Short-term interest rates in selected countries worldwide from 2010 to 2026
Short-term interest rates are the cost of borrowing money for short periods, and they are set in large part by the policy rates of central banks. Tracking these rates across selected countries from 2010 to 2026 captures one of the most dramatic monetary stories in modern history, from years near zero to the sharpest rate rises in four decades. Often described simply as interest rates by country, these short-term rates are watched closely because they ripple within days into mortgages, business loans, savings accounts and the cost of government debt right across the economy. A central bank raises its short-term rate to cool an overheating economy and lower inflation, and cuts it to encourage borrowing and spending when growth is weak, so the level of the rate is, in effect, a readout of where each economy sits in that balancing act.
After the 2008 financial crisis, central banks in the United States, the eurozone, the United Kingdom and Japan cut rates close to zero and held them there, before inflation forced a historic reversal in 2022. The story sits alongside our developed and emerging share price index overview and our federal funds rate coverage.
A full cycle in one chart: rates sat near zero through the 2010s, with the eurozone and Japan below zero, then spiked sharply in 2022 and 2023 before easing back toward more normal levels by 2026.
By June 2026 most rates had come down from their 2023 peaks, though a fresh energy-price shock had begun to push a few of them back up, a pattern our central banks and global financial markets overviews help explain.
A note on the data. Short-term interest rates here are based on the main policy rate of each central bank, shown as approximate year-end levels in percent. Definitions vary from country to country, and the 2026 figures are as of June 2026. Because each central bank uses a slightly different headline rate, from the Federal Funds target in the United States to the Bank Rate in the United Kingdom and the policy-rate balance in Japan, the figures are best read as a guide to the broad level and direction of rates rather than as exactly comparable numbers. The 2026 readings in particular should be treated as a snapshot of a moving target, because several central banks were actively reconsidering their next steps in mid-2026 as a renewed rise in energy prices threatened to push inflation back up just as it had appeared to be under control.
Selected Countries by Short-Term Interest Rate
| Country | Rate in 2010 | Rate in 2026 |
|---|---|---|
 Australia | 4.75% | 4.35% |
 United States | 0.25% | 3.75% |
 United Kingdom | 0.50% | 3.75% |
 Eurozone | 1.00% | 2.40% |
 Canada | 1.00% | 2.25% |
 New Zealand | 3.00% | 2.25% |
 Japan | 0.10% | 1.00% |
 Switzerland | 0.25% | 0.00% |
The table compares selected countries by their short-term interest rate in 2010 and in 2026. It shows how far each has travelled over the period, with some rising sharply, others ending close to where they began, and Japan moving up from near zero. Sorting the table by the 2026 column shows how the developed economies now line up, with Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom near the top and Switzerland and Japan at the bottom, a ranking that would have looked very different in the near-zero years of the mid-2010s. The then-and-now framing is deliberately simple, but it captures the essential point that the journey between 2010 and 2026 was anything but a straight line, passing through negative territory for some and multi-decade highs for others before arriving at the levels shown.
What Are Interest Rates by Country in 2026?
As of June 2026, Australia has the highest short-term interest rate among the major developed economies at 4.35 percent, while Switzerland has the lowest at zero. The United States and the United Kingdom sit in the middle of the range, both at 3.75 percent. The range among the major developed economies runs from zero in Switzerland up to about 4.35 percent in Australia, a spread of more than four percentage points that reflects how differently each economy has handled the inflation of the 2020s. The near-identical readings for the United States and the United Kingdom, both at 3.75 percent, are partly a coincidence of timing, as both central banks cut from higher peaks and then paused at a similar level when the 2026 energy shock complicated the path back down.
The United States Federal Reserve target stands at 3.75 percent, the Bank of England at 3.75 percent, the European Central Bank at 2.40 percent and the Bank of Japan at 1 percent, a backdrop that shapes our financial markets in the US coverage.
Where rates stand: Australia is highest among the majors at 4.35 percent, the United States and United Kingdom sit at 3.75 percent, the ECB at 2.40 percent, the Bank of Japan at 1 percent and Switzerland at zero.
Beyond the majors, the spread is far wider. Turkey has by far the highest policy rate at around 40 percent, a level driven by very high inflation, while Switzerland and Japan anchor the low end of the global table. Very high rates such as the Turkish 40 percent almost always signal a battle against runaway inflation rather than a healthy economy, and they tend to come with weak and volatile currencies, which is why a high headline rate is not in itself a sign of strength. By contrast, the cluster of low and stable rates in Switzerland and Japan reflects economies that have long fought weak inflation rather than high inflation, the opposite problem to the one facing most of the world, and one that kept their rates anchored near or below zero for years.
How High Did US Interest Rates Go?
The United States short-term interest rate sat near 0.25 percent from 2010 through 2015, was cut back to near zero in 2020, then climbed to a peak of 5.5 percent in 2023 before easing to 3.75 percent by 2026. The path of this single rate defines the whole period. The United States rate is the single most influential short-term interest rate in the world, because the dollar sits at the centre of global trade and finance, so the path of the Federal Reserve target shapes borrowing costs far beyond American shores. When the Federal Reserve moves, it does not act alone for long, because a higher dollar rate pulls capital toward the United States and pressures other central banks to follow or watch their currencies weaken, which is one reason the 2022 tightening became a worldwide event.
The Federal Reserve raised its target from near zero to above 5 percent in little more than a year, the fastest tightening in four decades, before easing it back toward 3.75 percent by 2026, moves that rippled through our Nasdaq stock market coverage.
Flat, then vertical: the United States rate barely moved for years before climbing from near zero to above 5 percent in little more than a year, the fastest tightening in four decades, then easing back toward 3.75 percent.
The shape of the line tells the whole story of the era. A long flat stretch near zero gives way to a near-vertical climb, then a gentler descent, mapping the shift from cheap money to costly money and back toward a middle ground. For households and businesses the practical effect was stark, as mortgage costs, credit-card rates and loan repayments that had been negligible for years suddenly jumped, squeezing budgets and cooling demand in exactly the way the rate rises were designed to do.
How Much Did Each Central Bank Raise Rates?
During the 2022 to 2023 tightening, central banks raised rates by very different amounts, from about 5.25 percentage points in the United States to almost nothing in Japan. The hiking cycle was global, but far from uniform. Measured from the pandemic low to the 2023 peak, the United States added more than five percentage points, the United Kingdom around five, and the eurozone four and a half, while the Bank of Japan stood almost completely still throughout the global tightening.
The United States, New Zealand and the United Kingdom raised rates by around five percentage points, among the largest moves, while Japan barely moved at all, a contrast our leading investment banks coverage reflects.
Uneven tightening: the United States, New Zealand and the United Kingdom raised rates by around five percentage points in the 2022 to 2023 cycle, while the Bank of Japan barely moved at all.
The size of each hiking cycle depended on how much inflation each economy faced and how low its rates had started. Those that had used negative rates, such as the eurozone and Switzerland, had the furthest to climb just to reach positive territory. The eurozone and Switzerland faced a double challenge, because they had to climb out of negative territory before their rates even reached zero, which meant their headline moves understated just how far monetary conditions actually tightened over the period.
Which Countries Had Negative Interest Rates?
Three major economies set negative interest rates during the 2010s: the eurozone, Japan and Switzerland. A negative policy rate meant banks were effectively charged to park money at the central bank, an unprecedented step in modern finance. At their deepest, negative rates meant that lenders paid borrowers for the privilege of lending, an inversion of normal finance that distorted everything from bond markets to bank profits and was designed to force money out of safe deposits and into the real economy. The logic behind negative rates was that with inflation stuck too low and growth too weak, even a zero rate was not stimulative enough, so policymakers crossed what had long been seen as an impossible line and charged banks for holding reserves to push them to lend instead.
Switzerland went furthest, holding its rate at minus 0.75 percent for years, while the eurozone reached minus 0.50 percent and Japan minus 0.10 percent, an experiment that pushed investors toward assets like those in our gold as an investment overview.
Into negative territory: Switzerland held its rate at minus 0.75 percent for years, with the eurozone at minus 0.50 and Japan at minus 0.10, while the dollar economies bottomed out just above zero.
Negative rates were meant to be a temporary emergency tool, yet they lasted for the better part of a decade. The return to positive rates after 2022 marked the end of one of the most unusual chapters in the history of monetary policy. Economists still debate whether negative rates achieved much, with supporters pointing to weaker currencies and cheaper credit and critics arguing that they squeezed bank lending and savers without delivering the growth or inflation that policymakers had hoped to spark. Whatever the verdict, the negative-rate era has left central banks wary of repeating it, and most policymakers now treat the lower bound on rates as a line to be approached only with great caution, having seen how difficult the experiment proved to unwind in practice.
The Spread of Rates in 2026
By 2026, most of the selected major economies have settled with short-term interest rates between 1 and 4 percent, with Switzerland alone at zero and Australia highest at 4.35 percent. Rates have normalised without returning to pre-crisis highs. The clustering of most major economies between roughly 1 and 4 percent in 2026 marks a return to something like normal, after a decade in which rates were either pinned near zero or, briefly, driven far above it to tame the worst inflation in a generation. A rate somewhere between 2 and 4 percent is often described by economists as roughly neutral, neither stimulating nor restraining the economy, which is part of why so many central banks have aimed to settle their rates in that zone as the post-pandemic inflation has faded.
Most of the major economies now sit between 1 and 4 percent, with a handful above and Switzerland alone at zero, a more balanced picture than the extremes of the past decade, and one that shapes valuations in our biggest companies by market value coverage.
A wider spread: by 2026 most of the selected economies sit between 1 and 4 percent, with Australia above and Switzerland alone at zero, a far more even picture than the near-zero years of the 2010s.
The spread of rates matters because the gaps between countries drive flows of money across borders. Higher-rate economies tend to attract capital and stronger currencies, while lower-rate economies often see the opposite. Those cross-border gaps are the engine of the carry trade, in which investors borrow in low-rate currencies such as the yen or the franc and lend in higher-rate ones, a strategy that quietly moves vast sums around the world and can reverse sharply when rate expectations change.
The Federal Reserve, Year by Year
The United States made its single largest rate increase in 2022, adding more than four percentage points in one year, the steepest annual move of the whole period. Policy tends to arrive in bursts rather than steady steps. Each move in the chart corresponds to a real economic moment, from the slow tightening of the late 2010s to the emergency cuts of early 2020 and the explosive hikes of 2022, when the Federal Reserve raised rates at four consecutive meetings by three quarters of a point. The 2024 and 2025 cuts were the mirror image of the 2022 surge, as falling inflation gave the Federal Reserve room to lower rates again, though the pace was far gentler on the way down than it had been on the way up, a common pattern in monetary policy.
The single biggest jump came in 2022, when the Federal Reserve added more than four percentage points in one year, followed by cuts in 2024 and 2025 as inflation cooled, a cycle our leading financial centres coverage helps frame.
Bursts of action: the bars show how rare big moves are, with the Federal Reserve adding more than four points in 2022 alone, while the line traces the rate climbing to a 2023 peak and easing since.
The pattern shows how central banks tend to move in cycles rather than steady steps. They hold for long periods, then act quickly when conditions change, which is why the chart looks like a series of plateaus and cliffs rather than a smooth curve. The long plateaus also reveal how cautious central banks usually are, preferring to wait and watch rather than fine-tune rates month to month, which makes the rare bursts of rapid change, like the 2022 surge, all the more dramatic when they finally arrive.
Below Zero and Back: Europe and Japan
The eurozone, Japan and Switzerland all held negative interest rates during the 2010s and have since climbed back into positive territory. Their exits from below zero are among the most striking stories of the period. These three economies, the eurozone, Japan and Switzerland, were the heart of the negative-rate experiment, and the way each has unwound it offers a natural test of whether sub-zero policy left any lasting mark on growth, inflation or financial stability. The eurozone, Japan and Switzerland together show the full life cycle of an experiment, from the cautious first steps below zero in the mid-2010s, through years of entrenchment, to the rapid exit once inflation returned and made negative rates not just unnecessary but counterproductive.
Switzerland and the eurozone climbed sharply in 2022 and 2023 before easing back, while Japan moved most slowly of all, only lifting its rate above zero in 2024, a shift our global stock markets by country coverage connects to wider markets.
The escape from below zero: the eurozone and Switzerland climbed fast in 2022 then cut again, while Japan rose most slowly of all, only lifting its rate clearly above zero from 2024.
Japan is the standout, having raised its rate from below zero to 1 percent, the highest in three decades, as it finally escaped years of deflation. The eurozone and Switzerland, by contrast, have already begun cutting again. The Japanese move is the most historic of the three, because it marks the first sustained rise in Japanese rates in a generation and a tentative declaration that the long era of deflation, which had defined the Japanese economy since the 1990s, may finally be ending.
From 2010 to 2026, Country by Country
Every major economy except Australia ended 2026 with a higher short-term interest rate than it had in 2010. The size of the change, however, varies sharply from one country to the next. The comparison strips out the drama of the years in between and asks a simple question, namely whether each economy is more expensive to borrow in now than it was in 2010, and for almost every country the answer is yes, often by a wide margin. Reading the two columns together, the broad message is one of normalisation rather than tightening, since most economies have not pushed rates to unusually high levels but have simply climbed back out of the extraordinary lows that followed the financial crisis and the pandemic.
The United States and the United Kingdom rose the most among the majors, while Australia, which started the decade with relatively high rates, actually ended slightly lower, a divergence our largest asset managers coverage reflects.
Then and now: every major economy except Australia ended 2026 with a higher short-term rate than in 2010, with the United States and United Kingdom showing the largest increases.
The dispersion underlines how differently each economy experienced the inflation of the 2020s. Some are now far above their starting point, others have nearly returned to it, and only Japan has made the leap from negative to clearly positive rates. Australia is the telling exception, having entered the 2010s with rates still well above 4 percent, a legacy of its commodity-driven economy, so that even after the global hiking cycle it ended the period slightly below where it started, almost the mirror image of the United States.
Rate Profiles, Then and Now
Short-term interest rates among the major economies are both higher and more tightly bunched in 2026 than they were in 2010. In 2010 most majors sat near zero while Australia stood out at the top, but by 2026 the gaps have narrowed. Plotting the rates of 2010 and 2026 on the same axes shows not just that levels have risen but that the whole shape of global monetary policy has shifted, from a world of scattered extremes toward one where the major economies move far more closely together. The narrowing gap between the strongest and weakest major rates also matters for currency markets, because when central banks move closer together the interest-rate differentials that drive exchange rates shrink, tending to calm some of the swings seen when policy was far more divergent.
The gap between the highest and lowest major rates has narrowed, even as the absolute levels have risen, a normalisation that flows through to the funds tracked in our leading fund groups overview.
A flatter shape: in 2010 most majors sat low while Australia stood out at the top, but by 2026 the rates of the major economies are higher and far more tightly bunched together.
The flattening of the profile reflects how synchronised the world has become. Faced with the same global inflation shock, central banks largely moved together, leaving fewer extreme outliers among the major economies than there were a decade ago. That convergence is a reminder that, for all their national differences, the major central banks share the same core mandate of stable prices, and when a single global shock like the post-pandemic inflation hits, they tend to respond in broadly the same direction at broadly the same time.
Short-Term Interest Rates in Numbers
A few numbers capture the period. The United States rate peaked above 5 percent in 2023, the lowest major rates fell below zero in the 2010s, the Federal Reserve added more than five percentage points in its 2022 to 2023 cycle, and Turkey topped the table at 40 percent in 2026. The contrast between the near-zero 2010s and the high-rate 2020s is the defining feature of the period, and it explains why borrowers who grew used to cheap money in one decade found themselves facing a very different world in the next. Perhaps the most remarkable single fact is that within barely two years rates went from emergency lows to multi-decade highs, a round trip in monetary conditions that few economists would have predicted and that reshaped the calculations of savers, borrowers and investors alike.
Short-term rates touch almost everything, from mortgages and business loans to the returns on savings and the cost of government debt. They also drive flows into riskier assets, a link our crypto market coverage explores.
Together these figures show a decade and a half defined by extremes, from the longest stretch of near-zero rates in modern history to the fastest tightening in forty years, and finally to a cautious return toward more normal levels.
Short-Term Interest Rates: The Big Picture
Taken together, short-term interest rates in selected countries from 2010 to 2026 trace a full cycle, from the emergency lows after the financial crisis, through the deep freeze of negative rates, to the inflation shock of 2022 and the careful normalisation since, much of it managed by the firms in our asset management coverage. The full arc, from the financial crisis through the pandemic to the inflation shock, is really the story of how the world tried to live with money that was almost free, discovered the limits of that approach when prices surged, and is now relearning how to operate in a world where borrowing has a real cost again.
Whether rates settle at these levels or move again depends on inflation, growth and the next shock, but the era of free money now looks firmly over, leaving a world where the cost of borrowing matters again for everything from housing to the funds in our largest ETFs and Vanguard assets overviews.
Frequently Asked Questions: Short-Term Interest Rates
Short-term interest rates are the cost of borrowing money for short periods, set mainly by central bank policy rates. They steer the cost of mortgages, business loans, savings and government debt.
As of June 2026 the Fed and Bank of England are at 3.75 percent, the ECB at 2.40 percent, the Bank of Japan at 1 percent and Switzerland at zero, while Turkey is highest at around 40 percent.
To fight the highest inflation in four decades after the pandemic. Central banks raised short-term rates at the fastest pace in forty years through 2022 and 2023.
Turkey, at around 40 percent in 2026, reflecting very high inflation. Among the major developed economies Australia is highest at about 4.35 percent.
Switzerland, at zero percent in 2026. Japan also held its rate below zero for years before raising it to 1 percent, the highest in three decades.
A negative interest rate is a policy rate below zero, where banks are effectively charged to hold money at the central bank. The eurozone, Japan and Switzerland all used them in the 2010s.
The US Federal Reserve target is 3.75 percent as of June 2026, down from a 2023 peak above 5 percent but raised again from earlier lows after an energy-price shock.
Mostly falling since mid-2024 as inflation eased, but an energy-price shock in early 2026 led several central banks to pause their cuts or raise rates slightly again.
Short-term rates track central bank policy and money markets, while long-term rates reflect bond markets and expectations for growth and inflation over many years.
Higher rates cool borrowing, spending and inflation but can slow growth, while lower rates do the opposite. This is data journalism, not financial advice.
Central bank policy-rate records, including the Federal Reserve, European Central Bank, Bank of England, Bank of Japan and Swiss National Bank - Source for short-term interest rates from 2010 to 2026.
Trading Economics and official central bank releases - Source for June 2026 policy-rate levels across selected countries, compiled by BusinessStats.
Bank for International Settlements - Reference for central bank policy rates worldwide.
