Short answers on the cash rate, the RBA's meetings and the market odds on this site. The live numbers in them update every 30 minutes.
The interest rate banks charge each other to borrow overnight. The Reserve Bank sets a target for it and keeps the market rate there, and it flows through to what banks charge on variable loans and pay on savings. When people say the RBA "raised rates", it is this target that moved.
The cash rate target is 4.60%. It was last raised, to 4.60%, with effect from Wednesday 30 September 2026. The cash rate history has every change since 1990.
The RBA's Monetary Policy Board, chaired by the Governor. It took over rate decisions from the Reserve Bank Board in March 2025.
Inflation between 2 and 3%, aiming for the middle of that band, and full employment. It raises the cash rate when inflation runs too hot and cuts it when the economy needs support. The rate tracker charts both inflation and jobs.
Tuesday 3 November 2026, with the decision at 2.30pm Sydney time (in 26 days). See the next RBA meeting page, or every date on the meeting dates page.
Eight times a year since 2024, over two days. The decision is announced at 2.30pm Sydney time on the second day, followed by the Governor's media conference at 3.30pm.
The day after the announcement. Banks then choose when, and how much of it, to pass on to their variable rates; they usually announce within a few days.
For the next meeting, ASX futures price 72% hold, 28% hike. Further out, they imply a cash rate of about 4.86% by December 2027, +26bp from today. These are market prices, not promises: they move every day with the data. The interest rate forecast has every meeting.
On a variable loan, a 0.25 percentage point rise passed on in full adds about $81 a month to the repayments on a $500,000 30-year principal-and-interest loan at 6%, and a cut takes about the same off. Fixed rates don't change until the fixed term ends. Your lender's own calculator will have the figure for your loan.
Mainly ASX 30-day interbank cash rate futures, where traders bet on the average cash rate in each coming month. The rate they imply after a meeting, against today's, gives the chance of a move. The prediction markets Polymarket and Kalshi are shown beside them. The methodology has the detail.
They are different markets with different traders. ASX futures carry far more money and are what banks and economists quote; Polymarket and Kalshi are smaller, and their prices can sit away from the futures for days. A gap between them is a sign the outcome is less settled than either alone suggests.
The scorecard on the rate tracker checks every 2026 decision against what each market priced a week before, the day before and just before the announcement: whether its favourite outcome was right, and how much probability it put on what the RBA actually did. Every past meeting's page shows the same for that meeting.
Market prices and the cash rate every 30 minutes; inflation, jobs and other economic data every few hours, as the ABS and RBA publish them.
No. It is an independent site, not affiliated with or endorsed by the RBA, and nothing on it is financial advice.
Cash rate history · RBA forecasts · FAQ · How the numbers are worked out
Figures refresh every 30 minutes; last updated
08 Oct 2026, 07:03 Sydney time.
RBA Watch is an independent site. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by
the Reserve Bank of Australia, and nothing here is financial advice.