Household money
Bank Rate vote on 17 September: three of nine already want 4%
The Bank of England holds Bank Rate at 3.75% but three of its nine members voted for 4% in July, and the next decision comes on 17 September.
3.75% Bank Rate now
If you are on a tracker mortgage, have a fixed rate ending soon, or hold money in easy-access savings, this week matters. The Bank of England’s next decision comes on Thursday 17 September, and at the last vote on 30 July three of its nine rate-setters already wanted Bank Rate higher, at 4%. The other six held it at 3.75%, where it has sat since December 2025. So the fork is not only whether borrowing gets cheaper — it is whether it gets dearer.
What each branch costs
Bank Rate moves in steps of 0.25 percentage points. The arithmetic from there is simple.
On a tracker mortgage, 0.25 points on every £100,000 you still owe is £250 a year in extra interest, or about £21 a month. Owe £200,000 and it is £500 a year. A cut of the same size hands back the same amount.
On savings, 0.25 points on £10,000 is £25 a year before tax. That is the headline arithmetic, not a promise. Banks do not have to pass any of it on, and savings rates have often moved more slowly than borrowing rates.
Fixed-rate mortgages are the trap here. Their price does not wait for the vote. Lenders price fixes off money-market rates that move weeks ahead, so a deal on offer today has already made its own guess about Thursday. A hold on the day does not mean the price of a fix is unchanged.
What the answer turns on
Three things decide it, and two of them are not yet known.
The first is the August inflation figure. The Office for National Statistics publishes it at 7am on Wednesday 16 September, the day before the vote. Inflation was 2.6% in June against a 2% target, and the Bank expects it to rise later this year as higher energy costs pass through.
The second is energy. In July the Committee said crude and refined energy prices had “remained volatile and higher than pre-conflict” levels after conflict in the Middle East. It warned that the risk of those costs feeding through into wages and prices “is greater the longer higher energy prices persist” — while adding that there is “little evidence so far to suggest such effects”. Monetary policy cannot change the price of gas. It can only change what the rest of the economy does about it.
The third is the split itself. Six voted to hold in July and three voted to rise. A majority of the nine-member committee means five votes. Two people is the whole distance.
None of that tells you what to do, and we are not going to. What it tells you is which number to watch and when: Wednesday at 7am, then Thursday at noon, when the decision and the minutes are published together. If your fix ends within six months, those two mornings are the ones that price your next deal.
To see how pay itself reaches your account rather than your mortgage, our pay calculator works out take-home from verified tax, National Insurance and pension records. How we check every figure we publish is set out in our methodology.
Where these figures come from
- Interest rates and Bank Rate: our latest decision — Bank of England
- Monetary Policy Summary and minutes, July 2026 — Bank of England
- What is happening with interest rates in the UK? — Bank of England
- Consumer price inflation, UK: August 2026 — Office for National Statistics
Every figure traces to a dated document — the line this section is named after. If one here is wrong, tell us and it gets fixed publicly. Work out your own figures.