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Where the Yuan Is Winning: De-Dollarization by Corridor, 2020-2026

Data Trends

The yuan is only 3% of global payments - but that average hides a bimodal reality. In specific bilateral corridors, it has already won.

Where the Yuan Is Winning: De-Dollarization by Corridor, 2020-2026

The headline statistic on yuan internationalization looks like a dud: the renminbi accounts for just roughly 3% of global payments tracked by SWIFT, versus 48% for the US dollar and 24% for the euro. Read only that number and de-dollarization looks like a rounding error.

The number is misleading because it is an average. In specific bilateral corridors - the ones that matter most geopolitically - the yuan has already won. In others it has barely moved. The real story of 2020 to 2026 is the bimodal distribution hiding underneath the global average.

The global view: small but steady

Aggregate yuan usage has grown, but slowly and unevenly across categories:

MetricRecent readingTrend
Yuan share of SWIFT global payments~3.0-3.5% (2025)Up from ~2.0% in 2023
Yuan share of global trade finance6% (end-2024)Up from 4.8% (2023), under 2% the year prior
Yuan share of global FX reservesBelow 2.83%Declining from Q1 2022 peak
USD share of SWIFT payments~48%Roughly flat
EUR share of SWIFT payments~24%Roughly flat

Trade finance is where aggregate growth is fastest - roughly tripling in two years. SWIFT payments have drifted up modestly. FX reserves have actually declined from their 2022 peak, meaning central banks are not buying the yuan story as aggressively as commercial traders are.

The corridor view: total takeovers

Zoom to specific country-pairs and the picture inverts:

Bilateral corridorYuan / non-USD shareYear
Russia ↔ China trade~99% in national currencies (ruble/yuan)2024
Russia ↔ other BRICS~90% in "friendly" currencies2024
Iran oil exports to China~90% non-USD (~$8B+ annually)2026
Saudi Arabia ↔ ChinamBridge rail live; $7B yuan swap facilitysince 2024
Brazil ↔ Chinanational-currency settlement agreement in forcesince 2023

31 countries now use the renminbi for at least 10% of their payments with China, per SWIFT. Cross-border RMB settlement exceeded ¥10 trillion in 2024 - a 35% year-on-year increase.

Where the tipping happened

Three forcing functions pushed specific corridors past 50% non-USD:

  1. Sanctions exposure. Russia (2022) and Iran (ongoing) effectively lost access to dollar rails. Their trade did not stop - it redirected.
  2. Energy sellers diversifying payment. Saudi Arabia's June 2024 decision not to renew exclusive dollar-pricing removed a major political constraint. Iran's April 2026 Strait of Hormuz tolls are paid in CNY and stablecoins, not USD.
  3. Infrastructure maturity. CIPS - China's yuan clearing network - and mBridge, the cross-border CBDC pilot with UAE, Thailand, and Hong Kong, now provide plumbing that did not exist in 2020.

Where the dollar is still untouchable

The yuan has not dented:

  • FX reserves. USD still holds roughly 58% of allocated reserves; yuan holdings have fallen from their 2022 peak.
  • Invoicing outside the China bloc. Europe, Latin America ex-Brazil, and most of Africa still bill in USD or EUR.
  • Safe-haven demand. When markets panic, capital still flees to dollars, not away from them.

The 2026 picture

The yuan is not the next reserve currency. It is, however, the default settlement currency for a specific coalition - Russia, Iran, Venezuela, and increasingly any country that is sanctioned or wary of becoming so. Saudi Arabia and Brazil are optional adopters in that bloc. Europe and Japan are not.

The question for the next five years is not whether the yuan "replaces" the dollar. It is how many more corridors tip from majority-USD to majority-CNY - and whether countries that are not sanctioned (Indonesia, Egypt, Turkey, Argentina) start choosing yuan rails voluntarily, for the optionality alone.

Sources

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