The Federal Reserve will not vote on an interest-rate change at its October 2027 meeting, the central bank announced Thursday in a revised tentative schedule of Federal Open Market Committee meetings.
The statement, released at 12:45 p.m. Eastern, said the committee plans to meet on the usual two-day dates to discuss monetary policy "and will announce its policy decision as usual on the second day of each meeting, except the October 26-27 meeting. That meeting will be dedicated to the discussion of broad monetary policy strategy issues." The listed dates are Jan. 26-27, March 16-17, April 27-28, June 8-9, July 27-28, Sept. 14-15, Oct. 26-27 and Nov. 16-17, 2027, plus Jan. 25-26, 2028.
CNBC reported that the October session is a departure designed as part of a broader initiative from Chair Kevin Warsh to reduce the central bank's market footprint. Warsh announced the move at his news conference after the FOMC met in October, though he did not then specify which meeting would be affected. In 2027, CNBC said, there will be seven voting meetings, with October reserved for deliberation and no formal vote or post-meeting statement. The final meeting of the year will now take place in November; it had previously been set for December.
Why Warsh wants a meeting without a vote
"Now, what's the reasoning behind this change? To me, it's quite straightforward," Warsh said, according to CNBC. "Getting policy right involves assessing near-term developments at timely, regular, and information-rich intervals." He added that it is "equally important we reserve time and space, as an intellectually diverse group, for strategic deliberations — for thinking anew about big questions, looking out over longer time horizons, focusing, as I say, on the left side of the decimal point."
Warsh has been critical of the Fed's prior communications strategy, saying policymakers spent too much time providing guidance that handcuffed them when it was time to decide, CNBC reported. Under typical practice, the Fed meets eight times a year, followed by a rate vote and a news conference. Since Warsh took over, the post-meeting statement has been shortened dramatically and press Q&A sessions have been cut to around half an hour from about 45 minutes. He indicated last month that the number of nonvoting meetings would increase to two in 2028.
"I believe the setting of the meeting schedule and agenda is more than some administrative detail," he said. "It's an institutional choice, affecting the nature and the quality of our deliberations and, ultimately, the wisdom of our decisions." The FOMC next meets Dec. 8-9, CNBC noted, and its first 2027 meeting will be Jan. 26-27, matching the official calendar. CNBC appended a correction that an earlier headline had misstated the year; the skipped vote is in October 2027, not another year.
For households and markets, the change is about the Fed's calendar and communications, not a rate decision this week. It means that in October 2027, unlike a typical meeting, there will be no new funds-rate announcement and no accompanying statement from that session.