Today’s Treasury note rates

What the number above means

The figure at the top of this page is the yield on a US Treasury note — the annual return an investor earns for lending money to the federal government over a medium-term horizon. It is drawn from the Treasury’s official daily par yield curve and refreshed each business day. A yield is not the same as the coupon printed on the note when it was issued; it is what the market is effectively paying today, once the note’s current price is taken into account. When demand for Treasuries rises, prices go up and yields fall; when investors sell, prices drop and yields climb. So the number above is really a live read on how much the world’s largest, safest bond market is charging to lend to the United States right now.

What that single number is good for is direction and context. A Treasury yield on its own tells you little; watched over weeks, it tells you whether borrowing costs across the whole economy are drifting up, easing off, or holding steady — because almost every other long-term rate, from mortgages to corporate loans, is built on top of it. The “today” change beside the number shows the latest move. If it is climbing, expect fixed mortgage rates and other long-term borrowing costs to follow; if it is falling, the pressure eases. That is why this one figure rewards a second glance even if you never buy a Treasury in your life.

What a Treasury note actually is

A Treasury note is a loan you make to the US government that matures in 2 to 10 years. The Treasury issues them in standard terms of 2, 3, 5, 7 and 10 years, and they sit in the middle of the government’s debt lineup — longer than a Treasury bill, shorter than a Treasury bond. Unlike a bill, which pays nothing along the way and simply returns more than you paid at maturity, a note pays you a fixed coupon every six months. Buy a $10,000 note with a 4% coupon and you collect $200 twice a year, every year, until the note matures — at which point the government hands back your full $10,000 face value. That predictable stream of income, plus the return of principal at the end, is the whole shape of the investment.

Because the coupon is fixed at issue, the note’s price is what moves in the open market to keep its yield in line with current rates. If rates rise after you buy, newly issued notes pay more, so the price of your older, lower-coupon note falls if you try to sell it. If rates fall, your above-market coupon becomes more valuable and the note’s price rises. Hold the note to maturity and none of that price movement touches you — you collect every coupon and get your face value back exactly as promised. Notes are bought directly from the government at TreasuryDirect.gov or through any brokerage, and every one is backed by the full faith and credit of the US government, which is why they are treated as the closest thing to a risk-free investment in the world.

Why the 10-year is the most important rate in finance

Of all the notes, the 10-year Treasury stands apart. It is the benchmark of the entire US bond market — the reference rate against which trillions of dollars of other debt is priced. The clearest way this touches ordinary life is through mortgages. Fixed mortgage rates track the 10-year yield closely, running roughly a lender spread of 1.5 to 3 percentage points above it to cover costs, risk and profit. When the 10-year yield moves, the 30-year mortgage rate usually follows within days. This is why the common belief that the Federal Reserve “sets” mortgage rates is wrong: the Fed controls an overnight rate, but your 30-year home loan is really following the 10-year note. A homebuyer who watches the 10-year yield has a better early warning of where mortgage rates are heading than one who watches the Fed.

The 10-year’s reach goes well beyond housing. It underpins corporate borrowing, student and auto loans, the discount rate analysts use to value stocks, and the government’s own cost of financing its debt. Because it reflects the market’s collective view of inflation and growth over a full decade, it functions as a kind of economic thermometer — a rising 10-year says the market expects stronger growth or hotter inflation ahead, a falling one says the opposite. When commentators talk about “the bond market” reacting to news, they are usually talking about the 10-year note moving. No single rate carries more weight across finance.

What actually moves note yields

Treasury note yields are set by the open market, not by decree, and two forces do most of the work. The first is expected inflation. An investor lending money for five or ten years won’t accept a yield that inflation will quietly erode, so when inflation is expected to run hot, yields rise to compensate; when inflation is expected to cool, yields fall. The second is expected economic growth. Strong growth pulls money toward riskier, higher-returning assets and away from safe Treasuries, pushing yields up; fear of a slowdown sends money rushing back into Treasuries as a safe haven, pushing yields down. Everything from a jobs report to an inflation print to a geopolitical shock moves yields by shifting one of these two expectations.

The Federal Reserve matters too, but indirectly. The Fed sets the overnight federal funds rate, which most strongly anchors very short-term rates. Note yields, being medium-term, are driven more by where the market thinks rates and inflation are headed over the coming years than by tonight’s overnight rate. A Fed clearly on a path to hike or cut will drag medium-term yields with it, and the Fed’s bond-buying or -selling changes the supply and demand that notes trade against. But the day-to-day link is loose enough that the 10-year yield can, and often does, move in the opposite direction to a Fed decision — because the market is pricing the medium-term future, not the present overnight rate. That gap between what the Fed does now and what the note market expects later is one of the most watched signals in economics.

Reading the yield curve and inversion

Line up the yields on Treasury bills, notes and bonds by their maturity and you get the yield curve — a snapshot of what the market charges to lend to the government over every time horizon, from a few months to thirty years. In normal times the curve slopes upward: longer maturities pay more, because tying up money for longer carries more risk. The shape of that curve is one of the most closely read signals in all of economics, because it encodes what investors collectively expect about the future of interest rates and growth.

The signal that draws the most attention is inversion. When the 2-year yield rises above the 10-year yield, the curve is inverted — short-term debt is paying more than long-term debt, the opposite of normal. That flip means the market expects interest rates to be lower in the future than they are now, usually because it foresees the Fed cutting rates to fight a slowdown. Historically, a 2-year/10-year inversion has preceded most US recessions by anywhere from several months to a couple of years, which is why an inversion tends to make headlines. It is a warning sign rather than a guarantee, and the lag before any downturn varies widely, but few indicators have a track record this consistent. Our Treasury yield curve study walks through how to read the curve in depth, and you can compare the pieces directly on the Treasury bill rates and Treasury bond rates pages.

Notes as an investment

For an individual, a Treasury note is one of the simplest ways to earn predictable income with almost no credit risk. You lend the government money, collect a fixed coupon every six months, and get your principal back at maturity — all backed by the full faith and credit of the United States. The interest is exempt from state and local income tax, which quietly raises your effective return if you live in a high-tax state, though it remains taxable at the federal level. For someone who wants a known income stream over a set horizon — say, money earmarked for a goal five or ten years out — a note held to maturity is about as close to a sure thing as investing offers.

The main risk to understand is interest-rate risk, and it only bites if you sell early. Because a note’s coupon is fixed, its market price moves opposite to interest rates: if rates rise after you buy, the price of your note falls, and selling before maturity would lock in a loss. If rates fall, your note’s price rises and you could sell at a gain. Hold to maturity, though, and price swings never touch you — you collect every coupon and receive full face value regardless of what rates did in between. So the practical question is whether you might need the money before the note matures. If the answer is no, interest-rate risk is largely theory; if you may have to sell early, a shorter-term note or a bill reduces how much a rate move can cost you. That trade-off between income, horizon and flexibility is the heart of building a Treasury position.

Related tools and guides

This page is the live number and the context; the rest of the site turns it into your numbers. Because the 10-year drives home loans, start with the 30-year mortgage rate and the mortgage calculator to see what today’s yields mean for a monthly payment. Compare the rest of the government’s debt on the Treasury bill and Treasury bond pages, and read the Treasury yield curve study for the full story on inversion and what the curve is telling you. To see how the Fed’s overnight rate fits in, visit the federal funds rate page, and check the rest of the today’s rates board for the whole picture at a glance. This page is general information, not financial advice.