Bank of Canada Interest Rate and 2026 Rate Announcement Dates

The Bank of Canada’s policy interest rate, which the Bank also calls its target for the overnight rate, is 2.25%, the level announced on October 29, 2025; this figure is as of October 16, 2026. The next scheduled announcement is October 28, 2026, at 9:45 a.m. ET, from the schedule the Bank publishes for the year.

What is the Bank of Canada’s interest rate now?

Bank of Canada: target for the overnight rate (series V39079) and Bank Rate (series V39078), as of October 16, 2026; the deposit rate is the target less 5 basis points, as the Bank sets it.

As the Bank of Canada describes it, financial institutions settle the day’s payments among themselves by borrowing from each other for one day, and the policy rate is the rate the Bank wants them to charge on those overnight loans. They can also leave money with the Bank overnight at the deposit rate or borrow from it at the Bank Rate, and the gap between those two rates is the operating band. The band is 30 basis points wide, with the deposit rate 5 basis points under the target; until January 2025, the two were set equal. A basis point, in the Bank’s definition, is one hundredth of 1%.

The public doesn’t borrow or lend in this overnight market, but the Bank says its rate still affects the rates people pay and earn, as what a decision changes explains.

When are the Bank of Canada’s rate announcements?

• The Bank of Canada announces its policy rate decisions on eight fixed dates a year.
• The fixed-date schedule began in 2000.
• Since 2021, a change takes effect the day after its announcement.
• In special circumstances the Bank can announce a change at other times, as it did on March 13, 2020, and March 27, 2020.

On each scheduled date, the Bank announces its setting for the overnight rate target in a press release that sets out the reasons for the decision. Four times a year the Governing Council also presents the Monetary Policy Report, the Bank’s main projection for inflation and growth in Canada with its view of the risks; the second column of the table shows which dates carry one. A summary of the Governing Council’s deliberations on a decision is published two weeks after that decision is announced.

A dash: no decision for that date in this table yet.

Dates: Bank of Canada, schedule for 2026 on its policy interest rate page. Decisions: each announcement's press release (linked). Decisions checked on October 19, 2026.

Dates for 2027 as the Bank has published them:

Dates: Bank of Canada, schedule for 2027 on its policy interest rate page.

What does a Bank of Canada rate decision change?

The Bank of Canada says that by encouraging financial institutions to lend to each other at close to its policy rate, it influences other interest rates in the economy, among them the prime rate banks set, which is used for loans like mortgages and lines of credit, and the interest paid on deposits, guaranteed investment certificates (GICs) and other savings. When the Bank lowers its rate, it says, people and businesses pay less interest on loans and mortgages and earn less interest on their savings. When it raises the rate, the Bank says people and businesses pay more interest on loans and mortgages.

For savers, each bank’s savings rates are on high-interest savings account rates by bank, GIC rates are on GIC rates, and how the two compare is on GIC vs HISA.

For borrowers, prime and each bank’s posted prime are on the Canada prime rate page, with prime at each bank in its own table. How a decision reaches fixed and variable mortgage rates is covered in how Bank of Canada decisions reach mortgages.

How has the Bank of Canada rate changed over time?

The policy rate stood at 0.25% in April 2009 and again in March 2020, was raised in March 2022 and reached 5.00% with the increase announced on July 12, 2023. It was first cut in June 2024 and last changed in October 2025, to 2.25%.

Computed from the Bank of Canada's target for the overnight rate (Valet series V39079), fetched October 19, 2026.

Source: Bank of Canada, target for the overnight rate (Valet series V39079), fetched October 19, 2026. Dates are announcement dates.

Decisions in 2025:

Source: each announcement's Bank of Canada press release (linked). Decisions checked on October 19, 2026.

The change table starts on April 21, 2009, the first date in the Bank’s online series for this rate. How the Bank set its key rate before then, and how that method changed over the years, is on its history of the key interest rate page. Prime’s history is on the Canada prime rate page, and mortgage rates over the years are on mortgage rate history.

What does the Bank of Canada do?

The Bank of Canada calls its policy rate the primary tool it uses to control inflation. It aims to keep inflation at 2%, the midpoint of a target range of 1 to 3% (see inflation in Canada). Rate decisions are deliberated by the Bank’s Governing Council, which also presents the Monetary Policy Report. The Bank says that if weak growth could pull inflation well below 2%, it might lower the policy rate, and if the economy grows too fast and inflation rises, it might raise it.

Related pages

• Savings accounts explained
• High-interest savings account rates by bank
• Canada prime rate
• How Bank of Canada decisions reach mortgages
• Interest rate forecasts
• GIC rates
• The CRA’s prescribed interest rate