Will Interest Rates Go Down? What the RBA Is Actually Signalling

The cash rate target sits at 4.35%. The RBA left it unchanged on 11 August 2026, with an effective date of 12 August. This page reports what the Board actually decided, what it signalled in its own published forecasts, and what that position means for your Brisbane repayment. We don't predict rate moves. Nobody can do that honestly. What we can do is show you the numbers the Board is watching and translate the position into dollars on your loan.

On 11 August 2026, the RBA Board left the cash rate target unchanged at 4.35%. The decision was effective from the following day. In its own words:

"The Board will continue to do what it considers necessary to bring inflation sustainably back to target."

That's the whole position. No date for a cut. No promise of a hold. The word that matters is sustainably. The Board wants inflation to settle inside the 2–3% target band and stay there, not dip in for a month and pop back out.

For existing variable-rate borrowers, "unchanged" means your lender has no cash-rate reason to move your rate this month. Whether they move it for other reasons, funding costs or competition, is a separate question. If you want the full trail of moves that got us here, we keep a running history of RBA cash rate changes.

The decision at a glance

The current 4.35% didn't happen in one step. The Board lifted the rate three times in the first half of 2026, then paused twice. Here's the record.

The pause since June reflects the Board's read on inflation. Prices are cooling. Not fast enough for the Board to declare victory.

The RBA doesn't publish a forecast for its own cash rate. What it does publish, in the Statement on Monetary Policy, is a set of technical assumptions that underpin its economic forecasts. The August 2026 SMP, with forecasts finalised on 5 August 2026, assumes:

This assumed path comes from financial-market pricing. It is used to prepare the economic forecasts and should not be read as the Board’s forecast of its own decisions.

• 4.4% in December 2026
• 4.5% in June and December 2027
• 4.4% in June and December 2028

The same document forecasts headline CPI inflation at 3.6% in December 2026, 2.8% in June 2027 and 2.6% in December 2027. The RBA expects headline inflation to return to the 2 to 3% target range by early 2027. Trimmed mean inflation is expected to remain above 3% until around mid-2027 before easing to 2.6% by December 2027.

These figures show the economic outlook under a market-implied cash-rate path. They do not tell us when the Board expects to cut rates. The clearer message from the RBA is that inflation remains too high and further increases remain possible if upside risks materialise.

Several important figures have been released since the August meeting. Here is where the main indicators now sit.

• Headline CPI: 3.5% in the year to July 2026, down from 3.8% in the year to June
• Trimmed mean inflation: 3.6%, unchanged from June
• Brisbane all-groups CPI: 3.7% for the year to July 2026
• Brisbane housing inflation: 6.3% over the same period
• Queensland unemployment: 4.2% (seasonally adjusted, July 2026)

Brisbane’s CPI Housing category rose 6.3% over the year, compared with 5.0% nationally. This category covers costs including rents, utilities and new dwellings excluding land. It should not be read as a 6.3% increase in established Brisbane property prices.

Queensland unemployment at 4.2% is close to what economists call full employment. A tight jobs market keeps wage growth firm, which keeps services inflation firm, which keeps the Board cautious about cutting too early.

ANZ, CBA, NAB and Westpac each publish rate calls through their in-house economics teams. You'll find them on each bank's economics or research page, and aggregators like the ASX RBA Rate Tracker collect market pricing.

A few things worth knowing before you take any of them as gospel:

• Bank economists disagree with each other regularly, sometimes by six months on the timing of the next move
• Their calls change, often within a fortnight of new inflation or jobs data
• They're opinions from interested parties. Banks have a commercial stake in how borrowers behave
• A forecast is a probability, not a date on the calendar

The useful way to read a bank forecast is as a signal of where informed opinion sits this week, not as a booking for a rate cut in March. If four teams all shift their view in the same direction after the same data release, that's a stronger signal than any single call.

Here's the part that actually shows up in your bank account.

The cash rate is the price banks pay for overnight funding. When it moves, variable home loan rates usually move too. Not always by the full amount and not always straight away. Historically, most lenders have passed on the bulk of cash-rate cuts to variable borrowers within a few weeks, but "most" and "usually" are the honest words. No rule forces them to.

A worked example on a $650,000 loan

For a Brisbane borrower with a $650,000 mortgage on a 30-year term, a 0.25% change in the rate is worth roughly $100 a month in repayments. A 0.50% move is closer to $200 a month. Those are ballpark figures, and your exact number depends on your rate, remaining term and loan structure. You can run the numbers on your own loan in a minute.

If you fixed a couple of years ago at a low rate, rolling off onto a variable at today's levels can add several hundred dollars a month. The gap between an old fixed rate in the 2s and a current variable in the low 6s is real. If your fix ends in the next six months, that's the trigger to look at your options now, rather than wait for a cash-rate move that may not come in time.

A hold isn't a wasted period. Every dollar in an offset account against your loan reduces the interest you're charged. Extra repayments during a flat-rate stretch build a buffer that pays down principal faster and gives you breathing room if rates move against you later.

When the cash rate sits flat, the fixed-versus-variable choice comes down to certainty against flexibility. Fixed rates give you a set repayment for one to five years. Variable rates move with the market and usually keep features like offset and unlimited extra repayments.

In a flat environment, most borrowers we speak with lean variable. Mainly because they want the flexibility to refinance or restructure if their situation changes. Fixed still makes sense for people who need repayment certainty, budget to the dollar or expect a life event where a stable outgoing matters.

If you're weighing it up, we've broken down the trade-offs in fixed versus variable in the current environment. If you're already mid-application and worried a fixed rate might rise before settlement, a rate lock is worth understanding.

This is the question we hear more than any other right now. There's no universal answer, but there is a decision frame.

The break-even check is simple. Add up the cost of switching (discharge fees, settlement, any break costs), then divide by the monthly saving on the new rate. If you'll recoup it inside 18 to 24 months and plan to hold the loan longer than that, the numbers usually stack up. When the cash rate is flat, the biggest gains often come from switching lenders, not waiting for a cut. Comparing 50+ lenders is where the real difference lives. We can review your current home loan against the market in a single call.

The RBA Board's remaining scheduled meeting for 2026:

• 29 September 2026, 2.30pm (statement released with the decision)We update this page after every RBA meeting, usually within 24 hours. Always confirm dates against rba.gov.au.

If you're not sure whether your current rate still stacks up, book a free 20-minute call. We'll check your loan against 50+ lenders and tell you honestly whether it's worth moving now or sitting tight. You deal direct with Victor and a small team. Blackk operates under an Australian Credit Licence. Start with a Brisbane mortgage broker who has helped thousands of people with home and investment loans since founding Blackk in 2007.

How we report this: We report what the RBA decided and what it published. We don't forecast rate moves. Every figure on this page links to its primary source. This is general information, not financial advice.

• RBA Cash Rate Target Overview
• RBA Monetary Policy Decision, 11 August 2026
• ABS Labour Force, Australia, July 2026
• RBA Cash Rate History
• RBA Statement on Monetary Policy, August 2026
• ABS Consumer Price Index, Australia, July 2026