets, paying the AWS invoice in euros in the guide pay AWS in euros. The cloud bill converter converts a single dollar amount into euros at the ECB rate.
Where it goes wrong
- Two rate sources in one report. Symptom: no published rate turns the pound total into the euro total. Cause: the euro part was converted at the ECB rate, the pound part at the Bank of England's or the company bank's.
- Invoice amounts beside converted amounts. Symptom: the UK company shows a different pound figure in the group report than on its invoice. Cause: the pound invoice from Azure or Google carries the provider's monthly rate, while the rest of the report used a central bank's monthly average.
- A group rate nobody wrote down. Symptom: the UK company cannot recompute the group report's pound figures. Cause: rate, source and date are recorded nowhere, and the company converts at its own rate.
- Quotation reversed. Symptom: pound amounts are off by more than a quarter. Cause: the ECB quotes pounds per euro, the Bank of England euros per pound, and one rate was applied the wrong way round.
- Two rate dates. Symptom: the pound and euro reports move in opposite directions. Cause: one uses the monthly average, the other the end-of-month value.
Example
For September 2026 the two institutions' rates can be compared for the same dates. The ECB's per-pound values are derived from its euro rates, the monthly average as the ratio of the two monthly averages.
| Rate, September 2026 | From ECB rates | Bank of England | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| US dollars per pound, monthly average | 1.15132 ÷ 0.85813 = 1.3417 | 1.3415 | 0.01% |
| US dollars per pound, 30 September | 1.1355 ÷ 0.85463 = 1.3286 | 1.3285 | 0.01% |
| Euros per pound, monthly average | 1 ÷ 0.85813 = 1.1653 | 1.1651 | 0.02% |
| Euros per pound, 30 September | 1 ÷ 0.85463 = 1.1701 | 1.1696 | 0.04% |
In this month the choice of institution moved a pound figure by hundredths of a percent, the choice of rate date by about 1%: a dollar amount A gives 0.7453 × A pounds at the ECB's monthly average and 0.7526 × A pounds at its month-end rate. A report therefore names its source and rate date, and uses the same ones for both currencies.
Sources
Read on 2026-10-16. European Central Bank Euro foreign exchange reference rates and Monthly averages and end-of-month values for USD and GBP, August and September 2026; Bank of England Daily spot exchange rates against sterling, Further details about spot exchange rates data and Monthly averages and end-of-month values for USD and EUR per pound, August and September 2026; AWS AWS Europe FAQs, Customizing your AWS payment preferences, Using payment profiles, Managing your SEPA direct debit payment method and Managing your Bacs direct debit payment method; Microsoft Microsoft Customer Agreement FAQ and Get started with Microsoft Customer Agreement billing account; Google Currencies available for Cloud Billing self-serve, auto-pay accounts; HMRC Monthly exchange rates and VAT guide (VAT Notice 700), section 7.6 on foreign currency.