Fed Meeting Tracker

The next scheduled FOMC meeting — and the next Fed interest rate decision date — is October 27–28, 2026. The FOMC holds eight regularly scheduled meetings per year, roughly every six weeks, and the policy statement is released at 2:00 p.m. Eastern Time on the final day of each meeting.

Not today. The next FOMC decision is scheduled for October 27–28, 2026.

The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) is the branch of the Federal Reserve System that sets U.S. monetary policy — most visibly the target range for the federal funds rate, which influences borrowing costs across the economy. It consists of the seven members of the Board of Governors, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and four other Reserve Bank presidents who serve on a rotating basis.

The federal funds rate is the interest rate at which U.S. banks lend reserve balances to each other overnight. The FOMC does not fix a single number — it sets a target range (currently 3.75%–4.00%), and the effective federal funds rate (EFFR) is the average rate actually traded in the market, which the Fed steers to stay inside that range using tools such as interest on reserve balances. It serves as the benchmark from which many other U.S. interest rates are priced.

It is the anchor for short-term borrowing costs across the entire economy. When the FOMC raises or lowers the range, the change ripples outward: banks adjust the prime rate (which drives credit-card and many business-loan rates), savings and money-market yields follow, Treasury yields and mortgage rates respond to the expected path of policy, and stock prices and the U.S. dollar react. Through these channels the Fed influences spending, hiring, and ultimately inflation — higher rates cool demand and price pressures, lower rates support borrowing and activity. The effects arrive with a lag of months, which is why markets watch every meeting so closely.

A basis point (bp) is one one-hundredth of a percentage point: 1 bp = 0.01%, so 25 bp = 0.25% and 75 bp = 0.75%. Central banks and markets quote changes in basis points to avoid ambiguity — "a 25 basis point cut" unmistakably means the target range moved down by 0.25 percentage points. A typical FOMC step is 25 bp; in fast-moving periods the Fed has moved in 50 or 75 bp steps, as the 2022 entries in the history table above show.

The FOMC policy statement is normally released at 2:00 p.m. Eastern Time on the final day of the meeting. The Fed Chair's press conference follows at 2:30 p.m. Eastern Time. Markets often move sharply in the minutes around both events.

Four times a year — at the March, June, September, and December meetings — the FOMC publishes the Summary of Economic Projections (SEP). It includes the famous "dot plot," a chart in which each participant marks where they expect the federal funds rate to stand at the end of the coming years. Investors watch it closely as a signal of the likely path of interest rates, though it is a projection, not a commitment.

In 2026, the meetings with a Summary of Economic Projections (dot plot) are March 17–18, June 16–17, September 15–16, December 8–9. In 2027 they are March 16–17, June 8–9, September 14–15, December 7–8. These are marked with a "Dot Plot" badge in the calendars above.

The minutes of regularly scheduled FOMC meetings are released three weeks after the date of the policy decision. They provide a more detailed account of the discussion than the post-meeting statement and can themselves move markets.

Every date and rate on this page comes directly from the Federal Reserve's official website (federalreserve.gov) — the meeting calendar page and the open market operations page. As works of the U.S. federal government, the data is in the public domain. Each value carries its retrieval date, and the page is updated after every FOMC decision.