How Does the FOMC Dot Plot Work? Reading the Fed's Rate Projections

The FOMC dot plot is a chart that shows where each Federal Reserve official thinks the federal funds rate should be at the end of each of the next few years and over the longer run. Each dot is one official's projection. The Fed publishes it four times a year, with the Summary of Economic Projections (SEP). The next one is due on Wednesday, Dec. 9, 2026, at the end of the Dec. 8–9 meeting, according to the Fed's calendar.

What is the dot plot?

The Fed's name for the chart is "FOMC participants' assessments of appropriate monetary policy." Each shaded circle shows "an individual participant's judgment of the midpoint of the appropriate target range" for the federal funds rate "at the end of the specified calendar year or over the longer run," the Fed's September 2026 projections say. Values are rounded to the nearest 1/8 percentage point.

"Appropriate" policy means the path each official "deems most likely to foster outcomes" for economic activity and inflation, the Fed says. The dots are individual views, not a committee decision.

The Fed first published the chart on Jan. 25, 2012, and says it is "informally known as the 'dot plot,'" according to its SEP timeline. Medians were added on Sept. 17, 2015.

Who submits dots?

All "FOMC participants" do. The Fed defines them as the members of the Board of Governors and the presidents of all 12 Reserve Banks. Only 12 of them vote: the seven governors, the New York Fed president and four other presidents who rotate in for one-year terms, the Fed says. Nonvoting presidents still attend the meetings and still submit projections.

In September 2026, 18 participants submitted projections, and one of them skipped 2028 and 2029, the Fed said.

Which meetings have a dot plot?

Four of the eight scheduled meetings each year carry projections. The Fed marks them with an asterisk on its calendar. In 2026 they are March 17–18, June 16–17, Sept. 15–16 and Dec. 8–9. The Oct. 27–28 meeting this week has no projections, the Fed's calendar shows. The full list is on our FOMC meeting schedule for 2026 and 2027.

How do you read the median?

The median is "the middle projection when the projections are arranged from lowest to highest," the Fed says. With an even number of projections, it is the average of the two middle ones. The Fed also prints a central tendency, which drops the three highest and three lowest projections, and a range of all of them.

September 2026 shows how this works. The Fed raised its target range to 3.75% to 4% on Sept. 16. That range has a midpoint of 3.875%. For the end of 2026, the dots were:

Projected midpoint, end of 2026	Officials
4.375%	4
4.125%	12
3.875%	2

Source: Federal Reserve, Summary of Economic Projections, Sept. 16, 2026.

With 18 dots, the median is the average of the ninth and 10th. Both were 4.125%, which the Fed's table rounds to 4.1%. A 4.125% midpoint matches a range of 4% to 4.25%, one quarter point above the September range. Two officials put their dot at 3.875%, the midpoint of the current range. That median was up from 3.8% in June.

Federal funds rate median	Sept. 2026 SEP
End of 2026	4.1%
End of 2027	4.1%
End of 2028	3.9%
Longer run	3.2%

The dots are projections, not promises. Each is based on "information available at the time of the meeting," the Fed says. For what officials said after the September meeting, see our story on the September Fed minutes and the Rates and Policy section.