Argentina’s *cepo*, the web of restrictions on access to foreign currency, ceased to operate in the same way on April 11, 2025. That day the central bank announced the removal of key restrictions on individuals buying dollars and introduced a floating peso within a band initially set at ARS1,000–1,400 to the dollar. The distinction in the second half of that sentence is vital. This was a far-reaching relaxation of controls, not formal dollarisation or a promise that all firms could instantly turn old peso profits into freely transferable dollars.
Why a country has more than one dollar price
Argentina’s history of inflation and external financing shortages made dollars a savings instrument as well as an import and investment currency. When official access is rationed, alternative market rates appear: for example, rates derived from securities transactions and a cash market commonly called the *blue* dollar. Different prices reflect different access, taxes, transaction costs and legal routes. Quoting a single peso-to-dollar number without specifying its market, date and transaction type can therefore mislead a traveller or investor.
The April 2025 central-bank statement removed the USD200 cap on purchases by natural persons and restrictions linked to pandemic assistance, subsidies and other conditions. It also said the tax withholding on official-market dollar purchases would be removed, while remaining for tourism and credit-card payments. This is not identical to saying every cross-border payment became tax-free. The same statement specified that profit remittances by companies could proceed for profits from fiscal years starting in 2025; legacy dividends and debts had separate treatment, including possible access to BOPREAL bonds. Flow and stock are different: new business earnings cannot be conflated with accumulated historic obligations.
The bank also eased several deadlines for payments for new imports. Those provisions vary by transaction. A company paying for goods, a household buying savings dollars and a tourist charging a card encounter different rules. Any practical decision needs the central-bank regulation then in force and the terms offered by a licensed bank or broker, rather than an old headline declaring the cepo simply 'over'.
A float with guardrails
The April 2025 band was an intervention framework, not a fixed peg. The BCRA’s explanation said the market could set the peso’s price within the interval. At the lower boundary the bank would buy dollars, issuing pesos and building reserves; at the upper boundary it would sell dollars, absorbing pesos. It also reserved the possibility of intervention within the range to limit excessive volatility, without sterilising that intervention. Initial band edges shifted monthly by minus 1% at the floor and plus 1% at the ceiling through December 2025.
From January 1, 2026 the bank said the monthly adjustment of both edges would be determined by INDEC’s latest monthly inflation figure with a two-month lag, described as T-2. This should not be read as a promise that every commercial rate changes by precisely that amount: it sets limits, while the market price inside them responds to demand for imports, savings and peso assets, and supply from exports, investment and other inflows.
The BCRA’s posted table for September 25, 2026 showed a projected floor of ARS726.85 and ceiling of ARS1,912.76 per dollar. These are band boundaries in pesos per US dollar, not a verified transaction rate on that day. The central-bank page described the September table as a projection, and its displayed last-update stamp for that table was August 13. Do not treat a projected band entry as a live FX quotation or assume it incorporates every subsequent decision. A direct market quote requires a separate date-stamped data source.
What the policy is meant to solve
The bank argued in April 2025 that monetary restraint, fiscal balance and financing from an IMF arrangement would make greater currency access sustainable. It referred to a $20 billion programme and to other multilateral financing as potential support for reserves. That is a case for sequencing: first stabilise the budget and central-bank balance sheet, then let households access dollars while managing a possible rush to buy them. Critics worry that a band may require heavy reserve sales in a shock and that continued restrictions on old corporate liabilities still deter investors. Both concerns are testable against actual reserve flows and regulations, not against the word 'liberalisation'.
The reform did not adopt the dollar as Argentina’s unit of account. The peso remains the currency quoted in the BCRA band. Nor did a freer household market eliminate currency risk: if a peso income is converted into a dollar expense, the rate at conversion still matters. Exporters care whether a rising peso cost base outruns their dollar revenues; pensioners care what inflation does to peso purchasing power.
For a visitor or foreign investor in September 2026, the sensible question is which rule applies to the particular payment: a personal dollar purchase, foreign-card charge, import settlement, distribution of new dividends or past accumulated profits. Check the current central-bank communications and the provider’s transaction terms. The central idea behind the end of the cepo was a shift from blanket rationing toward a managed and partly open currency market, not the end of Argentina’s long argument over the peso.
