The FOMC meeting schedule is about to change. At his news conference after the Fed’s Oct. 28 decision, Chair Kevin Warsh said the Federal Open Market Committee will still hold eight meetings a year. Starting next year, though, some of them will be about strategy instead of setting interest rates, according to Reuters.
What changes in the FOMC meeting schedule
Reuters reports that in 2027, one of the eight regularly scheduled meetings will be set aside to “focus exclusively on broad monetary policy strategy,” with no rate vote and no policy statement expected. In 2028, two of the eight will be strategy sessions and six will be regular policy meetings. Warsh said the committee believes eight meetings a year is the right number. The total does not change. The mix does.
Warsh did not say which meetings will lose their rate decisions. Omair Sharif of Inflation Insights told Reuters he expects October 2027 to be the first without rate deliberations, because it falls between two meetings that come with quarterly forecasts. The Fed said details of the new format will come later, and it is not yet clear what, if anything, the strategy meetings will publish. As of Thursday morning, the Fed’s own FOMC calendar page still lists eight meetings for 2027, so the new FOMC meeting schedule is not posted there yet.
The decision that came with it
The announcement came alongside a policy hold. In its Oct. 28 statement, the committee kept the target range for the federal funds rate at 3-3/4 to 4 percent. The vote was 10 to 2. Governor Lisa Cook and Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack dissented because they preferred raising the range by a quarter point. The statement said inflation remains elevated and that economic activity is expanding at a strong pace.
Markets are already weighing a possible December increase. Our Fed meeting preview covers what economists were expecting, and our live updates from Oct. 28 have the day’s reaction.
Why it matters to ordinary borrowers and savers
For most households, the direct effect is small. Rates on mortgages, credit cards and savings accounts move with expectations about where the Fed is headed, not with the calendar itself. Fewer rate decisions on the FOMC meeting schedule mean fewer set dates when the benchmark can change. Reuters notes the Fed can still move between meetings, as it did in early 2020.
The risk is speed. Suppose the economy turns quickly in a month with a strategy meeting instead of a policy meeting. The committee would either wait for the next scheduled decision or act off-cycle. Reuters also notes it is unclear how the new meetings will interact with the Fed’s other policy review processes. Warsh, chair since May, has already shortened the post-meeting statement and does not give forward guidance. This fits a Fed that wants to say less and decide on its own timetable.
What to watch next
Three details will decide how much this matters. First, which meetings lose their votes. A strategy session placed between two forecast meetings would leave the committee with a long gap before it can respond to data. Second, what the strategy meetings publish, if anything. Third, whether the Fed updates its published calendar to match. Savers and borrowers do not need to change anything today. Anyone planning around a specific rate decision date in 2027 should recheck the calendar once the Fed posts the details.
Editor’s take
Watch what the strategy meetings publish, not how many there are. If they produce clear, public conclusions about how the Fed sets policy, the change adds transparency. If they are closed-door sessions with no output, markets get fewer scheduled signals and more reasons to guess. The FOMC meeting schedule is a process story today. It becomes a rates story the first time a data surprise lands in a month without a vote.
