Twenty-seven years of euro rates, and the hole in the series most people download

The European Central Bank publishes its key rates daily and free, back to the first day of the euro. Downloading the obvious series gives a file that looks complete, has no duplicate dates and no visible defect — and is missing 3,031 days, understating the historical peak by a quarter of a point. This page reconstructs the full record from the two official series that together cover it, counts every one of the 60 changes, and reads the current settings at the ECB Data Portal on the day of writing.

What the ECB was publishing on the day this was read

The ECB Data Portal serves its key interest rates as daily series with an open API and no key. Asked on 13 August 2026, series FM.D.U2.EUR.4F.KR.DFR.LEV returned a deposit facility rate of 2.25% for that date, and FM.D.U2.EUR.4F.KR.MRR_FR.LEV returned a main refinancing rate of 2.40%.

Two of the ECB’s key rates differ by 0.15 pointson the same day, and both are correct answers to “what is the ECB rate?” The deposit facility rate is what a bank earns on reserves held overnight at the central bank; the main refinancing rate is the rate on the ECB’s weekly lending operations. A page that quotes one and calls it “the ECB rate” has answered a question it did not state.

The file that looks complete and is not

This site stores the main refinancing rate as a daily file, app/data/storico/ecb-rates.json, drawn on 13 August 2026. In an earlier state it held the obvious series — the fixed rate tender rate, MRR_FR— and it passed every check anyone would run on it. No duplicate dates. No implausible values. A sensible start at 1 January 1999 and a sensible end.

It had 7,053 observations, and the calendar span it claimed to cover has 10,084 days. The difference, 3,031 days, is a single unbroken hole between 27 June 2000 and 15 October 2008. Nothing inside the file reveals it: there is no gap flag, no null, no marker. It shows up only when the observation count is compared against the number of days between the first and last date.

The explanation is in the series identifier. Between those two dates the ECB did not run fixed rate tenders; it ran variable rate tenders with a minimum bid rate, published as a separate series, MRR_MBR. Asking the Data Portal for the fixed rate series on a day in January 2004 returns nothing; asking for the minimum bid rate series on the same day returns 2.00%. That second series contains exactly 3,031daily observations, from 28 June 2000 to 14 October 2008 — filling the hole to the day, with no overlap.

Joined, the two give an unbroken daily record: 7,053 + 3,031 = 10,084 observations across 10,084 days, no gaps and no duplicates. And the join changes a headline figure. Read on its own, the fixed rate file says the highest main refinancing rate since 1999 was 4.50%. The complete record says 4.75%, first reached on 6 October 2000 and held for 217 days— entirely inside the period the file did not cover. A well-formed file with a plausible maximum understated the historical peak by a quarter of a point, and nothing in it could have told you.

Sixty changes in twenty-seven and a half years

Over the complete record from 1 January 1999 to 10 August 2026 the rate changed 60 times: 29 increases and 31 decreases. That is one change every 168 days on average, and the average conceals the shape entirely.

The rate sat at exactly 0.00% for 2,324 consecutive days, from 16 March 2016 to 26 July 2022— six years and four months in which the single most quoted number in European finance did not move once. That is the longest constant stretch in the file by a wide margin, and it is followed immediately by the fastest sequence in it.

Ten increases in 420 days, from 0.00% to 4.50%, including three steps of 0.75 points in a row. Set against the 2,324 preceding days of no movement at all, this is the single most useful thing the file says: this rate does not drift, it sits still and then moves in bursts.

What followed is the mirror image and is not symmetric in shape. Nine changes take the record from the 4.50% peak to the current level:

Eight decreases over 729 days took it from 4.50% to 2.15% on 11 June 2025, including one step of 0.60 pointson 18 September 2024 — a size that appears nowhere else in the file. Then, after a full year at 2.15%, the last change in the record is an increase, to 2.40% on 17 June 2026. Any commentary describing 2026 as a continuation of the easing cycle is contradicted by the series it is describing.

The single largest step in the whole record is a cut: 0.75 points on 10 December 2008, from 3.25% to 2.50%.

The target the rate is set against, and the month it stops

Euro area inflation is measured by the harmonised index of consumer prices, published by Eurostat and carried by the ECB. Asked on 13 August 2026, both stop at the same month and disagree about it. Eurostat returns an annual rate of 2.0 for December 2025; the ECB returns 1.9 for the same month.

The cause is one hundredth of an index point. Eurostat’s index reads 129.56for December 2025 and the ECB’s 129.54, against an identical 127.07 for December 2024. The divisions give +1.9595% and +1.9438%, which round to 2.0 and 1.9 respectively. Two official publishers, one month, two headlines — and the difference is a rounding boundary, not a disagreement about the economy.

The second finding is the more consequential. Both files end at December 2025, and the Eurostat dataset carries an update stamp of 6 February 2026. Four Eurostat datasets and two ECB series were tried on 13 August 2026 and none returned an observation after December 2025. This page therefore quotes no euro area inflation figure for 2026, and says exactly why: none was retrievable from either official interface on that date. That is a statement about what was found, not a claim that nothing has been published.

Four habits this series teaches

• Count the days, not the rows. A daily file with 7,053 observations covering a 10,084-day span is missing 3,031 days, and nothing inside it will say so.
• Read the series identifier. MRR_FR and MRR_MBR describe the same policy rate under two auction regimes. Knowing which one you have is the difference between a peak of 4.50% and one of 4.75%.
• Name the rate.The deposit facility and the main refinancing rate differed by 0.15 points on 13 August 2026, and both are the ECB’s.
• Check the last observation before quoting a level. Both euro area inflation series read for this page stopped seven months before it was written.

What these sources do not say

• The series contain no reasoning. They are dated levels. No Governing Council decision, statement, vote or projection was read for this page, and none is described.
• No euro area inflation figure for 2026 was retrievable. Six official series were tried on 13 August 2026 and all ended at December 2025.
• The marginal lending facility rate was not read. The ECB has three key rates and this page quotes two of them.
• A policy rate is not a rate anyone borrows at. No retail lending or deposit rate for any euro area country was opened for this page.
• Nothing before 1 January 1999. The record begins with the euro. National central bank rates before that date are different instruments and were not read.
• No claim about exchange rates, bonds or equities. No market price series was read for this page.

How to verify this yourself

1. Ask the ECB Data Portal for FM/D.U2.EUR.4F.KR.MRR_FR.LEV between 1 January 2004 and 10 January 2004. Nothing comes back.
2. Ask for FM/D.U2.EUR.4F.KR.MRR_MBR.LEV over the same dates. You should get 2.00%.
3. Download the fixed rate series in full, count the rows, and compare the count with the number of days between the first and last date. The difference should be 3,031.
4. Join the two and find the maximum. It should be 4.75%, dated 6 October 2000.
5. Count the rows where the value differs from the previous row. You should get 60.
6. Ask Eurostat and the ECB for the euro area HICP index for December 2025 and divide each by 127.07. Round to one decimal and compare.

Where to go next on this site

• The Federal Reserve — the same exercise on the American target range, with every dated change.
• Inflation and deflation — the index behind that 1.9 against 2.0, and the four questions a rate has to answer.
• Quantitative easing — the balance sheet side of central banking, measured weekly.
• All macroeconomics guides — the area index, one click away.

Sources opened for this page

Each source below was opened and read on 13 August 2026. Verified on 13 August 2026.

• European Central Bank Data Portal — key interest rate series FM.D.U2.EUR.4F.KR.MRR_FR.LEV, FM.D.U2.EUR.4F.KR.MRR_MBR.LEV and FM.D.U2.EUR.4F.KR.DFR.LEVUsed for: the main refinancing rate of 2.40% and the deposit facility rate of 2.25% for 13 August 2026, the 7,053 fixed rate tender observations and the 3,031 minimum bid rate observations, the confirmation that the fixed rate series returns nothing for a day in January 2004 while the minimum bid series returns 2.00%, and the series label naming the euro area as of changing composition. Read 13 August 2026.
• Vextor Capital — stored ECB main refinancing rate series, app/data/storico/ecb-rates.json, drawn 13 August 2026Used for: the joined record of 10,084 daily observations across 10,084 days with no gaps or duplicates, the 60 changes split 29 increases and 31 decreases, the peak of 4.75% first reached 6 October 2000 and held 217 days, the 2,324 consecutive days at 0.00%, the largest step of 0.75 points on 10 December 2008, and every dated change in the two tables above. Read 13 August 2026.
• Eurostat — Statistics API, datasets prc_hicp_manr, prc_hicp_midx and prc_hicp_mmor, euro area, all itemsUsed for: the annual rate of 2.0 for December 2025, the index of 129.56 for December 2025 against 127.07 for December 2024, the update stamp of 6 February 2026, and the absence of any observation after December 2025. Read 13 August 2026.
• European Central Bank Data Portal — HICP series ICP M.U2.N.000000.4.ANR and M.U2.N.000000.4.INXUsed for: the annual rate of 1.9 for December 2025 and the index of 129.54 for the same month, and the confirmation that this series also ends at December 2025. Read 13 August 2026.
• European Central Bank — Euro foreign exchange reference rates notice on the Bulgarian levUsed for: the record that Bulgaria adopted the euro on 1 January 2026, which is why the euro area of 2026 is not the euro area of 1999 and the series is labelled as of changing composition. Read 13 August 2026.

Change log

• 13 August 2026— page rewritten from scratch against the ECB Data Portal key interest rate series, the stored joined series, three Eurostat datasets and two ECB HICP series, all opened that day. Removed from the previous version: a single 'ECB interest rate' where the institution publishes three; a statement that the main refinancing rate has never exceeded 4.50%, which the complete record contradicts by a quarter of a point; a euro area inflation figure quoted with no publication date at a time when no official interface served anything after December 2025; a description of 2026 as a continuation of rate cuts, when the last change in the record is an increase; and a rate history drawn from a file with a 3,031-day hole in it that the previous version did not know was there.

Vextor Capital is not authorised under MiFID II as an investment firm, is not registered with the SEC, FINRA, the CFTC or the NFA, is not an investment adviser, holds no position in any instrument named on this page, and receives no payment from any bank, broker, exchange, index provider or data vendor. Every outbound link on this page points to a statistical agency, a central bank or a public data series.