Cash Rate

Reserve Bank of New Zealand

New Zealand Official Cash Rate

View on New Zealand desk

2.50%

+0.25 pp last change (8 Jul 2026)

As at 25 Aug 2026 | Daily (policy rate; changes on decision days)

Mean
3.88%
Median
3.25%
Min
0.25% 17 Mar 2020
Max
8.25% 26 Jul 2007
DateRate
25 Aug 20262.50
31 Jul 20262.50
30 Jun 20262.25
29 May 20262.25
30 Apr 20262.25
31 Mar 20262.25
27 Feb 20262.25
30 Jan 20262.25
31 Dec 20252.25
28 Nov 20252.25
31 Oct 20252.50
30 Sep 20253.00
29 Aug 20253.00
31 Jul 20253.25
30 Jun 20253.25
30 May 20253.25
30 Apr 20253.50
31 Mar 20253.75
28 Feb 20253.75
31 Jan 20254.25
31 Dec 20244.25
29 Nov 20244.25
31 Oct 20244.75
30 Sep 20245.25

About the OCR

The Official Cash Rate is the Reserve Bank of New Zealand’s overnight policy rate (B2, INM.DP1.N). The current reading is 2.50% as of 25 Aug 2026. This page starts in March 1999, when the OCR began; earlier overnight series in the same file are a different instrument.

The chart is a step: moves are MPC decisions, flats are unchanged settings. Range buttons filter the view only. From 17 Mar 1999 to 25 Aug 2026 (6,889 observations): mean 3.88%, median 3.25%; low 0.25% (17 Mar 2020), high 8.25% (26 Jul 2007). Not a mortgage or deposit rate.

Source: RBNZ Wholesale interest rates (B2), series INM.DP1.N. Licence: RBNZ statistics terms: republication permitted with attribution to the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (terms). Files: data/raw/hb2-daily-1985-2017.xlsx + data/raw/hb2-daily-close.xlsx.

Reading this series

The Official Cash Rate is the Reserve Bank of New Zealand's overnight policy rate, published in the central bank's B2 wholesale interest-rate tables as series INM.DP1.N. The RBNZ's Monetary Policy Committee sets it and announces changes on scheduled decision dates, so between announcements the rate is flat. This page begins in March 1999, when the OCR was introduced; the earlier overnight series in the same workbook is deliberately excluded because it was a different instrument. Because the rate moves only at decisions, the chart is drawn as steps and the table lists each daily observation in reverse date order.

Read the headline number as the latest published setting, then the "versus the previous reading" line: for a rate that has been unchanged for weeks the page also surfaces the date of the last actual move. The mean and median are arithmetic summaries of the OCR readings in this build, so a long stay at one setting pulls them toward it. Chart and Table show the same series two ways; the range buttons only filter the view; Explore adds zoom and pan on request. The OCR is a policy rate, not a mortgage or deposit rate.

About this desk

The South Africa desk leads with the SARB repo rate, from the BIS central bank policy rate series for South Africa, then US, UK and ECB rates. The repo rate is the rate at which the South African Reserve Bank lends to banks against eligible collateral; the BIS series records it as dated level changes from 1980 and the page draws it as daily steps. It is the country's main policy rate, not a mortgage or deposit rate.

This desk is reachable at its address but is not listed in the Country selector, and the page is set to noindex. All desks show the same official series in a different order, so the numbers match the hub. Values are republished with attribution to the BIS; this site is not an official BIS publication. The build ingests no South African retail rate series, so none is shown. This is not financial advice.