When Is the Next FOMC Meeting? Full 2026 Schedule

The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) is the body within the US Federal Reserve that sets the federal funds rate, the benchmark interest rate for the world’s largest economy. It meets 8 times a year, roughly once every 6 weeks, and each decision moves mortgage rates, savings rates, the US dollar and global stock markets. The current target range stands at 3.50% to 3.75%, where it has been held since December 2025. This page carries the full meeting schedule for 2026 and 2027, the time every announcement lands, and a plain English guide to what each decision means for your money.

FOMC Meeting Schedule 2026

The Federal Reserve has confirmed 8 scheduled FOMC meetings for 2026. Each meeting runs over 2 days, with the rate decision published at 2:00pm ET on the second day. The March, June, September and December meetings also include the Summary of Economic Projections, the quarterly forecasts that contain the closely watched dot plot. Dates below are taken from the Federal Reserve’s official calendar.

The committee has held the federal funds rate steady at every meeting in 2026 so far, after cutting 3 times in the second half of 2025. The March hold passed on an 11-1 vote, with Governor Stephen Miran dissenting in favour of a 0.25 percentage point cut. The April decision drew 4 dissents in total, reflecting a genuine split on the committee about how quickly policy should ease while inflation remains above the 2% target.

For the data releases the Fed will be weighing before the June meeting, see our previews of the US CPI report on June 10, 2026 and the PCE inflation report on June 25, 2026, plus the non-farm payrolls report on July 2, 2026 ahead of the July meeting.

FOMC Meeting Schedule 2027

The Federal Reserve has published a tentative calendar for 2027. Each date is provisional until confirmed at the meeting immediately before it, but in practice the schedule rarely changes.

What Time Is the FOMC Decision Announced?

The FOMC statement, including the interest rate decision, is released at 2:00pm Eastern Time on the final day of each meeting. That is 7:00pm in London, 8:00pm in Frankfurt and Paris, and 4:00am the following morning in Tokyo. For most of the year the 5 hour gap between New York and London holds, although it briefly narrows to 4 hours for a couple of weeks each spring and autumn when the US and UK switch their clocks on different dates.

The Chair’s press conference begins at 2:30pm ET (7:30pm London) and typically runs for 45 to 60 minutes. Markets often move more on the press conference than on the statement itself, because the Chair’s answers give clues about how the committee is leaning at future meetings.

At the 4 quarterly meetings (March, June, September and December), the Fed also publishes the Summary of Economic Projections alongside the statement at 2:00pm ET. This includes the dot plot, which shows where each policymaker expects interest rates to be at the end of the current year, the next 2 years and over the longer run.

The minutes of each meeting are published 3 weeks after the decision, at 2:00pm ET. They provide a fuller account of the committee’s discussion and frequently move markets in their own right, particularly when the vote was split.

What Is the FOMC?

The Federal Open Market Committee is the monetary policy arm of the Federal Reserve System, the central bank of the United States. Congress has given the Fed a dual mandate: maximum employment and stable prices, which the Fed interprets as inflation of 2% over time, measured by the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index. The FOMC pursues that mandate primarily by setting a target range for the federal funds rate, the rate at which banks lend reserves to one another overnight.

The committee has 12 voting members. All 7 members of the Board of Governors in Washington vote at every meeting, as does the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, who serves as the committee’s vice chair. The remaining 4 votes rotate annually among the presidents of the other 11 regional Federal Reserve Banks. All 19 policymakers attend and participate in every meeting regardless of voting status, and all 19 contribute projections to the dot plot.

The Chair of the Board of Governors leads the committee and fronts the press conference after each decision. June 2026 marks a leadership transition: Jerome Powell’s term as Chair expired on May 15, 2026, and Kevin Warsh, a former Fed governor, was nominated to succeed him. Powell has said he will remain on the Board of Governors after stepping aside as Chair, so the committee’s composition changes less than the headlines suggest.

The FOMC holds 8 scheduled meetings a year, spaced roughly 6 weeks apart. It can also meet, and act, between scheduled meetings when conditions demand it, as it did during the March 2020 pandemic shock. Unscheduled moves are rare and are themselves a signal of stress.

How the FOMC Makes Its Decision

Each meeting begins with staff briefings on the economy and financial markets, followed by a round in which every policymaker gives their assessment, and then a policy round in which they debate the decision and the wording of the statement. The committee votes on the final day, and dissents are recorded by name in the statement.

The data the committee weighs most heavily are well known. On the price side, it watches PCE inflation, its official target measure, along with the consumer price index (CPI), which arrives earlier each month. On the employment side, it tracks non-farm payrolls, the unemployment rate and wage growth. It also monitors broader financial conditions: bond yields, credit spreads, the dollar and equity prices, all of which affect how much the Fed’s policy stance actually restricts or stimulates the economy.

At quarterly meetings the dot plot adds another layer. Each of the 19 policymakers anonymously plots where they think the federal funds rate should be at the end of each projection year. The median dot becomes shorthand for the committee’s expected rate path, and a shift of even one dot can move markets if it changes the median.

The federal funds rate transmits to the real economy through a chain of borrowing costs. When the Fed raises or lowers its target range, US banks adjust their prime rate almost immediately, which feeds through to credit cards, car loans and variable rate borrowing. Expectations of future Fed policy drive Treasury yields, which in turn anchor fixed mortgage rates, corporate borrowing costs and, because the dollar is the world’s reserve currency, financing conditions far beyond the United States.

What the Fed Decision Means for Your Money

Mortgages. In the US, 30 year fixed mortgage rates follow long term Treasury yields rather than the Fed’s overnight rate, so they often move on expectations before the Fed acts. Adjustable rate mortgages and home equity lines of credit reset off short term benchmarks and respond within a billing cycle or two of a Fed move. Outside the US, the link is looser but real: when the Fed shifts, bond yields move globally, and that influences fixed mortgage pricing in the UK, the eurozone and beyond.

Savings. Rates on savings accounts, money market funds and certificates of deposit track the federal funds rate closely. With the target range at 3.50% to 3.75%, US savers can still find high yield accounts paying meaningfully above inflation. When the Fed cuts, those rates fall within weeks, which is why savers tend to lock in fixed term deposits ahead of an easing cycle.

Credit cards and loans. US credit card rates are typically priced off the prime rate, which moves in lockstep with the Fed. A 0.25 percentage point cut shows up on card statements within a month or two. Personal loan and car loan rates follow with a short lag.

Jobs. Higher rates cool hiring by raising the cost of business borrowing and investment; lower rates do the opposite. The effect arrives slowly, often 12 to 18 months after a policy change, which is why the Fed talks about acting before the labour market visibly weakens rather than after.

The stock market. Lower rates raise the value of future company earnings and make bonds less attractive relative to shares, which generally supports equity prices. But context matters: a cut delivered because the economy is deteriorating can hurt stocks rather than help them.

The global angle. Fed decisions ripple far beyond America. A higher federal funds rate tends to strengthen the dollar, which raises the cost of the dollar denominated debt carried by many emerging market governments and companies, and pushes up the price of dollar priced commodities such as oil for buyers in other currencies. Other central banks, including the European Central Bank and the Bank of England, set policy independently, but a big Fed move shifts the exchange rate maths they all face. For travellers and online shoppers outside the US, the simplest effect is the exchange rate: Fed cuts tend to soften the dollar, making dollar priced goods and US trips cheaper.

How Markets React to FOMC Decisions

The size of the market reaction depends almost entirely on the gap between the decision and what was priced in beforehand. Fed funds futures allow traders to bet on the outcome of each meeting, so by decision day the probability of a hold, cut or hike is usually well established. A decision that matches expectations often produces only a modest move at 2:00pm ET, with the bigger swings arriving during the press conference half an hour later.

When the Fed surprises, the moves are sharp. Equities can swing 1% to 2% within minutes of an unexpected decision or an unexpected shift in the dot plot. Two year Treasury yields, the most Fed sensitive point on the curve, can jump 10 to 20 basis points on a genuine surprise. The dollar typically strengthens on hawkish surprises (higher rates than expected, or fewer projected cuts) and weakens on dovish ones. Gold usually moves inversely to the dollar and to real yields, rallying on dovish outcomes.

A recurring pattern is the press conference reversal: the initial reaction to the 2:00pm statement is unwound, or amplified, once the Chair starts taking questions at 2:30pm. For anyone watching a Fed day, the full picture rarely settles before about 3:30pm ET (8:30pm London).

Recent FOMC Decisions

The table below shows every scheduled FOMC decision since mid 2024. The committee cut rates by a full percentage point across the final 3 meetings of 2024, paused for most of 2025, delivered 3 further cuts in the autumn of 2025, and has held since. Source: Federal Reserve.

Related Economic Events

The Fed never decides in a vacuum. These are the releases and rival central bank decisions that shape, and respond to, FOMC policy:

• US CPI Report: the monthly inflation reading that lands before each Fed meeting and frames the rate debate.
• US PCE Report: the Fed’s official 2% inflation target is defined in PCE terms, making this the measure the committee actually steers by.
• US Jobs Report: non-farm payrolls and the unemployment rate are the employment half of the Fed’s dual mandate.
• ECB Rate Decisions: the European Central Bank’s path relative to the Fed’s drives the euro-dollar exchange rate, the most traded currency pair in the world.
• Bank of England MPC Meetings: the UK’s rate setter frequently moves in the same cycle as the Fed, and the gap between the two shapes the pound.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many times a year does the Fed meet?

The FOMC holds 8 scheduled meetings a year, roughly one every 6 weeks. Each runs over 2 days, with the decision announced on the second day. The committee can also hold unscheduled meetings and change rates between scheduled dates in emergencies, though this is rare.

What time is the Fed announcement?

The rate decision and statement are released at 2:00pm Eastern Time, which is 7:00pm in London and 8:00pm in central Europe. The Chair’s press conference follows at 2:30pm ET (7:30pm London).

When is the next Fed press conference?

The next press conference follows the June 2026 meeting, on June 17, 2026 at 2:30pm ET (7:30pm London). Because June is a quarterly meeting, it also brings an updated Summary of Economic Projections and dot plot.

What is the current Fed interest rate?

The federal funds target range is 3.50% to 3.75%. It has been at that level since the cut announced on December 10, 2025, with the committee holding at each of its January, March and April 2026 meetings.

When will the Fed cut or raise rates next?

Nobody knows for certain, but markets put a price on it daily. Going into the June 16-17, 2026 meeting, fed funds futures tracked by the CME FedWatch tool priced roughly a 70% probability of a hold and around a 30% chance of a 0.25 percentage point cut, with further easing seen as more likely in the second half of 2026. A rate rise is given a negligible probability. These odds shift with every inflation and jobs release, so treat them as a snapshot rather than a forecast.

How quickly do mortgage rates react to a Fed decision?

Variable and adjustable rate mortgages, which are priced off short term benchmarks, typically reset within 1 or 2 billing cycles of a Fed move. Fixed mortgage rates behave differently: they follow long term bond yields, which move on expectations, so a widely anticipated Fed cut is often already reflected in fixed rates before the decision is announced.

Schedule and decision data sourced from the Federal Reserve. This page is updated after every FOMC meeting.