About the Official Cash Rate
The Official Cash Rate is the Reserve Bank of New Zealand’s overnight policy rate. It is the number the Monetary Policy Committee sets when it wants to tighten or ease financial conditions in New Zealand. The current reading on this page is 2.50%, last observed on 20 Aug 2026. That figure is taken from the Reserve Bank’s wholesale interest-rate table (B2), series INM.DP1.N, not from a press summary or a secondary market estimate.
New Zealand introduced the OCR in March 1999 as a simple, public replacement for a more opaque operating system. Before then the Bank still influenced overnight money, but it did not publish a single headline target that markets could treat as the official setting. From 17 March 1999 the series is continuous. This page starts there. Earlier overnight rates exist in the same B2 files; they are a different instrument and are not mixed into the OCR chart.
The Committee reviews the OCR on a published timetable, typically eight times a year. A decision can be a hike, a cut, or an unchanged hold. Holds look uneventful on a chart — a long horizontal line — but they are still decisions. The step you see is the rate that applies until the next change, not a daily market print that wiggles with order flow. That is why the line is drawn as a step and why a “last change” date is more informative than a one-day difference of zero.
People look the OCR up for different reasons. Households use it as a shorthand for whether borrowing costs are supposed to be rising or falling. Markets use it as the anchor for bank-bill yields, swap rates and the front end of the government curve. Journalists use it because it is the one New Zealand rate that is set in public, on a known day, with a statement attached. None of those uses makes the OCR itself a mortgage quote. Retail rates move with the OCR over time, but they also move with funding costs, competition and credit risk. The floating first-mortgage series and the six-month deposit series on this site are the place to see those retail prices.
How to read the chart: the vertical jumps are policy decisions; the flats are the periods when the setting was left alone. The 1Y / 5Y / 10Y / Max controls only change the window. They do not change the values. Mean and median on this page are computed from every daily observation in the official series, so a long stay at one setting pulls the average toward that setting. The lowest print in the file is 0.25% on 17 Mar 2020. The highest is 8.25% on 26 Jul 2007. Across 6,886 daily observations from 17 Mar 1999 to 20 Aug 2026, the mean is 3.88% and the median is 3.25%.
We do not forecast the next decision and we do not shade in market-implied paths. If you want the Bank’s own words, read the Monetary Policy Statement or the review that sits on the Reserve Bank website. This page is only the official rate, kept next to its history.
Frequently asked questions
Who sets the OCR?
The Reserve Bank of New Zealand’s Monetary Policy Committee. The published B2 series is the official statistical record of that setting.
Is the OCR the same as my mortgage rate?
No. The OCR is an overnight policy rate. Mortgage rates are retail prices set by banks. They tend to move with the OCR, but not one-for-one and not on the same day.
Why is the daily change often zero?
Because the OCR only changes when the Committee changes it. Between decisions the official setting is constant, so a daily difference of zero is expected.
Do you adjust the history?
No. Values are read from the Reserve Bank’s B2 workbooks and written out as they stand. The 1999 start date is the start of the OCR itself.
Where is the official file?
Wholesale interest rates (B2) on rbnz.govt.nz. Decision texts are on the Monetary Policy decisions page. This site cites both and copies values only from the spreadsheet.
Source: RBNZ Wholesale interest rates (B2), series INM.DP1.N. Local files: data/raw/hb2-daily-1985-2017.xlsx + data/raw/hb2-daily-close.xlsx. Values are republished without alteration.