CENCOEX, SICAD, SIMADI and DolarToday: the Exchange Rates

Venezuela has three official exchange rates.

1. CENCOEX: 6.3 Bsf/$
It is mainly used for importations of first necessity goods, like medicines, food and fertilizers.

2. SICAD: ~13.5 Bsf/$
You can forget about it
The price is generated after an auction. The government used to trade on that rate with people who wanted to leave the country (not anymore). No recent auction has taken place.

3. SIMADI: ~200 Bsf/$ (Sept. 2015)
It is the rate at which authorized banks and exchange centers would trade your $ for Bsf, for example at the airport. This rate will be used if you employ a foreign credit/debit card in the country. Some goods like alcohols seem to be imported on that rate. This rate was recently created to compete with the parallel rate, but which has unfortunately surpassed significantly.

The unofficial rate, also called the parallel rate, the black market rate, or the DolarToday rate, can be found on the website https://dolartoday.com

4. Unofficial rate:
Please note that trading at any unofficial rate or with any unauthorized exchange entity is illegal
This rate is practically the rate at which any unregulated importation or service is sold in the country. Examples: shoes, sports clothes, electronics, restaurants services, apartments. The rate is actually a conversion from the Bsf/COP rate using the COP/$ rate. Bsf/COP is used by smugglers on the Venezuela-Colombia border town of Cucuta, and considering that the COP (Colombian Peso) is freely interchangeable with the $.