What is the Fed dot plot? How to read the FOMC’s rate projections

Washington —The Fed dot plot is a chart the Federal Reserve publishes four times a year. Each Federal Open Market Committee participant places one dot showing where they think the federal funds rate should be at the end of each of the next few years and over the longer run. It is the interest-rate part of the Fed’s Summary of Economic Projections, and it records officials’ individual views. It is not a committee decision or a promise.

The chart matters because it gives the clearest public view of how policymakers expect to set rates after the next meeting. Investors compare the dots with market pricing. A change in the median dot from one release to the next is one of the most closely read signals the Fed puts out.

What is in the Summary of Economic Projections?

The Summary of Economic Projections, or SEP, comes out alongside the policy statement at four of the committee’s eight scheduled meetings each year. On the Fed’s calendar these are the March, June, September and December meetings. Participants project real GDP growth, the unemployment rate, PCE inflation and core PCE inflation for the current year and the next three. Except for core inflation, they also give a longer-run value. Growth and inflation are measured from the fourth quarter of one year to the fourth quarter of the next. Unemployment is the fourth-quarter average.

Each participant’s numbers depend on his or her own view of what monetary policy should be. The Fed defines that term in every release:

““Appropriate monetary policy” is defined as the future path of policy that each participant deems most likely to foster outcomes for economic activity and inflation that best satisfy his or her individual interpretation of the statutory mandate to promote maximum employment and price stability.”

The participants are members of the Fed’s Board of Governors and the presidents of the regional Federal Reserve Banks, whether or not they vote that year. In September 2026, 18 participants submitted projections. Twelve members voted on the committee’s October 28 decision. So the dot plot includes the views of officials who do not vote on policy.

How do you read the Fed dot plot?

The chart has a few conventions that are worth knowing before reading anything into it:

• Each dot is one participant’s view of the midpoint of the appropriate target range at the end of the year, rounded to the nearest one-eighth of a percentage point. Dots are not named. A target range of 3.75 to 4 percent has a midpoint of 3.875 percent.
• The median is the middle projection. When the number of projections is even, it is the average of the two middle ones. This is the figure most headlines report.
• The central tendency drops the three highest and three lowest projections. The range covers every projection.
• The longer-run dot is the rate each participant expects policy to settle at once the economy is in balance and no further shocks occur.

In practice, four habits help. First, compare each release with the last one. The Fed’s table prints the previous projections next to the new ones. Second, count the dots instead of looking only at the median: when the committee is split, one official changing their view can move it. Third, turn dots into rate moves by measuring them against the current midpoint. Each quarter-point change in the target range moves the midpoint by 0.25 percentage point. Fourth, read the rate path together with the economic forecasts. A higher path paired with higher inflation projections means something different from a higher path paired with stronger growth.

The limits are just as important. The dots are conditional forecasts, not commitments, and they stay fixed until the next release while new data keep arriving. Because they are anonymous, readers cannot separate voters from non-voters. The Fed also shows how uncertain its forecasts are, using confidence bands based on past forecast errors. In September 2026, the 70 percent confidence interval around median GDP growth of 2.3 percent for 2026 ran from 0.9 to 3.7 percent. For 2027 it ran from 0.6 to 4.2 percent.

What did the latest dot plot show? (As of November 6, 2026)

The latest SEP came with the September 15–16 meeting. At that meeting the committee voted 12–0 to raise the target range by a quarter point, to 3.75 to 4 percent. The median dot for the end of 2026 was 4.1 percent, up from 3.8 percent in June. That pointed to one more quarter-point increase before the end of the year. Of the 18 participants, 12 put their 2026 dot at 4.125 percent, four at 4.375 percent and two at 3.875 percent, which would mean no further change.

Further out, the median was 4.1 percent for 2027, up from 3.6 percent in June. It was 3.9 percent for 2028 and 3.6 percent for 2029, and the longer-run median edged up to 3.2 percent from 3.1 percent. Participants’ median projections put PCE inflation at 3.7 percent and core PCE inflation at 3.4 percent for 2026, easing to 2.3 percent and 2.5 percent in 2027. The median unemployment projection was 4.1 percent for 2026 and for each year through 2029, down from 4.3 percent for 2026 in June.

On October 28 the committee left the range unchanged on a 10–2 vote. Lisa D. Cook and Beth M. Hammack dissented because they wanted a quarter-point increase. The statement said inflation “remains elevated.” The effective federal funds rate was 3.88 percent through November 4, according to Federal Reserve data compiled by FRED. Consumer prices were about 4 percent higher in September than a year earlier, based on seasonally adjusted Labor Department index data compiled by FRED.

Markets are pricing a higher path than the current policy rate. The 2-year Treasury yield, which largely reflects expected policy rates over the next two years, closed at 4.58 percent on November 4. That is 70 basis points above the effective federal funds rate. The gap also includes a term premium, so it is not a direct reading of expected rate moves.

The next dot plot is due with the December 8–9 meeting. After that, SEP meetings are scheduled for March 16–17, June 8–9, September 14–15 and December 7–8, 2027. The Fed says each date is tentative until confirmed at the meeting before it. In December, the 2026 dot will in effect match the decision just made. The 2027 median and the longer-run dot will be the main gauges of where officials think rates go next.