The Reserve Bank of New Zealand - Te Pūtea Matua has reviewed the frequency of its monetary policy decision announcements.
Chief Economist Paul Conway says our primary consideration when scheduling monetary policy decisions is data availability, to enable decisions to be made with as much information as possible.
"We have found no evidence that during the past 9 years the 12-week gap between decisions over summer has led to unusual divergence between financial market expectations for policy rates and our own. That is, financial markets have adjusted to any new information available in a manner consistent with the MPC's likely response, or 'reaction function'," Mr Conway says.
"However, we acknowledge the perception that the gap between November and February is too long and have sought ways to reduce it within the confines of data availability."
The revised schedule maintains our current approach of having 7 decisions per year - 4 of which are accompanied by Monetary Policy Statements (MPS), while reducing the gap between a December MPS and February MPS over the 2026/27 period.
We will continue to review the timing of schedules as new data become available and is available on a more frequent basis. We note the intention for Statistics New Zealand to begin releasing monthly CPI data in 2027, Mr Conway says.
We also note the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) can make unscheduled decisions at any time, should financial or economic conditions warrant it, and has done so in the past.
Monetary policy decision dates until February 2027
Upcoming announcements between August 2026 to February 2027
Monetary policy and OCR decision dates
- Wednesday 2 September 2026 (Monetary Policy Statement)
- Wednesday 28 October 2026 (Monetary Policy Review)
- Wednesday 9 December 2026 (Monetary Policy Statement)
- Wednesday 17 February 2027 (Monetary Policy Statement)
Financial Stability Report (FSR) dates
- Wednesday 11 November 2026
See all upcoming FSR announcements
