Interest Rate Statistics (2026)

Interest rates in mid-2026 are elevated but off their peak. The Fed's target range is 3.50% to 3.75%, which sets the prime rate at 6.75% and ripples out to every loan and deposit product (see the table below). A 30-year mortgage runs 6.55%, credit cards charge about 22%, and an ordinary savings account still pays a token 0.38%.

The spread between what you pay to borrow and what you earn on cash is stark (see the chart below). Credit cards, near 22%, cost more than three times a mortgage, and secured borrowing (mortgages, HELOCs, auto loans) is far cheaper than unsecured debt. Where a rate sits depends heavily on collateral and credit score.

The federal funds rate is the interest banks charge each other for overnight loans, and the FOMC sets a target range for it eight times a year. It is the anchor: the prime rate is simply the fed funds rate plus 3 percentage points, and SOFR (the overnight benchmark that replaced LIBOR) tracks it closely, sitting at 3.63% in mid-July 2026.

Almost nothing the Fed does touches consumers directly, but everything flows from this one rate. Credit-card APRs, HELOCs, auto loans, and business credit are typically priced as prime plus a margin, so when the Fed moves, variable-rate debt reprices within a billing cycle or two. Fixed-rate products like 30-year mortgages track longer Treasury yields instead.

The last six years have been a round trip. The Fed cut rates to zero (0% to 0.25%) in March 2020, then executed the fastest hiking cycle since Volcker, lifting the range to 5.25% to 5.50% by July 2023, a 22-year high, in just 17 months (see the chart and table below).

Since then it has eased. Three cuts in late 2024 brought the range to 4.25% to 4.50% by year-end, and further reductions through 2025 landed it at 3.50% to 3.75% by December 2025. That is where it has stayed through the first half of 2026, held at every meeting from January through June.

The story of 2026 is a Fed that stopped cutting and started worrying about inflation again. In its June 2026 projections, the median policymaker penciled in a year-end federal funds rate of 3.8%, implying a 3.75% to 4.00% range, a quarter-point above today's level and a sharp reversal from the 3.4% it projected in March (see the table below).

The pivot followed a big markup to the inflation outlook: median PCE inflation for 2026 was raised to 3.6% from 2.7%, and core PCE to 3.3%. Policymakers see the funds rate easing only slowly thereafter, to 3.6% in 2027, with the longer-run neutral rate unchanged at 3.1%.

The 30-year fixed mortgage, the benchmark home loan, averaged 6.55% in Freddie Mac's survey for the week of July 16, 2026, up from 6.43% two weeks earlier and down from 6.75% a year ago (see the table below). Mortgage rates track the 10-year Treasury yield (4.55%) plus a spread, not the fed funds rate directly.

At 6.55%, the monthly principal-and-interest payment on a $400,000 loan is about $2,540, roughly $900 more per month than it would have been at the 2.65% record low of early 2021. That payment gap is the single biggest reason home affordability has deteriorated even where prices have flattened.

Today's 6.55% feels high against the 2010s, but it is close to the half-century average. The 30-year fixed hit an all-time high of 18.63% in the week of October 9, 1981, when Paul Volcker's Fed was crushing double-digit inflation, and a record low of 2.65% in January 2021 during the pandemic bond-buying program (per Bankrate).

So the current rate sits almost exactly midway between the modern extremes. The sub-3% mortgages of 2020-2021 were the historical anomaly, not the norm, which is why so many existing homeowners are now locked in and reluctant to sell (the lock-in effect).

The flip side of high borrowing rates should be high savings yields, but the average bank does not pass them through. The FDIC national average savings rate is just 0.38%, and money market accounts average 0.45% (see the chart and table below). A 12-month CD averages a better 1.65% nationally.

The gap between average and best-in-market is enormous. High-yield savings accounts average about 1.60% and top CDs reach 4.40%, per rate aggregators (flagged as non-FDIC data). Leaving cash in a 0.38% account instead of a ~4% one costs roughly $360 a year in forgone interest on every $10,000.

Credit-card debt is the priciest money most households will ever borrow. The Fed's G.19 report put the average rate on accounts actually assessed interest at 22.15% in the second quarter of 2026, up from 21.52% the prior quarter (see the table below). Across all accounts, including those paid in full, the average was 20.94%.

Unlike mortgages, card APRs are variable and tied to the prime rate, so they moved up nearly point-for-point with the Fed's 2022-2023 hikes and have barely eased since. At 22%, a carried balance roughly doubles every three and a half years if left unpaid, which is why revolving balances are the first thing to clear before investing.

Car loans sit in the middle of the borrowing spectrum. Experian's first-quarter 2026 data put the average new-car loan at 6.39% and the average used-car loan at 11.43%, the gap reflecting the higher risk and faster depreciation of used vehicles.

Credit score is the biggest lever. A new-car borrower with excellent credit averaged 4.55%, while a subprime borrower paid 16.01%, and used-car rates ranged from about 6.3% all the way to 21.77%. On a typical loan, that spread can mean thousands of dollars in extra interest over the life of the loan.

Homeowners who need cash can borrow against their equity far more cheaply than with a card. As of mid-July 2026, Bankrate's survey put the average HELOC at 7.43% and the average home equity loan around 8.08% (15-year at 8.20%), both near their 2026 highs.

HELOCs are variable and priced off the prime rate, so they track the Fed, while home equity loans are fixed. Both are secured by the house, which is what keeps their rates well below the ~22% on credit cards, but it also means the home is collateral if payments stop.

Unsecured personal loans fall between auto loans and credit cards. The Fed's G.19 series for a 24-month commercial-bank personal loan averaged 11.40% in February 2026, down slightly from 11.66% a year earlier, one of the few consumer rates that has drifted lower.

Because they are unsecured but fixed and installment-based, personal loans are frequently used to consolidate credit-card debt: swapping a 22% revolving balance for an 11% fixed loan can cut interest costs in half, though only if the borrower does not run the cards back up.

Government bond yields set the floor for almost every other rate. On July 17, 2026, the 10-year Treasury yielded 4.55% and the 2-year yielded 4.18%, so the closely watched 10-year-minus-2-year spread was positive at about +0.37 points (a normal, upward-sloping curve).

That matters because the curve was inverted (short rates above long rates) for much of 2022-2024, historically a recession warning. Its return to a positive slope signals markets expect the Fed to keep short rates elevated near-term while pricing modest long-run growth and inflation.

Two benchmarks quietly price most of the rates above. The prime rate, published by the Wall Street Journal as the base rate posted by at least 70% of the 10 largest banks, sits at 6.75% and moves in lockstep with the fed funds rate (it is fed funds plus 3). Cards, HELOCs, and small-business loans are typically quoted as prime plus a margin.

SOFR, the Secured Overnight Financing Rate, replaced LIBOR as the benchmark for adjustable commercial loans, derivatives, and some student loans. At 3.63% in mid-July 2026 it hugs the effective fed funds rate. When people ask why their variable loan reset higher, the answer is almost always one of these two numbers.

High rates cut both ways. They make borrowing expensive, so the highest-return move for most people is not an investment at all, it is paying off any balance costing ~22%, since eliminating that debt is a guaranteed, tax-free 22% return that no stock reliably beats.

On the cash side, do not accept 0.38% when the money can safely earn close to the ~3.6% short-term rate in a high-yield account, money market fund, or short CD. Keep your emergency fund there, clear high-rate debt first, and invest the rest for the long run, because over time, real returns on a diversified portfolio have outpaced both cash yields and inflation.