The 30-year Treasury bond yield closed at 5.31% on Monday, August 17, 2026, the highest level the long bond has reached since June 2007. The Treasury Department’s daily par yield curve put the rate 6 basis points above Friday’s 5.25% close and 4 basis points above the previous 2026 peak of 5.27%, set on July 31. The 20-year yield finished at 5.30%. The 10-year, the benchmark that anchors most consumer borrowing costs, settled at 4.72%.
Short maturities barely moved. The 2-year note ended at 4.19%, leaving the gap between 10-year and 2-year yields at 0.53 percentage points, the widest reading of the month. A steady front end paired with a selloff at the back points at supply and inflation risk, not at a shift in Fed expectations. Treasury sold new 30-year bonds on August 13 at a high yield of 5.216%, and the secondary market has repriced the maturity roughly 9 basis points higher since. Federal debt stood at $39.934 trillion on August 14, within $67 billion of the $40 trillion mark. See the full Treasury yield curve for every maturity.
None of this changed what households pay for short-term credit. The prime rate held at 6.75% and the effective federal funds rate at 3.63%, both anchored by a Federal Open Market Committee that left its target range at 3.50% to 3.75% on July 29 and does not meet again until September 15 and 16. The long end is repricing on its own, and it is the segment that sets 30-year mortgage quotes.
- The 30-year Treasury yield closed at 5.31% on August 17, the highest since June 2007.
- The last close at or above that level was 5.35% on June 12, 2007.
- The 30-year inflation protected yield hit 3.06%, a high for a series that starts in 2010.
- Prime held at 6.75% and the funds rate at 3.63% after the July 29 hold.
- Federal debt hit $39.934 trillion on August 14, roughly $67 billion below $40 trillion.
What the 5.31% Close Actually Measures
The figure Treasury publishes each afternoon is a constant maturity yield, interpolated from closing bid quotes on actively traded issues and read off the curve at exactly 30 years. It is not the coupon on any single bond. It is the rate the market demands to lend the federal government money for three decades, and it resets every business day when the Federal Reserve posts the H.15 release. Monday’s 5.31% means an investor buying that exposure now locks in a nominal 5.31% a year through 2056. The same measure sat at 5.19% on August 7. Against the 10-year at 4.72%, the long bond paid a 59 basis point premium for the extra 20 years of risk, and that premium has widened all month. Track how the full curve has moved on our interest rate page.
Strip inflation out and the picture sharpens. The 30-year Treasury inflation protected security yielded 3.06% on Monday, up from 3.00% on Friday and 2.97% the Thursday before. Treasury has published that real yield series since February 2010, and 3.06% is the highest close it contains. Because the real yield is what investors earn above expected inflation, a jump there is not a bet on faster price increases. It is a demand for more compensation to hold duration at all. The gap between the nominal 5.31% and the real 3.06% works out to a 2.25 percentage point breakeven inflation rate, close to where it has traded for weeks. The nominal yield rose because the real component rose.
Nineteen Years Since the Long Bond Paid This Much
The last time the 30-year constant maturity yield closed at or above 5.31% was June 12, 2007, when it printed 5.35%. That session came 15 months before Lehman Brothers failed and roughly six months before the recession that began in December 2007. Everything after it belongs to a different rate regime. The Federal Reserve cut to zero in December 2008, bought Treasury securities in size across three rounds of quantitative easing, and held the long bond below 3.50% for most of the decade that followed. The yield bottomed at 0.99% in March 2020. Getting back above 5.31% required 19 years and two months.
The climb through August was steady rather than violent. The 30-year closed at 5.19% on August 7, jumped to 5.25% on August 10, eased to 5.24% on the eleventh and twelfth, dipped to 5.21% on August 13 in the hours around the bond auction, recovered to 5.25% on August 14, then broke out on Monday. Six of those eight sessions ended above 5.20%. The 2026 high before Monday was 5.27% on July 31, two days after the Federal Open Market Committee held its target range steady. Each successive peak this summer has cleared the last one, which is the signature of a market repricing a level rather than reacting to a headline.
Why the Long End Is Repricing
Three forces are doing the work, and all three sit outside the Fed’s policy rate. The first is supply. Outstanding federal debt reached $39,933,634,466,112.78 on August 14, of which $32.20 trillion is held by the public and $7.73 trillion sits in government accounts. Every dollar of that public share has to find a buyer at a clearing price, and long maturities are the hardest part of the calendar to place. The August 13 auction cleared at 5.216% on a bid to cover ratio of 2.39. The second force is the cost of carrying what is already borrowed. The average interest rate across all interest bearing federal debt reached 3.447% on July 31, up from 3.409% in June and 3.353% in May. See the running total on our national debt tracker.
The third force is inflation that has refused to return to target. Consumer prices rose 3.4% in the 12 months through July, and the core index that excludes food and energy rose 2.5%. Both sit above the Committee’s 2 percent goal, and both have held there long enough that a 30-year lender cannot assume 2 percent over the life of the bond. The Federal Reserve is also not absorbing the supply. Its balance sheet stood near $6.76 trillion on August 12 and has stopped shrinking, but the central bank left the role of marginal buyer years ago. Rising rates on existing debt compound the problem, as our page on interest on the national debt shows.
What This Means for the Rates You Pay
Mortgages feel the long end first. Lenders price 30-year fixed loans off the 10-year Treasury and the mortgage backed securities that trade alongside it, not off the federal funds rate. The 30-year fixed average was 6.67% in the week ending August 13, and with the 10-year back at 4.72% on Monday the next weekly print faces upward pressure rather than downward. A borrower financing $400,000 pays roughly $2,573 a month in principal and interest at 6.67%. At 6.90% that payment rises to about $2,634, a difference of $61 a month or $735 a year. Current quotes sit on our mortgage rates page.
Short-term consumer credit is a different story. Credit card APRs, home equity lines and most variable rate personal loans are priced as prime plus a margin, and prime moves only when the Fed moves its target range. Prime has held at 6.75% since the last policy change and did not react to Monday’s selloff. Savers get a mixed result. Long-dated certificates of deposit and Treasury bonds bought directly now offer the best nominal yields in nearly two decades, while online savings accounts track the front end, which has not budged. Our guide to how Fed decisions reach your loans maps which products follow which rate, and consumer credit rates tracks the current averages.
If you are shopping for a mortgage, watch the 10-year Treasury yield rather than the Fed. Lenders reprice sheets within a day or two of a sharp move at the long end, and a lock signed before that adjustment can save real money. Savers face the opposite logic: the long end is where the yield sits, so a multi year certificate of deposit or a Treasury bought at auction locks in today’s level even if the Fed cuts later.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the 30-year Treasury yield right now?
The 30-year Treasury constant maturity yield closed at 5.31% on Monday, August 17, 2026, according to the U.S. Treasury Department. That is the highest close since June 2007 and 6 basis points above Friday’s 5.25%. The 20-year finished at 5.30%, the 10-year at 4.72% and the 2-year at 4.19%.
What is the highest 30-year Treasury yield in history?
The record belongs to the early 1980s. The 30-year Treasury yield peaked above 15% in 1981, when the Federal Reserve under Paul Volcker pushed short-term rates into the high teens to break double digit inflation. Nothing since has approached that level. Within the modern series Treasury reintroduced in February 2006, the high is 5.35% on June 12, 2007. Monday’s 5.31% is the closest any session has come in 19 years, far below the historical peak.
Why would anyone buy a 30-year Treasury?
Three reasons. The yield is contractual, so a buyer at 5.31% receives that rate every year for 30 years regardless of what the Fed does. Pension funds and insurers need assets whose maturity matches liabilities running decades out, and nothing else offers that with a government guarantee. If yields fall, long bonds gain the most in price, so investors expecting a slowdown buy duration deliberately. The risk runs the other way too: if yields keep climbing, the market value of that bond falls hard before maturity.
What are the current yields on U.S. Treasury bonds?
As of the August 17 close, the Treasury curve ran from 4.19% at the 2-year to 5.31% at the 30-year. The 10-year sat at 4.72% and the 20-year at 5.30%. Bills at the front end remain anchored near the federal funds target range of 3.50% to 3.75%. The spread between the 10-year and the 2-year was 0.53 percentage points, the widest of August, so the curve is steepening. Treasury publishes every maturity each business day, and the Federal Reserve mirrors them in H.15.
Does a higher 30-year Treasury yield raise my credit card APR?
No. Variable rate credit cards are priced as the prime rate plus a fixed margin, and prime moves only when the Federal Open Market Committee changes its target range. Prime has stayed at 6.75% through all of August and did not react to Monday’s move in the bond market. Home equity lines and most variable rate personal loans work the same way. The 30-year yield instead drives mortgage pricing, long-dated corporate borrowing and the government’s own interest bill.
When will long-term Treasury yields come back down?
No date can be forecast honestly, but the conditions are identifiable. Long yields fall when investors need less compensation for duration risk, which usually requires inflation settling at target, a smaller borrowing calendar, or a slowdown that pushes money into bonds. July inflation ran at 3.4% headline and 2.5% core, federal debt is approaching $40 trillion, and the labor market has softened without breaking. Until one of those three moves decisively, pressure on the long end stays in place whatever the Fed does in September.
Watching the Long End Into the September 16 Decision
The Federal Open Market Committee meets September 15 and 16 and will publish a new Summary of Economic Projections with the decision. Before then, the August employment report arrives in early September and the August consumer price index lands on September 11. Neither sets the 30-year yield directly, but both shape the inflation outlook that does. Follow the calendar on our Fed meeting schedule, the outlook on our rate forecast page, and the prints themselves on our inflation tracker.
References
- U.S. Treasury. “Daily Treasury Par Yield Curve Rates,” August 17, 2026. home.treasury.gov
- U.S. Treasury. “Daily Treasury Par Real Yield Curve Rates,” August 17, 2026. home.treasury.gov
- FRED. “30-Year Treasury Constant Maturity Rate (DGS30),” accessed August 18, 2026. fred.stlouisfed.org
- FRED. “30-Year Treasury Inflation-Indexed Security (DFII30),” accessed August 18, 2026. fred.stlouisfed.org
- Federal Reserve Board. “Selected Interest Rates (Daily) H.15.” federalreserve.gov
- Federal Reserve Board. “FOMC Calendars, Statements, and Minutes.” federalreserve.gov
- Bureau of the Fiscal Service. “Debt to the Penny,” record date August 14, 2026. fiscaldata.treasury.gov
- Bureau of the Fiscal Service. “Average Interest Rates on U.S. Treasury Securities,” July 31, 2026. fiscaldata.treasury.gov
- TreasuryDirect. “Auction Results,” 30-Year Bond, August 13, 2026. treasurydirect.gov
- FRED. “Consumer Price Index (CPIAUCNS) and Core CPI (CPILFESL),” July 2026. fred.stlouisfed.org
- FRED. “30-Year Fixed Rate Mortgage Average (MORTGAGE30US),” week ending August 13, 2026. fred.stlouisfed.org
