The Board of Governors is made up of the Ministers of Finance (in the UK's case it is the Chancellor of the Exchequer) or Heads of Central Banks of the member countries. The Board of Governors meets once a year. Day-to-day running of the organisation is delegated to the Executive Board.

The IMF has 184 members. Each member country agrees to contribute a certain amount of money to IMF funds. The richer the country, the more it contributes. When decisions are made, each country has a number of votes, proportional to the size of its contribution. Therefore the USA, which is the biggest contributor, has the most votes. Poor countries have little say in the decisions of the IMF.