About the Australian cash rate
Australia’s cash rate target is the overnight policy rate set by the Reserve Bank of Australia. In the market it is the rate that unsecured overnight interbank loans are meant to trade around; the Bank announces a target and then operates so that the transacted cash rate sits close to it. The latest official daily target on this page is 4.35% as of 20 Aug 2026, from table F1 series FIRMMCRTD.
The RBA has announced an explicit cash-rate target since the early 1990s. Table F1.1 carries a monthly average of that target from August 1990. Table F1 carries a daily target from 2011. We use the monthly file for the long history you see in the chart and in the mean/median/min/max line, then we take the current number from the latest daily target so a decision made after the last month-end is not hidden. Values are not altered. A month in which the Board changed the target part-way through will show a monthly average that sits between the two settings; the daily file, once it exists, shows the step itself.
People look the Australian cash rate up for the same reason New Zealanders look up the OCR: it is the clean official fact about what policy is. Australian variable mortgages, business overdrafts and term deposits all live downstream of it. New Zealand readers often want it because the two policy cycles are compared constantly — two inflation-targeting central banks, two housing markets, two currencies that markets trade as a pair. This site keeps them in the same visual language so that comparison does not require opening three official websites and a notes appendix.
How to read the chart: treat it as a step function with a monthly spine before 2011 and a more precise current print today. The mean of the published history used for statistics is 4.40%; the median is 4.75%. The lowest point in that history is 0.10% on 31 Dec 2020. The highest is 14.00% on 31 Aug 1990. There are 433 observations from 31 Aug 1990 to 20 Aug 2026. A long flat at 0.10% is the pandemic-era floor. The climbs that follow are the tightening cycle that came after. None of those shapes is a forecast of the next Board meeting.
The cash rate is also the near risk-free overnight benchmark for the Australian dollar and is referred to in markets as AONIA when people mean the transacted overnight rate rather than the target. This page shows the target. If you need the transacted interbank cash rate, the same RBA F1 workbook contains it; we do not republish that column here because the product question this site answers is “what did the central bank set?”
Board dates, statements and the cash-rate procedures manual live on rba.gov.au. We cite the statistical tables because those are the files this page is built from. If a download ever fails, the series is omitted rather than invented — that did not happen for this build.
Frequently asked questions
Is this the target or the transacted cash rate?
The large number is the cash rate target. The history is the RBA’s published target series (monthly average, plus the latest daily target).
Who sets it?
The Reserve Bank of Australia, through the monetary-policy process described on its own site. This page only republishes the statistical outcome.
Why does the history start in 1990?
That is when the official F1.1 monthly target series begins. The Bank has published notes on the earlier operating regime separately.
Is this comparable to the NZ OCR?
Conceptually yes: both are overnight policy rates. They are not the same number, they are not set on the same day, and retail pass-through differs.
Do you add forecasts?
No. Market-implied paths and economist surveys are not official rates and are not on this page.
Source: RBA Statistical Tables F1 / F1.1, series FIRMMCRTD and FIRMMCRT. Local files: data/raw/rba-f01d.xlsx + data/raw/rba-f01hist.xlsx. Values are republished without alteration.