The federal funds rate target range is 3.75% to 4.00% as of October 23, 2026. The Federal Reserve set it there on September 16, 2026, raising the range by a quarter point, and the next decision is scheduled for October 28, 2026. This page tracks the current target range and each change the Federal Open Market Committee makes, and is updated when the rate moves.

The current target range

The target range for the federal funds rate is 3.75% to 4.00%. The Federal Open Market Committee set it at its September 2026 meeting, saying on September 16 that it had decided "to raise the target range for the federal funds rate by 1/4 percentage point to 3-3/4 to 4 percent." That was a 25 basis point increase from the prior range of 3.50% to 3.75%, and the vote was 12 to 0.

The Committee framed the move as a response to still-high prices. Its statement said inflation "remains elevated" and that the action would support "a timelier return" to its 2 percent goal, while describing economic activity as "expanding at a solid pace." By several accounts it was the Fed's first rate increase since July 2023.

The 2026 path so far

The federal funds rate has moved once in 2026. The range began the year at 3.50% to 3.75%, where it had been set by a quarter point cut on December 11, 2025. Through the first eight months of 2026 the Committee held the range steady at its scheduled meetings, then raised it by 25 basis points on September 16 to the current 3.75% to 4.00%. A rate that holds steady does not appear as a separate line in the Fed's record of target changes, which lists only the meetings at which the rate actually moved.

Why the Fed raised, and what the statement said

The September statement tied the move to inflation that, in the Committee's words, "remains elevated," and said the action would support "a timelier return" to the 2 percent goal. At the same time it described the economy as "expanding at a solid pace," with resilient household spending, strong productivity and job gains that have kept pace with the workforce. In other words, the Fed judged that the economy was strong enough to take a higher rate and that prices still needed cooling. The unanimous 12-0 vote signals there was little internal disagreement about that read.

The federal funds rate sits inside the Fed's dual mandate, the twin goals of stable prices and maximum employment that Congress set for it. When those two goals pull in different directions, the rate decision is where the tension gets resolved, which is why each statement is parsed so closely for how the Committee is weighing one against the other.

What happens next

Two scheduled decisions remain in 2026. The October meeting runs October 27 to 28, with the decision announced on October 28. The December meeting runs December 8 to 9, with the decision on December 9, and that meeting comes with a fresh Summary of Economic Projections, the quarterly set of forecasts Fed officials publish. This page does not forecast what the Committee will decide; it records what it has decided. For the detail on the upcoming meeting, see our preview of the October 28 Fed decision.

What the rate actually sets

The federal funds rate is the range the Fed wants banks to charge each other for overnight loans of reserves. It is not a rate you pay directly, but it is the base the rest of the system is built on. When it moves, the prime rate that banks charge their strongest customers typically moves with it, and from there the change feeds into variable credit-card APRs, home equity lines, auto loans and the yields on savings accounts and short-term Treasury bills. For how that transmission works step by step, see how the Federal Reserve works.

By long-standing convention, the prime rate runs 3 percentage points above the top of the fed funds target range, so a range of 3.75% to 4.00% lines up with a prime rate of about 7.00%. Lenders then price many consumer products off prime, which is how a Fed decision made for the banking system ends up on a credit-card statement. On the saving side, the pass-through is looser and slower: banks are quick to raise what they charge and slower to raise what they pay, so a higher target range tends to reach deposit yields only after a lag.

That is why a single quarter point decision gets so much attention. The direct effect, on overnight interbank lending, is narrow; the knock-on effect, on what households and businesses pay and earn, is broad.

How this page is kept current

The figures here are verified against the Federal Reserve's own statements and its published record of target rate changes. The page is updated after each FOMC decision that moves the range, and the target range shown above always reflects the most recent action. If you are reading it between meetings, the range is whatever the Committee last set, which as of October 23, 2026 is 3.75% to 4.00%. One note on reading any rate figure: the fed funds rate is quoted as a range, not a single number, because the Fed steers the market rate to sit within the band rather than fixing it at one exact level. When you see a single figure quoted elsewhere, it is usually the effective rate, the volume-weighted average of actual overnight transactions, which trades inside the target range the Committee sets.