What is a pip in forex? Pip value, pipettes and a calculator

A pip is the standard unit for a move in a currency pair's price. For most pairs it is the fourth decimal place, 0.0001, so EURUSD moving from 1.1373 to 1.1383 is a 10-pip move. For pairs quoted in Japanese yen it is the second decimal, 0.01. A pipette is a tenth of a pip, the extra digit many platforms show.

The word is usually expanded as "percentage in point" or "price interest point"; nobody agrees which, and it does not matter. What matters is the pip size for each pair and what one pip is worth in your account currency. Both come out of the quote an exchange rate API returns, and this page includes a calculator that does the arithmetic for you.

What is a currency pair

A currency pair prices one currency, the base, written first, in another, the quote, written second. EURUSD at 1.137342 means one euro costs 1.137342 US dollars. Pips are always counted in the quote currency, which is where the yen exception comes from: one yen is worth well under a cent, so the yen price of a dollar runs to three digits before the decimal point, and two decimals are already a fine enough step.

The major currency pairs are the seven that combine the US dollar with the euro, yen, pound, Swiss franc, Australian dollar, Canadian dollar and New Zealand dollar. They are the most traded and usually the tightest. Pairs without the dollar, such as EURJPY or EURGBP, are called crosses.

Pip size by pair: the yen exception

The rule follows the quote currency, not the base. EURJPY and GBPJPY count pips at 0.01 exactly like USDJPY, and one pip on any of them is 1,000 yen per 100,000 units, which is why EURJPY and USDJPY land on the same dollar value in the table. Our forex data-quality benchmark reports deviations in pips with exactly this rule: 0.01 for yen-quoted pairs, 0.0001 for the rest.

How to calculate pip value

Pip value is what a one-pip move is worth in money. Multiply the pip size by the position size and you have it in the quote currency; convert that into your account currency and you are done. Three cases cover every pair for a dollar account.

Lots are shorthand for position size. A standard lot is 100,000 units of the base currency, a mini lot 10,000 and a micro lot 1,000. On any pair quoted in dollars that makes a pip worth $10, $1 and 10 cents.

Pips, spreads and profit in one example

Pips are how forex people talk about both movement and cost. Here is a single round trip on EURUSD, using a live ask captured on 28 September 2026 and a made-up exit, to show where each number comes from.

1. 1Buy 50,000 EURUSD at the askAsk 1.137367. The bid was 1.137317, so the spread you cross is 0.5 pips, or $2.50 on this size.
2. 2Sell later at the bidA hypothetical exit at a bid of 1.139117.
3. 3Count the move1.139117 − 1.137367 = 0.00175, which is 17.5 pips (175 pipettes).
4. 4Price it50,000 units × 0.0001 = $5 per pip, so 17.5 pips is $87.50. The spread is already inside that figure, because you bought at the ask and sold at the bid.

Spreads are quoted in pips for the same reason, and they are not constant: they are narrowest when London and New York are both open and widest around the daily rollover. The bid-ask spread explainer shows the same spread in basis points, and forex market hours explains the session clock behind the changes.

Counting pips in code

Do not maintain a hand-written list of pip sizes per symbol. Derive it from the quote currency, keep prices as numbers from the API rather than formatted strings, and round only for display. This snippet is self-contained; feed it the mid of GET /forex/quote/{pair} to use live prices.

def pip_size(pair: str) -> float:
    """Pip size from the quote currency: 0.01 for yen, 0.0001 otherwise."""
    return 0.01 if pair.endswith("JPY") else 0.0001


def pips(pair: str, old: float, new: float) -> float:
    """Signed move between two prices, in pips (0.1 pip is one pipette)."""
    return round((new - old) / pip_size(pair), 1)


def pip_value_usd(pair: str, units: float, usd_per_quote: float) -> float:
    """Dollar value of one pip. usd_per_quote converts the quote currency to USD."""
    return pip_size(pair) * units * usd_per_quote


USDJPY = 157.0749  # mid of a live quote, 28 September 2026

print(pips("EURUSD", 1.137367, 1.139117))
print(pips("USDJPY", 157.0749, 156.9244))
print(round(pip_value_usd("EURUSD", 100_000, 1.0), 2))
print(round(pip_value_usd("USDJPY", 100_000, 1 / USDJPY), 2))
print(round(pip_value_usd("EURJPY", 100_000, 1 / USDJPY), 2))
print(round(pip_value_usd("EURUSD", 1_000, 1.0), 2))

17.5
-15.1
10.0
6.37
6.37
0.1

The second line shows why the function rounds: 157.0749 to 156.9244 is 15.05 pips, because a mid price can carry more decimals than the quote grid, and one decimal reports the move to the nearest pipette. Pips also cannot be compared across pairs, since 20 pips on USDJPY and 20 pips on EURUSD are different amounts of money and different percentages. For cross-pair work such as a currency correlation matrix, use percentage returns or basis points instead.

Common pip mistakes

Delayed prices for two of the pairs above are on the EURUSD and USDJPY symbol pages, 15 minutes behind; the API returns the same pairs in real time.