About Bank Rate
Bank Rate is the Bank of England’s official policy rate. It is the rate paid on reserves and the reference that sterling markets treat as the Bank’s setting. The Monetary Policy Committee decides it. The official statistical series used here is IUDBEDR, downloaded from the Bank of England’s statistical database as a daily series from 1975. The latest value is 3.75% as of 20 Aug 2026.
Bank Rate changed names and operating details over the decades, but the published daily series is the Bank’s own continuous record of the official sterling policy rate. That is why this page starts in 1975 rather than inventing an earlier splice from Bank Rate, Minimum Lending Rate and base-rate newspaper tables. If the Bank’s file begins a day on 2 January 1975, so does the chart.
People look Bank Rate up because UK mortgages, sterling swap rates and a large share of global sterling cash products still take their cue from it. New Zealand readers meet it when they hold sterling assets, when they read a UK inflation story, or when they want a third inflation-targeting central bank next to the RBNZ and the RBA. The three policy rates are not a ranking and not a trade idea. They are three official numbers that happen to be asked for in the same breath.
How to read the chart: it is a step function. The Committee meets on a published schedule; between meetings Bank Rate is constant, so the daily change is usually zero and the interesting fact is the last decision. The 1Y window shows the latest cycle. Max shows the 1970s and 1980s, when the official rate spent long stretches in double digits, and the 2009–2021 years when it sat at or near the floor. Mean 6.12% and median 5.38% describe that whole daily history (13,053 observations from 2 Jan 1975 to 20 Aug 2026). The lowest print is 0.10% on 19 Mar 2020. The highest is 17.00% on 15 Nov 1979.
We do not add fan charts, swap-implied paths or “market expects another cut” language. Those are interpretations. The Bank publishes the rate, the minutes and the Monetary Policy Report. This page republishes the rate. The table is month-end so you can scan the history; the large number is the latest daily official value.
If the Bank of England download fails on a future rebuild, the series is omitted and listed as unavailable. It is not filled in from memory or from a news article.
Frequently asked questions
Is Bank Rate the same as SONIA?
No. Bank Rate is the policy setting. SONIA is an overnight market benchmark. They are related and usually close; they are not the same series.
Who decides it?
The Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee. The statistical series IUDBEDR is the official daily record of the rate that resulted.
Why does the history start in 1975?
That is the start of the official daily download used here. Earlier UK policy-rate history exists in other Bank publications and is not mixed in.
Why is the table monthly?
A fifty-year daily table is hard to read. Month-end values keep the table usable; the current figure and the chart’s step points stay faithful to the daily file.
Is this a UK mortgage rate?
No. UK household mortgage rates are separate statistics. Bank Rate is the policy rate those products eventually respond to.
Source: Bank of England Statistical Database, series IUDBEDR. Local files: data/raw/boe-bank-rate.csv. Values are republished without alteration.