FOMC meeting, 27-28 October 2026: Fed decision at 18:00 UTC, first since the September hike

The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meets in Washington on 27 and 28 October 2026 and publishes its interest rate decision on Wednesday 28 October at 2:00 p.m. EDT, which is 18:00 UTC (19:00 in Paris and Rome). The Fed’s calendar lists a press conference by Chair Kevin Warsh at 2:30 p.m. EDT (18:30 UTC). It is the first FOMC meeting since the Fed raised rates in September, and it comes without new economic projections.

It is a closed, two-day meeting. Nobody outside the committee attends, and the Fed has not published a start time for the first session on 27 October. The public gets a written statement, an implementation note and, if it goes ahead, the press conference, all free on federalreserve.gov.

FOMC meeting schedule: times in UTC, Europe and Washington

The Fed’s October 2026 calendar gives the times below. Europe moved its clocks back on 25 October while the United States stays on summer time until 1 November, so for this one week Washington is five hours behind Paris instead of six, and London runs on UTC.

On the Fed’s FOMC meeting calendar, an asterisk marks the meetings that come with a Summary of Economic Projections, the so-called dot plot. October has none. The next set arrives with the December FOMC meeting on 8 and 9 December, the last of the year.

Will Kevin Warsh hold a press conference?

The Fed’s October calendar lists one, and every 2026 meeting from January to September has a press conference page on federalreserve.gov. But Warsh has never promised one per meeting. Asked at his first press conference as chair, on 17 June, whether he would keep holding them after every meeting, he said he did not want to prejudge the outcome and quoted his mentor George Shultz: “But when you have one, you want to make sure you have something important to say.”

In the same session he said a review of communications, from press conferences and dots to minutes and transcripts, would probably come by year-end, and that he had not submitted a dot himself, according to the Fed’s transcript. So the press conference is scheduled, not guaranteed.

It matters more than usual this time. With no projections in October, the statement and Warsh’s answers are the only fresh signals the meeting will produce.

Where rates stand: the September hike and the votes before it

On 16 September 2026 the committee raised the federal funds target range by a quarter point to 3.75% to 4.00%, by 12 votes to none. It was the first increase since July 2023, according to the Fed’s table of rate changes. The statement put it bluntly: “Inflation remains elevated.”

The move had been building. On 29 July the FOMC held the range at 3.50% to 3.75% by 9 votes to 3: Beth Hammack, Neel Kashkari and Lorie Logan voted against, preferring a quarter-point rise. In June, at Warsh’s first meeting as chair, the committee held unanimously.

The September projections, from 18 participants, put the median federal funds rate at 4.1% for the end of 2026, up from 3.8% in June, against a midpoint of 3.875% for the current range. Read literally, the committee’s own median pointed to one more quarter-point step this year. That is the Fed’s projection, not a forecast by Coindaro, and projections are not commitments.

The data since September: CPI at 3.7%, payrolls at +29,000

Two big US releases have landed since the hike. The September jobs report, published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on 2 October, showed nonfarm payrolls up only 29,000 and unemployment at 4.2%. Revisions made it weaker still: July went from +21,000 to -10,000, and August from +162,000 to +133,000.

Inflation pulled the other way. The September consumer price index, released on 14 October, was up 3.7% over 12 months and 0.6% on the month, far from the Fed’s 2% goal. Core prices, which leave out food and energy, rose 2.6% over the year and 0.3% in September. Bitcoin reacted on the day, as covered in our report on the September CPI and the return of hike bets.

The committee will not see more before it votes. October jobs come out on 6 November and October CPI on 10 November, according to the BLS. The first estimate of third-quarter GDP is due on Thursday 29 October at 8:30 a.m. ET, the day after the decision.

What the market priced after Warsh spoke in Bangkok

On 16 October, at the IMF meetings in Bangkok, Warsh gave no hint about October. “I don’t prejudge meetings,” he said, adding that the Fed had “removed a dose of accommodation about a month ago”. Traders cut the odds of an October hike from about 27% to below 15% after his remarks, Bloomberg reported that day.

That is the last figure we could confirm with a named outlet. CME’s FedWatch tool publishes the live futures odds and moves with every data point and speech.

A hold is what the market leaned to. The open question is the tone: whether the statement keeps the door open to a December hike, and what Warsh says about inflation at 3.7% next to a jobs market that barely grew in September.

Fed rate decision and bitcoin: the last three meetings

Crypto traders watch the FOMC because the Fed’s rate moves the dollar, Treasury yields and the appetite for risk assets, and US-listed spot bitcoin ETFs sit right in that flow. Here is how the price behaved around the 2026 decisions, as reported at the time:

• 16 September (hike, 12-0): bitcoin was near $75,400 at 17:43 UTC, minutes before the statement, and near $76,300 at 18:12 UTC, according to CoinDesk’s live coverage. The Block put the range after the decision at roughly $75,000 to $76,500, with bitcoin near $75,600 at 20:02 UTC.
• 29 July (hold, 9-3): bitcoin briefly rose above $64,000 after the decision, dipped toward $63,600 and returned to $64,000 overnight (CryptoSlate, 30 July).
• 17 June (hold, 12-0, with projections): bitcoin was near $64,150, down about 2.2% over 24 hours, and ether fell 3.6% (The Block, 17 June).

Each meeting brought a different surprise: hawkish projections in June, three dissents in July, the hike itself in September. None of these moves tells us what bitcoin will do on 28 October. Our Sunday market report lists the other dates of the week. Background on how a central bank sets the price of money is in our guide to fiat money and central banks, and the asset itself is covered on our Bitcoin (BTC) page.

How to follow the decision

The statement goes up on federalreserve.gov at 18:00 UTC, in the press releases section, together with the implementation note. In July the statement named the three dissenters, so a split vote will be visible straight away. The press conference, if held, is streamed by the Fed. We have not checked the webcast address for this meeting, so start from the Fed’s calendar page on the day.

For readers in Europe, nothing changes in the rules: the European Central Bank sets euro rates on its own, and MiCA is not affected. The effect runs through the dollar, the euro-dollar rate and US yields. US spot bitcoin ETFs are generally not sold to EU retail investors without a key information document.

What we do not know yet

The start time of the 27 October session is not published. The press conference is on the calendar but not guaranteed. The Fed’s board page we read was last updated on 28 May 2026, so the list of governors may have changed since. And we have no market-odds figure newer than 16 October from an outlet we could check.

The next fixed dates: minutes of this meeting on 18 November at 2:00 p.m. ET, then the December meeting with new projections.