ECB Meeting Calendar: Rate Decision Dates and Times

The ECB’s Governing Council holds eight monetary policy meetings a year, always on a Thursday: the decision is announced at 2:15 PM CET, with the press conference starting at 2:45 PM CET. For US-based readers that usually means 8:15 AM ET — 9:15 AM ET for a few weeks in spring and autumn, when US and European clock changes fall out of sync. This page tracks every meeting, flags the four that come with Eurosystem macroeconomic projections, and counts down to the next decision.

All monetary policy meeting dates

Monetary policy meetings take place roughly every six weeks, over two days, with the decision on the second day. The Governing Council also meets outside this cycle — so-called non-monetary policy meetings, about twice a month — but those involve no rate decisions: the calendar below lists only the meetings where policy rates are on the table. Times are shown in Eastern Time, computed per date.

How a meeting unfolds

The sequence is fixed: the decision lands at 2:15 PM CET on the Thursday, with a statement covering the three key rates — the deposit facility rate, through which the ECB steers its policy stance, the main refinancing operations rate, and the marginal lending facility rate — followed by the press conference at 2:45 PM CET. The accounts of the meeting are published a few weeks later. Four meetings a year — March, June, September and December — come with the Eurosystem’s macroeconomic projections: inflation, growth, revised paths.

Unlike the Fed, the ECB publishes no dot plot: the projections are those of Eurosystem staff, not individual rate paths from Governing Council members. Both calendars sit side by side on the full macro calendar, and the US counterpart is detailed on the FOMC meeting schedule.

What a decision changes — and what it does not

As with any central bank, most of the action happens in expectations: by 2:15 PM CET, money markets have usually priced the most likely outcome, and it is the gap with the decision, the tone of the statement and the revised projections that move prices — the euro first. Holding rates is a decision too, and the press conference often reshapes how it is read.

The pass-through from a policy rate to bank credit, real estate and asset prices plays out over quarters, not sessions. That machinery is covered across the transmission of monetary policy regimes, and the underlying series live in the macro-financial data library.

Frequently asked questions

Last updated — 4 July 2026