We present here a study of the x-ray magnetic circular dichroism ͑XMCD͒ at the K edge of the transition metal on rare-earth ͑R͒ transition-metal ͑T͒ intermetallics. The analysis of the T K-edge XMCD in the RT 2 compounds ͑T =Fe,Co͒ reveals that, when R is magnetic, there is a rare-earth contribution to these spectra which is as intense as to dominate the overall shape and sign of the XMCD signal. As a result, for a given R, the XMCD signal recorded in RFe 2 is very similar to that of RCo 2 despite the magnitude of the Co 3d magnetic moment is quite different from that of Fe in these compounds. The study of XMCD R as a function of the rare earth itself suggests that the rare-earth contribution to the T K-edge XMCD has an orbital origin and that its magnitude is related to the orbital component of the magnetic moment, L 4f , instead of the total magnetic moment. Moreover, despite no significant variation in the signals is found when Fe is changed by Co, the amplitude of the signals decreases remarkably as Fe or Co are diluted by nonmagnetic Al. Since aluminum substitution affects only slightly the magnitude of the individual T and R magnetic moments but strongly reduces the exchange interaction, this points out that XMCD R shows also a dependence on the strength of the R-T interaction. Therefore, our results suggest that the behavior of XMCD R can be accounted for in terms of a "molecular fieldlike" ͑with B RT ϰ n RT L R ͒ model.