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Federal Funds Rate History: 1954 to May 2025

Fed Continues to Hold Rates at its Third Meeting of 2025

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Richard Laycock

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The Fed held rates at its third meeting on Wednesday, May 7, 2025 at a target range of 4.25% to 4.50%. This follows a hold at the March 2025 meeting.

Latest federal funds rate data at a glance

  1. Current Fed rate: The Fed maintained rates at a range of 4.25% to 4.50% following the Wednesday, May 7, 2025 meeting(1)
  2. Effective federal funds rate: 4.33% as of Wednesday, May 7, 2025(4)
  3. Previous meeting: The Fed held rates at 4.25% to 4.50% on Wednesday, March 19, 2025(1)
  4. Rate this time last year: Held rates at a range of 5.25-5.50% at its May meeting in 2024(1)
  5. Next meeting: Wednesday, June 18, 2025(2)
  6. Highest rate since 1954: 19.1% monthly average recorded June 1981(3)
  7. Lowest rate since 1954: 0.05% monthly average recorded April 2020(3)

Changes to the federal funds rate in the last 12 months

Over the last 12 months, the Fed has held rates at all but three of its meetings, with the May, 2025 falling in line with the norm. The only meetings to see a change in the fed rate were the September, 2024 meeting (-0.50%), the November, 2024 meeting (-0.25%) and the December, 2024 meeting (-0.25%).

The Fed raised rates seven times in 2022, which is the highest number of Fed rate hikes in a single year since 2005. While 2005 saw more Fed rate hikes in total (8), individual increases were just 25 basis points, whereas the changes in 2022 have ranged from 25 to 75 basis points.

7 years of changes to the federal funds rate

Since 2018, the average federal funds rate has been 2.65%, which is about half of where we’re at today. However, during this period, the US saw historically low rates, in part due to Covid. Rates hit a record low of 0.05% for the months of April and May 2020.

The history of federal funds rate changes

It’s not a great sign that the Fed rate is up compared to its average over the last decade or so. However, with the the effective federal funds rate sitting at 4.33% that is actually lower than the average rate since 1954 (4.61).

2025 FOMC meeting calendar

Eight meetings of the Federal Open Market Committee are scheduled for 2025.

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Editorial & PR Lead

Richard Laycock is Finder’s NYC-based lead editor & insights editor, spending the last decade data diving, writing and editing articles about all things personal finance. His musings can be found across the web including on NASDAQ, MoneyMag, Yahoo Finance and Travel Weekly. Richard studied Media at Macquarie University, including a semester abroad at The Missouri School of Journalism (MIZZOU). See full bio

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