European Central Bank · EUR · Pass-through 85% over 4 months
Interest-rate futures currently imply that the typical Weighted Fixed Benchmark in the Eurozone rises from 3.59% today to 4.45% by 2027-08, about 86 basis points higher. This is not a forecast: it is the mortgage rate consistent with what markets are already pricing for European Central Bank policy.
Data as of 2026-09-30. Derived from interest-rate futures pricing for the policy rate, plus this market's long-run mortgage spread, pass-through factor and transmission lag. Market pricing changes daily and has been wrong before. Not financial advice.
10-year government bond yield and the representative new-business mortgage rate for each euro-area member, with the spread over the ECB deposit rate. Rows sorted by mortgage rate; the weighted composite above is driven by the larger markets only.
| Country | Typical Product | 10Y Govt Bond | Mortgage Rate | Spread vs ECB |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Slovakia | Fixed-period mortgage (3-5 yr) 5-year tenor | 3.35% | 4.30% | +1.80pp |
| Estonia | Euribor-linked variable 1-year tenor | 3.40% | 4.20% | +1.70pp |
| Latvia | Euribor-linked variable 1-year tenor | 3.35% | 4.00% | +1.50pp |
| Greece | Fixed-period mortgage 15-year tenor | 3.45% | 3.90% | +1.40pp |
| Lithuania | Euribor-linked variable 1-year tenor | 3.20% | 3.90% | +1.40pp |
| Netherlands | 10-30-Year fixed 20-year tenor | 2.75% | 3.85% | +1.35pp |
| Cyprus | Fixed-period mortgage 5-year tenor | 3.30% | 3.85% | +1.35pp |
| Italy | 20-30-Year mutuo a tasso fisso 25-year tenor | 3.65% | 3.75% | +1.25pp |
| Ireland | 3-5-Year fixed 4-year tenor | 2.85% | 3.75% | +1.25pp |
| Belgium | 20-Year fixed 20-year tenor | 3.00% | 3.70% | +1.20pp |
| Germany | 10-Year Festzinsbindung 10-year tenor | 2.55% | 3.65% | +1.15pp |
| Austria | 10-15-Year fixed 15-year tenor | 2.95% | 3.60% | +1.10pp |
| Slovenia | Fixed-rate mortgage 10-year tenor | 3.10% | 3.60% | +1.10pp |
| Portugal | Mixed / fixed-period mortgage 10-year tenor | 3.05% | 3.55% | +1.05pp |
| Croatia | Fixed-rate mortgage 10-year tenor | 3.30% | 3.55% | +1.05pp |
| Luxembourg | Fixed-rate mortgage 15-year tenor | 2.70% | 3.55% | +1.05pp |
| France | 20-25-Year taux fixe 25-year tenor | 3.05% | 3.45% | +0.95pp |
| Spain | 15-30-Year hipoteca tipo fijo 25-year tenor | 3.15% | 3.35% | +0.85pp |
| Finland | Euribor-linked variable 1-year tenor | 2.80% | 3.35% | +0.85pp |
| Malta | Variable-rate mortgage floating | 3.25% | 3.30% | +0.80pp |
Each euro-area member has its own page with the national mortgage rate, the 10-year government bond yield, the spread over the ECB deposit rate, and the 12-month path implied by euro futures pricing.
Average historical spread mortgage − policy rate: 1.30pp. Current spread: 1.09pp. Below the long-run average — competition or asset purchases are compressing the spread.
Where the typical fixed mortgage rate ends up if the futures-implied policy path holds and the historical spread reverts to its long-run mean.
The four tiles at the top show the live policy rate (set by the central bank), the interbank rate, and the typical fixed and variable mortgage rates available to a household in this country. The gap between the policy rate and the mortgage rate is the spread — what the lender adds on top to cover funding, credit risk and profit.
The first chart shows that spread over the last five years. When the shaded area widens, banks are charging more on top of the policy rate, usually because the long bond market has moved or because banks are pricing in extra risk. When it narrows, competition or central bank bond-buying is squeezing margins. The second chart — the implied 12-month forward path — takes the current futures market's bet on where the policy rate is heading, applies the historical spread, and shows where your mortgage rate would land if both relationships hold. It is not a forecast: it is what current market pricing already implies.
The mortgage-minus-policy spread decomposes into four primary drivers. First, the funding curve: jurisdictions whose lenders fund predominantly via covered bonds (Germany, Denmark, France, Sweden) inherit the swap-plus-covered-spread basis, which moved from 5-15 bp pre-2022 to 25-50 bp during the ECB's APP/PEPP unwind. Lenders funded via deposit franchise (UK, Australia) anchor more to short-rate transmission and deposit beta. US lenders sell loans into agency MBS pools, so the spread is sensitive to the primary-secondary MBS basis and to Fed SOMA reinvestment policy.
Second, prepayment optionality and convexity: products without economic prepayment penalty (US 30Y, Danish callable bonds) trade at OAS rather than nominal spread; OAS widening during rate volatility regimes (VIX-Treasury MOVE comovement) bleeds straight into the borrower rate. Penalty-protected European products (German Festzins under §489 BGB, French indemnité de remboursement anticipé) carry minimal optionality premium. Third, lender duration mismatch: if the dominant local product is short-fixed (UK 2/5Y) the lender's asset-liability gap is small and the spread is stable; if long-fixed (US 30Y, German 10Y) lenders rely on swap and MBS markets to hedge duration, and spread widens when those hedge markets stress. Fourth, regulatory caps and capital treatment: France's taux d'usure, prudential LTV/DTI floors (Switzerland, Australia, Canada), and Basel III risk-weight differentiation across LTV buckets all alter the marginal cost of lending and feed back into quoted rates with lags of one to three quarters.
| Month | Implied Policy Rate | Projected Eurozone Weighted Fixed Benchmark | Spread |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-10 | 2.50% | 3.64% | +1.14pp |
| 2026-10 | 2.50% | 3.67% | +1.17pp |
| 2026-11 | 2.56% | 3.71% | +1.15pp |
| 2026-12 | 2.77% | 3.79% | +1.01pp |
| 2027-01 | 2.77% | 3.85% | +1.07pp |
| 2027-02 | 2.93% | 3.93% | +1.00pp |
| 2027-03 | 3.22% | 4.06% | +0.83pp |
| 2027-04 | 3.22% | 4.15% | +0.93pp |
| 2027-05 | 3.18% | 4.22% | +1.04pp |
| 2027-06 | 3.26% | 4.29% | +1.04pp |
| 2027-07 | 3.41% | 4.38% | +0.97pp |
| 2027-08 | 3.41% | 4.45% | +1.04pp |
The European Central Bank sets three policy rates; the deposit facility rate has been the operationally binding rate since the introduction of excess reserves in 2008. The deposit rate anchors €STR (Euro Short-Term Rate), which sits within a few basis points of the deposit facility and serves as the reference for nearly all interbank funding.
The transmission to mortgage rates is faster and more complete than in the United States. Three structural reasons:
The Eurozone is not one market. The “typical” mortgage differs sharply across member states:
The Member-Country Bond Yields & Mortgage Rates table above lists all 20 euro-area members with two figures each:
The spread over the ECB deposit rate in the last column is the cleanest single measure of how expensive mortgage credit is in each member relative to the common policy rate.
The weighted composite in the snapshot tiles is driven only by the larger markets (Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Belgium, Portugal, Austria). Germany is included because it is a large market, but it is not treated as a proxy for the entire Eurozone.
The Eurozone shows the cleanest transmission of any major economy. The spread between the weighted member-country mortgage basket and the ECB deposit rate has averaged roughly 1.3 percentage points since 2015, with two notable departures:
By mid-2026 the spread has normalised. The chart above shows the full path.
The forward path uses 3-month Euribor futures and €STR-OIS curves to imply the ECB deposit rate over the next year, then projects the weighted member-country mortgage basket by adding the historical spread. Because Eurozone pass-through is high (~85% within 4 months), the projected mortgage rate tracks the implied policy rate fairly closely.
MIR.M.<CC>.B.A2C.A.R.A.2240.EUR.N (new business, loans for house purchase).IRS.M.<CC>.L.L40.CI.0000.EUR.N (harmonised long-term rate for convergence purposes).For deeper ECB analysis see the European Central Bank page and the Yield Curve Monitor for Eurozone sovereign curve context.