Bank Of Canada Rate Announcement Dates For 2026 And 2027

The next Bank of Canada interest rate announcement is December 9, 2026, at 9:45 a.m. Eastern. It follows the October 28 decision that lifted the overnight target to 2.50%. The Bank has published eight announcement dates for 2027 too, starting January 27. Each one can move prime, which moves variable mortgage payments the next day.

2026 Decisions Still On The Calendar

Three earlier 2026 decisions matter for context, and one date is still ahead. The table shows where the overnight target stood after each.

The last row is a date, not a call. The Bank said on October 28 that a further increase may be needed and that it will proceed carefully. That is its wording. It is not a promise about December. For the full statement and the figures behind it, read the October 28, 2026 policy rate guide.

Between the July 15 and September 2 holds, nothing in the Bank's rate changed, and chartered-bank prime stayed at 4.45%, the level it had held since late 2025. The October 28 decision ended that run. A borrower who looked at prime in the summer and again in November would see 0.25 more.

All 2027 Bank Of Canada Interest Rate Dates

The Bank published its 2027 schedule on July 27, 2026. There are eight announcement dates, all at 9:45 a.m. ET. Four of them come with a Monetary Policy Report, which is the longer document with the Bank's projections for growth and inflation. Those are marked below.

The January 27, 2027 date is the first one that falls after the December 9 decision, and it carries a Monetary Policy Report. Eight dates a year means gaps of roughly five to eight weeks between decisions. A borrower holding a rate offer for 120 days will sit through two or three of them.

How Prime Has Followed Past Decisions

Prime has tracked the overnight rate closely through the whole cycle. The table lists selected weeks from the Bank of Canada's chartered-bank prime series (V80691311), showing the week the change appeared.

From the 7.20% peak to the 4.45% low is 2.75 points. The October hike gave back 0.25 of that. The full run is on prime rate in Canada.

What Happens On An Announcement Day

At 9:45 a.m. Eastern the Bank releases a short press release with the new overnight target, the Bank Rate and the deposit rate. A fuller statement follows on the Bank's site.

Banks do not wait. On October 28, RBC, TD, BMO, Scotiabank and CIBC each released a notice the same day raising prime from 4.45% to 4.70%, effective October 29. National Bank was reported moving with them. That is how it went this time: the announcement and the prime change came on the same day, and the new prime took effect the next day.

The gap is not an accident. Prime sat 2.20 points above the overnight target before the hike and still does: 4.70% against 2.50%. When the target moves 0.25, prime has moved 0.25. For the bank-by-bank sheet and the history since 2021, see prime rate in Canada.

The headline number is the overnight target, but the statement carries two others. The Bank Rate sits 0.25 points above the target, at 2.75% now, and the deposit rate sits 0.05 points below, at 2.45%. Neither sets a mortgage rate directly. What a borrower usually reads for is the sentence about what comes next. On October 28 it was that a further increase may be needed and that the Bank will proceed carefully.

The four dates with a Monetary Policy Report add projections for growth and inflation. The Bank's most recent projection has Canadian GDP growth of 1% in 2026 and 2% in 2027 and 2028, with inflation about 3% since April.

What A Decision Means For A Variable Mortgage

A variable mortgage is usually written as prime minus a discount. The discount stays. Prime moves. So a quarter-point hike passed through to prime is a quarter-point increase in the variable rate, the day after the announcement.

Take an illustrative $500,000 balance over a 25-year amortization at prime minus 0.90. At prime 4.45% that is 3.55%, and the payment is $2,509.57 a month. At prime 4.70% it is 3.80%, or $2,576.17. If prime then rose another 0.25 to 4.95%, the rate would be 4.05% and the payment $2,643.67. Each step costs about $67 a month on that balance. That figure holds only for an adjustable-rate contract where the payment resets. A fixed-payment variable contract keeps the dollar amount and lets the amortization stretch instead. Your contract says which one you have, and variable mortgage rates explains the two types.

A decision to hold changes nothing in the other direction. Prime stays where it is, and the payment stays too.

What A Decision Means For A Fixed Mortgage

A fixed rate does not follow the announcement the way variable does. It is priced off bond yields plus the lender's spread. The 5-year Government of Canada benchmark yield was about 3.0 to 3.1% in June 2026, then 3.16% on July 21, 3.33% on August 31, 3.63% on September 10 and 3.57% on October 27, according to Bank of Canada data. Lenders raised advertised fixed rates by roughly 5 to 20 basis points across various terms in October, per aggregator reports, well before and around the hike.

So yields can lead the Bank. Fixed rates may move on the days around an announcement, but a surprise in the statement's wording can move yields more than the decision itself. A fixed rate you already hold in writing, or a mortgage already in its term, does not change on announcement day. For why fixed rates rose before the hike, see the bond yield breakdown.

December 9 Preview

The December 9 decision is the next live one. The Bank's October language was cautious, and several banks have since published views on January and beyond. The separate post Will the Bank of Canada raise rates again in December collects what the Bank said, the inflation path and the attributed bank views, and shows what a 25 point move would do to a variable payment. The longer horizon is covered in the mortgage rate forecast.

A 120-day hold started on October 29, 2026 would run to about February 26, 2027. That window contains two announcement dates, December 9 and January 27, and the second comes with a Monetary Policy Report. March 3 falls just outside it. Counting the dates inside a hold is a plain way to see how many decisions it covers.

Using The Dates In A Mortgage Decision

Some borrowers time a purchase or a renewal around an announcement. The calendar is public, but the outcome is not, and markets price the expected result in advance. A decision that matches expectations can leave fixed rates almost unchanged. What the calendar does give is a deadline for a rate hold. If a hold expires the week before December 9, it does not cover that decision. If it expires the week after, it does.

Two practical questions are worth bringing to a licensed mortgage broker. First, how long will the lender hold a rate, and does it hold the variable discount as well as the fixed rate? Second, if rates fall during the hold, does the borrower get the lower rate or keep the held one? Policies differ by lender, and the answers are in writing before anything is signed. Request cheaper rates and ask for a 90 to 120 day hold priced both ways, fixed and variable, so the December 9 outcome does not decide the quote.

A renewal works the same way. Many lenders let a borrower renew or hold a rate about 120 days early, and federally regulated lenders must send the renewal statement at least 21 days before the term ends. See mortgage renewal timing for how those windows line up with the calendar above.

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