About the US federal funds rate
The federal funds rate is the interest rate US banks charge each other for overnight reserve balances. The Federal Open Market Committee sets a target range. The effective federal funds rate is the volume-weighted median of the actual overnight trades. This page shows the effective rate. The latest daily print is 3.63% as of 20 Aug 2026, from FRED series DFF, whose source is the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (H.15 / New York Fed effective rate).
Why effective, not the midpoint of the target range? Because the official statistical series that runs for decades is the effective rate, and because that is the number that actually printed in the market. In normal times the effective rate sits inside the target range, close to the administered rates the Fed uses to steer it. The long monthly series FEDFUNDS, which begins in July 1954, is the monthly average of that effective rate. The chart, the table and the mean/median/min/max line use that monthly history. The huge number at the top is the latest daily effective print, so the page does not wait for a month to close.
People look this rate up because it is still the world’s most-watched policy rate. New Zealand wholesale rates, the New Zealand dollar and local swap markets all respond to it, even though the RBNZ sets the OCR independently. A US easing cycle can ease financial conditions in Auckland without a single OCR change; a US tightening cycle can do the opposite. Publishing the official effective rate next to the OCR is a way to keep that comparison honest and dated.
How to read the chart: the 1950s–80s are a different monetary regime. The early-1980s spike is the Volcker period, when the effective rate spent time in the high teens. The 2008–15 stretch near zero is the first effective-lower-bound decade. The 2020 print at the floor is the pandemic restart. The 2022–23 climb is the inflation-tightening cycle. Mean 4.59% and median 4.25% are pulled around by those eras; they are not a “normal” rate for 2026. The lowest monthly observation in the file is 0.05% on 1 Apr 2020. The highest is 19.10% on 1 Jun 1981. There are 866 monthly (plus latest daily) points from 1 Jul 1954 to 20 Aug 2026.
This is not a US mortgage rate, not the prime rate, and not the interest rate on reserve balances. Those are separate official series. It is also not advice about holding US dollars or about the next FOMC meeting. FRED and the Board publish the files; we republish the values. If FRED is unreachable on a future rebuild, this series is skipped rather than guessed.
Frequently asked questions
Effective rate or target range?
Effective. DFF is the daily effective federal funds rate; FEDFUNDS is the monthly average. The target range is set by the FOMC and is not what this chart plots.
Why is the long chart monthly?
A daily series from 1954 is tens of thousands of points. The official monthly average is the standard long-run record; the current figure remains daily.
Who publishes it?
The Federal Reserve system. FRED, the St. Louis Fed’s public database, is the distribution channel used for the files in this build.
Does a move here change the NZ OCR?
Not automatically. It can change global financial conditions, which the RBNZ may or may not respond to. The two series are shown separately for that reason.
Source: FRED series DFF (daily effective) and FEDFUNDS (monthly). Local files: data/raw/fred-dff.csv + data/raw/fred-fedfunds.csv. Values are republished without alteration.