NZ interest rates

New Zealand's official cash rate: where it is and how it got there

The OCR stands at 2.50% after the 2026 hike. A walk through the 78 decisions in the RBNZ series, from 1999 to today.

New Zealand's Official Cash Rate sits at 2.50% as of the latest decision in the series Younivi republishes. That simple sentence compresses a dramatic history: 78 decisions since March 1999, once topping out at 8.25%, and lately one of the sharpest policy swings in the series' lifetime. This note walks through where the rate is now and how it got here.

The numbers in this note come from the Reserve Bank of New Zealand's own decision history — series INM.DP1.N in the Bank's Wholesale interest rates (B2) publication — republished without alteration on the Cash Rate desk. Reading the whole path is more instructive than reading any single level, because the rate's shape tells the story of two decades of New Zealand economic cycles.

The full arc, in four phases

• 1999–2007: the instrument's first decade. The series opens on 17 March 1999 at 4.50%. Over the following eight years the RBNZ lifted the OCR in response to inflation pressure, reaching the series maximum of 8.25% on 26 July 2007 — the highest level the cash rate has ever held.
• 2008–2010: the global financial crisis. The rate came down steeply from its peak as the financial crisis unfolded, then partly recovered as the immediate emergency passed.
• 2011–2020: low and trimming. Through the 2010s the OCR traded in a band far below its 2000s highs, and on 17 March 2020 — the same calendar day the series began 21 years earlier — the Bank set the series minimum of 0.25% as pandemic measures were rolled out.
• 2020–2026: hike fast, cut faster, then a turn. From the 0.25% floor the Bank lifted the OCR through 2021–2023 to 5.50%, the first peak of this cycle. The last ten changes in the series then record cuts beginning 15 August 2024 at 5.25%, stepping down in moves of −0.25 and −0.50 points to 2.25% on 27 November 2025 — a fall of 3.00 percentage points in under sixteen months — before a +0.25 point hike on 9 July 2026 brought the rate back to 2.50%, where it stands today (the latest dated observation in the republished file is 25 August 2026).

The cutting cycle of 2024–2025 in detail

The recent cutting phase is the most back-loaded-and-fastest sequence of decisions in the published history, and it is worth reading row by row:

Three features stand out. The size of moves is uneven: the cycle contains both quarter-point trims and three half-point trims, so an observer averaging "typical" decisions would miss the punctuated character of the easing. The direction is one-way for a long stretch — nine consecutive cuts — which tells you the Committee did not treat each meeting as an open question but as a path. And the final reversal reverses expectations: after eight months on hold, the July 2026 move is the first increase in the series since the previous cycle peak, which is why it matters more than its 0.25 size.

Range, average and what they mean

Across the 78 decisions, the published extremes are a low of 0.25% (17 March 2020) and a high of 8.25% (26 July 2007). Both extremes lasted as levels, not moments: the 0.25% floor held for a large part of 2020–2021, and the 8.25% peak was in force during the year of its setting. The current level — 2.50% — sits below the middle of that historical range, closer to the low half than the high half. Whether that is "high" or "low" is not a question the series itself answers; it depends on inflation, wages and the confidence of the Committee, all of which live in other series.

A word of caution about reading averages: the mean of a 78-step series spanning 27 years is not a forecast of anything, and the RBNZ is explicit that past decisions do not constrain future ones. The value of the history is that it documents what the Bank actually did — the only fully official record of monetary stance over this period.

Revision, timing and accuracy

OCR history is unusual among economic series in that it is rarely revised: a decision once made is a matter of record, and the historical path is fixed. What does change is the present — the "latest value" on any consumer-facing page is simply whatever the most recent decision date carries, and it can change overnight on decision day. Younivi republishes the series with the producing agency named on the page, and the desk notes that figures may be delayed by the rebuild schedule. For anything that must be exact at the minute — a contract, a news story, a legal filing — the RBNZ's own release remains the final authority, as our methodology page states for every series we carry.

Where this fits in the wider picture

The distance between the 2007 peak and the 2020 emergency low is the clearest way to see how the OCR propagates. At the top of the range the instrument was doing one job: restraining demand and inflation pressure. At the bottom it was doing the opposite, trying to keep credit flowing and spending supported through a shock. The same lever, pushed in opposite directions, marks the two ends of the story.

Both ends carry the same underlying tension. Easier policy supports spending and employment, but it also supports the price of assets, because lower discount rates raise the present value of future income and lower the cost of borrowing against collateral. Tighter policy restrains inflation and cools asset markets, but it also slows hiring and raises debt-service burdens. A central bank is therefore never acting on one objective alone, and the record shows a Committee weighing both sides.

That tension is also why criticism arrives from both directions. When rates are low, the complaint is that savers are punished and asset prices inflated; when rates are high, the complaint is that borrowers and businesses are squeezed. The decision history is valuable precisely because it preserves the sequence of choices without resolving that argument - it shows what was done, which is the only fully official part of the story.

How to read this on Younivi

The NZ OCR page carries the current decision, the full 1999–2026 path as a chart and table, and the source citation to the RBNZ. For comparison, the desk also publishes the US Fed funds target and UK Bank Rate. For what the OCR's moves mean for household pricing, see our companion notes on floating mortgage rates and deposit rates after the cycle.