T5YIE: Daily 5-Year US Breakeven Inflation Rate from FRED (2003–2026)

The T5YIE series, published daily by the Federal Reserve via FRED, tracks the 5-year US breakeven inflation rate since January 2003 — over 5,000 daily observations. T5YIE is computed as the spread between the 5-year nominal Treasury constant maturity yield and the 5-year Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS) yield, and represents the bond market’s pricing of average CPI inflation over the coming 5 years.

Dataset: US 5-Year Breakeven Inflation Rate (2003–2026) · Updated 2026-09-18

Source: FRED series T5YIE · Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

Macro Takeaway

Dataset Overview

Dataset Variables

The CSV and Excel files contain the following columns.

Column names match the CSV headers exactly.

Download the Complete Dataset

The full dataset is available in CSV and Excel formats.

FRED Direct CSV Access

The underlying data is available from FRED under series code T5YIE:

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.csv?id=T5YIE

Direct CSV Access — Eco3min Structured Dataset

https://eco3min.fr/dataset/us-inflation-expectations-5y.csv

This URL returns the complete dataset in CSV format. It can be used directly in pandas, R, curl, or any data tool.

Using the Dataset in Python

import pandas as pd

url = "https://eco3min.fr/dataset/us-inflation-expectations-5y.csv"
df = pd.read_csv(url, parse_dates=["date"])

print(df.head())
print(df["breakeven_5y"].describe())

Using the Dataset in R

library(readr)

url <- "https://eco3min.fr/dataset/us-inflation-expectations-5y.csv"
df <- read_csv(url)

head(df)
summary(df$breakeven_5y)

Both examples load the dataset directly from the URL — no download or API key required.

Methodology

T5YIE is computed by the Federal Reserve as the arithmetic difference between the 5-year nominal Treasury constant maturity yield (FRED series DGS5) and the 5-year Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS) constant maturity yield (FRED series DFII5), expressed in percent. Both constant maturity series are derived from the Treasury’s daily fitted yield curves across outstanding nominal and TIPS issues respectively.

Conceptually, T5YIE embeds the market’s expected average CPI inflation over the next 5 years, plus an inflation risk premium and minus a TIPS liquidity premium. Because the 5-year horizon is shorter, the next few CPI prints carry disproportionate weight in shaping the level — making T5YIE significantly more reactive than T10YIE to oil, currency, and supply chain shocks. The series is published daily under the H.15 release, is not seasonally adjusted, and is not revised once published. Published in the Federal Reserve’s H.15 selected interest rates release.

Data Quality & Provider Notes

T5YIE is mechanically constructed from two H.15 components and is among the more stable derived series in the FRED catalogue. Its interpretation requires the same caveats as T10YIE — embedded risk and liquidity premiums — but with the added complication that the 5-year tenor is intrinsically more cyclical and more exposed to short-horizon shocks.

• Release latency. The Federal Reserve publishes the H.15 components around 4:15 PM Eastern Time on each US business day; T5YIE is typically available on FRED within minutes thereafter. Eco3min mirrors FRED with a daily automated pull.
• Revisions policy. The series is not revised once published. Both legs (DGS5 and DFII5) are derived from observed market quotes, so post-publication corrections are limited to same-day data-feed fixes.
• Alternative sources. Bloomberg, Refinitiv (LSEG) and Haver Analytics distribute the same H.15 components under their own tickers, with intraday refresh rather than once-daily snapshots. The 5-year, 5-year forward inflation rate (FRED series T5YIFR) is constructed from T5YIE and T10YIE and isolates the second 5-year window — useful for separating the cyclical and structural components of breakeven moves.
• Known gaps. No observations on weekends or US federal holidays. The 5-year TIPS market was particularly illiquid before 2005; readings from 2003 to early 2005 carry larger liquidity-premium distortions than the post-2005 series. The October–November 2008 episode produced an extreme liquidity-driven dislocation in T5YIE (briefly turning negative), which did not reflect a market expectation of 5 years of deflation.

Before running historical regressions on T5YIE, verify the last observation date and consider cross-referencing with survey-based 1-year and 5-year inflation expectations (University of Michigan, NY Fed Survey of Consumer Expectations, Philadelphia Fed Survey of Professional Forecasters) during periods of TIPS market stress.

Common Pitfalls When Using T5YIE

T5YIE is widely used as a near-term inflation expectations gauge but several recurring interpretation errors distort the signal, particularly when comparing T5YIE moves to T10YIE moves or to realized inflation prints.

1. Misreading the horizon. T5YIE is the average expected CPI inflation rate over the next 5 years — not the inflation rate expected 5 years from now, and not next year’s inflation. The distinction matters: a T5YIE reading of 2.5% can be produced by either a flat 2.5% path across all 5 years or by a high near-term print combined with lower expectations later.
2. Treating higher volatility as lower reliability. T5YIE moves more than T10YIE in cyclical episodes — this is a structural property of the shorter horizon, not a measurement defect. The fact that T5YIE rose more than T10YIE in 2021–2022 and fell more sharply in 2014–2016 is consistent with the term structure of inflation expectations and does not by itself indicate that one series is more or less informative than the other.
3. Ignoring the TIPS liquidity premium. Because the 5-year TIPS market is less liquid than the 10-year, T5YIE is more exposed to liquidity-driven distortions during stress episodes. The October–November 2008 turn into negative territory and the March 2020 COVID dislocation both reflected liquidity shocks rather than genuine deflation expectations.
4. Comparing T5YIE levels across regimes without controlling for energy weight. CPI’s energy component, and therefore the cyclical sensitivity of T5YIE, has shifted modestly over time as US energy intensity has fallen. Cross-period comparisons of T5YIE response to oil shocks should account for the changing energy weight in the underlying CPI basket.

Historical Regimes

2003–2007 — Range-bound launch. T5YIE oscillated in a 2.0%–2.7% range through the mid-2000s, generally tracking commodity prices and the early Bernanke-Greenspan rate cycle. The 5-year TIPS market was still developing and the series carried larger liquidity-premium distortions than in later years.

2008 — Liquidity-driven collapse to negative. Following the Lehman collapse, T5YIE collapsed from approximately 2.4% in early September 2008 to a low of approximately −2.2% in November 2008 — the only sustained period of negative readings in the series. The move was driven by a TIPS liquidity shock concentrated in the 5-year tenor; survey-based 5-year inflation expectations stayed positive throughout the same period.

2009–2014 — Post-GFC normalization. As TIPS market liquidity returned and the Fed deployed multiple rounds of large-scale asset purchases, T5YIE recovered into a 1.8%–2.5% range. The 5-year tenor remained more volatile than the 10-year, particularly during the 2011 European debt crisis and the 2013 Taper Tantrum episodes.

2014–2016 — Oil-driven collapse. The 2014–2016 oil price decline drove T5YIE from approximately 2.2% in mid-2014 to a low of 0.93% in February 2016 — the lowest post-2008 reading. T5YIE fell roughly 50 basis points more than T10YIE over the same period, illustrating the shorter horizon’s greater sensitivity to commodity passthrough. The relationship between the two breakeven tenors during this episode is analysed in the inflation breakeven term structure study.

2017–2019 — Below-target persistence. T5YIE stabilized in a 1.5%–1.9% range, persistently below the Fed’s 2% PCE target on a CPI-equivalent basis. The gap was wider for T5YIE than for T10YIE, reflecting the near-term weight on then-current sub-2% realized inflation.

2020 — COVID liquidity shock and rapid reversal. T5YIE briefly fell to 0.14% in March 2020 — another liquidity-driven dislocation. The reversal was sharp: by year-end 2020, T5YIE had recovered to approximately 2.0%, ahead of the explicit surge that began in early 2021.

2021–2022 — Sharpest surge in series history. T5YIE rose from approximately 2.0% in early 2021 to a peak of 3.59% on 25 April 2022, the highest reading in the series’ history. The surge tracked the post-pandemic CPI shock, supply chain disruptions, and the energy spike following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. T5YIE moved roughly 60 basis points more than the 10-year breakeven over the same period, consistent with the shorter tenor’s higher cyclical loading.

2023–2024 — Rapid normalization. As the Fed’s hiking cycle compressed and the energy shock faded, T5YIE retraced to a 2.2%–2.5% range — slightly above target on a CPI-equivalent basis but consistent with broad anchoring. The 10-year real yield rose simultaneously, contributing to the broader rate normalization story of 2023–2024.

2025–2026 — Stabilization above target. T5YIE has remained in a 2.3%–2.6% range through 2025 and into 2026, modestly above the Fed’s 2% PCE target on a CPI-equivalent basis but well within the band that has historically been treated as consistent with anchored expectations. The Fed pivoted to a cutting cycle in late 2024, and T5YIE has been monitored closely in policy communication for any indication of de-anchoring.

Related Macroeconomic Datasets

T5YIE is mechanically derived from a Treasury yield decomposition at the 5-year tenor and sits within a tight network of inflation-expectations and rate series — its 10-year companion, the real yield, and the realized inflation measures it forecasts.

Macroeconomic Dataset Hub

This dataset is part of the Eco3min macro-financial data repository.

Explore the Eco3min Dataset Hub

Sources

• Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis — FRED database (series T5YIE, DGS5, DFII5, T5YIFR)
• Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System — H.15 Selected Interest Rates
• US Treasury — TIPS issuance and outstanding
• Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland — Inflation expectations model

Dataset Reference

Eco3min Research. (2026). T5YIE — US 5-Year Breakeven Inflation Rate (2003–2026).<br> https://eco3min.fr/en/us-5-year-breakeven-inflation-dataset/