The U.S. prime rate has stood at 6.75% for 270 consecutive days, its longest unchanged stretch since the Federal Reserve’s December 11, 2025 cut took effect. The rate has not moved through six straight FOMC meetings, and it enters the September 15 to 16 meeting with the futures market pricing roughly even odds that the next move is up rather than down. Fed officials began their communications blackout at 12:00 a.m. Eastern on Saturday, September 5, so no further guidance is coming before the decision. Prime is the reference rate underneath most variable consumer credit in the United States, so credit card APRs, home equity lines, and much small business borrowing reprice within one or two billing cycles of any change. A quarter point increase on September 16 would lift prime to 7.00% and end the longest policy pause of this cycle. Readers can follow the current prime rate and the Fed meeting schedule for the dates that decide it.
- Prime has been 6.75% for 270 days, since the Fed cut took effect December 11, 2025.
- Prime equals the FOMC target upper bound of 3.75% plus a fixed 3.00 point spread.
- August payrolls rose 162,000 and July was revised from a loss to a 21,000 gain.
- The 10-year Treasury closed at 4.77% on September 3, near a multi-year high.
- A quarter point hike on September 16 would move prime to 7.00%.
Where the 270-Day Count Comes From
The prime rate is not set by the Federal Reserve. It is posted by large commercial banks, and since the early 1990s those banks have moved it in lockstep with the FOMC target, holding a fixed spread of 3.00 percentage points above the top of the target range. The current target range is 3.50% to 3.75%, so prime sits at 6.75%. The Federal Reserve’s H.15 release, the statistical series that records the bank prime loan rate each business day, shows 6.75% on every reading from December 11, 2025 through September 2, 2026. That is 270 calendar days as of today. The effective federal funds rate printed 3.63% on September 3, comfortably inside the range and giving the Committee no technical reason to adjust.
The December 2025 cut was the third in a short easing sequence that took prime from 7.50% to 7.25% in September 2025, to 7.00% in October, then to 6.75% in December. Nothing has moved since. The July 28 to 29 FOMC meeting held the range again, and the minutes published on August 19 recorded a 9 to 3 vote with three officials dissenting in favor of tighter policy. The dissents are the reason this hold is not being read as settled. Three votes is the largest bloc of hawkish dissent the Committee has recorded in this cycle, and it puts a September increase inside the range of outcomes the Committee itself has already debated.
How This Pause Compares With Past Holds
Two hundred seventy days is a long pause but not a record. Walking every prime rate change recorded in the H.15 series back to 1994 produces 91 distinct spans, and the current one ranks eleventh. The immediately preceding hold, at 7.50% between December 19, 2024 and September 17, 2025, ran 272 days. On Wednesday, September 9, the present hold matches it. The longest by a wide margin was the 2,557-day stretch at 3.25% from December 2008 to December 2015, followed by 731 days at the same 3.25% from March 2020 to March 2022. Both sat at the zero lower bound, a poor comparison for a rate parked mid-range.
The more useful comparisons come from the mid-cycle plateaus. Prime held 446 days at 8.25% from June 2006 to September 2007, and 420 days at 8.50% from July 2023 to September 2024. Both ended with a cut once labor data deteriorated. What separates the current pause is the direction of the risk. Inflation has not returned to target, with headline CPI at 3.4% and core at 2.5% in the July report, while payroll growth has just accelerated. The two prior plateaus resolved downward. This one is being priced to resolve upward, which would make it the first pause in more than two decades to end with an increase from a mid-range starting point.
What the Jobs Report Did to Hike Odds
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on September 4 that nonfarm payrolls rose 162,000 in August, roughly triple the consensus forecast and the strongest month since March. The unemployment rate held at 4.1%. The revisions did more damage to the easing case than the headline. July, originally reported as a loss of 23,000 jobs, was revised to a gain of 21,000, a swing of 44,000. June moved from 20,000 to 31,000. Average hourly earnings rose 0.3% to $37.75 and were up 3.1% over the year, while the average workweek edged up to 34.4 hours. The labor market softening that had underpinned the case for patience largely disappeared in a single release.
The bond market moved first. The two-year Treasury note, the maturity most sensitive to policy expectations, closed at 4.34% on September 3, well above the 3.63% effective funds rate. That gap is the market paying for tightening it expects rather than tightening that has happened. The 10-year closed at 4.77%, after touching 4.79% on September 1 and 2, levels last seen in January 2025. The 30-year finished at 5.25% and the spread between two-year and 10-year notes stood at 41 basis points. Rate futures now imply somewhere between 52% and 60% odds of a quarter point increase on September 16, up sharply from before the payroll release.
What Changes for Your Money
A quarter point increase moves prime from 6.75% to 7.00% the day after the announcement, and variable products follow almost mechanically. The Federal Reserve’s G.19 release put the average APR on all credit card accounts at 20.94%, and card agreements are written as prime plus a margin, so that average would move to roughly 21.19% within one or two statement cycles. Home equity lines of credit reprice on the same basis. A $40,000 balance would cost about $100 more per year for each quarter point. Details on how the transmission works are covered in our explainer on how Fed decisions affect your loans.
Fixed-rate borrowing behaves differently because it tracks the Treasury curve rather than prime. The 30-year mortgage averaged 6.71% in the September 3 Freddie Mac survey, moving with the 10-year note rather than with the funds rate, so a September hike would not automatically raise it. Current pricing is tracked on our mortgage rates page. Savers sit on the other side of the trade. Deposit yields on CDs and high-yield savings accounts follow the funds rate upward, though banks pass increases through more slowly than they pass through cuts. Fixed-rate personal loans priced before a hike keep their original rate for the full term.
If you carry a variable balance on a card or a home equity line, the week before an FOMC meeting is the cheapest time to act, not the week after. Pull your current APR and your margin over prime from the rate disclosure on your last statement, then add 0.25 to see exactly what a September 16 hike costs you. If the number bothers you, a fixed-rate consolidation quoted before September 16 locks today’s prime into the pricing. Applications submitted after the announcement are quoted off the new rate.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the current prime rate today?
The U.S. prime rate is 6.75% as of September 7, 2026. It has been unchanged for 270 days, since the Federal Reserve rate cut that took effect on December 11, 2025. Prime equals the FOMC target range upper bound of 3.75% plus a fixed 3.00 percentage point spread.
What is the prime rate versus the fed funds rate?
They are two different rates connected by a fixed formula. The federal funds rate is what banks charge each other for overnight reserves, and the FOMC sets a target range for it, currently 3.50% to 3.75%. The effective rate inside that range printed 3.63% on September 3. Prime is what commercial banks post as their reference rate for creditworthy customers, and since the mid-1990s the large banks have set it at exactly 3.00 percentage points above the top of the target range. The Fed never publishes a prime rate decision. Banks simply follow, usually the same day or the next business day.
What is the forecast for the prime rate?
The near-term forecast is decided at the September 15 to 16 FOMC meeting. Rate futures currently imply somewhere between 52% and 60% odds of a quarter point increase, which would put prime at 7.00%. The remaining probability sits with another hold at 6.75%. A cut is not meaningfully priced for this meeting. The August CPI report on September 11 is the last scheduled data release before the decision and is the single input most likely to move those odds. Beyond September, the direction depends on whether the payroll reacceleration reported for August continues into the autumn.
Is the prime rate expected to drop in 2026?
Market pricing does not point that way at the moment. The three cuts that took prime from 7.50% to 6.75% all landed in the second half of 2025, and nothing has been cut in 2026. With headline CPI at 3.4% in July and August payrolls up 162,000, the pressure on the Committee has shifted toward tightening rather than easing. Three officials already dissented in favor of higher rates at the July meeting. A drop in 2026 would most likely require a clear deterioration in the labor market or a faster decline in inflation than the current data show.
What happens to my credit card APR if the Fed hikes on September 16?
Your APR rises by the same amount, normally within one or two billing cycles. Nearly all general purpose cards are variable rate products written as prime plus a margin, and the margin is fixed in your cardholder agreement. If prime goes from 6.75% to 7.00%, a card at 20.94% becomes 21.19%. Issuers must apply the new rate to existing balances on variable accounts, and no advance notice is required because the change follows an index rather than a repricing decision. The extra cost is about $2.50 per year for every $1,000 you carry.
Should I lock a fixed rate before the September meeting?
It depends on which rate you are locking. For variable card or home equity balances, converting to a fixed-rate loan before September 16 removes the exposure entirely, and that decision is straightforward if you carry a balance month to month. For mortgages the answer is less clear, because 30-year pricing follows the 10-year Treasury rather than prime, and the 10-year at 4.77% has already moved a long way. A hike is partly priced into that yield. Locking protects you from further increases but does not capture a discount that has already been given up.
Watching the September 16 Decision
Three dates decide whether the 270-day hold becomes a 279-day hold or something longer. August CPI lands September 11, the FOMC announces on September 16 at 2:00 p.m. Eastern, and the blackout lifts September 17. Anyone with a variable balance should treat the intervening week as a decision window. Our Fed rate forecast, the prime rate history, and the daily interest rate tracker carry the updated figures.
References
- Federal Reserve Board, H.15 Selected Interest Rates, bank prime loan rate.
- Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, DPRIME Bank Prime Loan Rate, 1994 to September 2, 2026.
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, The Employment Situation, August 2026, September 4, 2026.
- Federal Reserve Board, FOMC Meeting Calendars.
- Federal Reserve Board, Minutes of the July 28 to 29, 2026 FOMC Meeting.
- Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, DGS10 10-Year Treasury Constant Maturity Rate.
- U.S. Department of the Treasury, Debt to the Penny, September 3, 2026.
- Federal Reserve Board, G.19 Consumer Credit.
