RBA Lifts the Cash Rate to 4.60%: What It Means for Adelaide Borrowers

By Jason Given · 2026-10-31 · 8 min read

What the RBA decided, and why

On 29 September 2026 the Reserve Bank of Australia raised the cash rate target by 0.25 percentage points to 4.60%. The decision was unanimous. It is the fourth increase of 2026, after rises in February, March and May and holds in June and August, and it takes the cash rate to its highest level since late 2011.

The Board's statement was direct about the reasons. Inflation remains elevated and some of the upside risks it flagged in August have materialised: the conflict in the Middle East has broadened and global energy prices are well above what the August forecasts assumed, demand linked to AI is pushing up global prices for technology goods, and there is still pressure on capacity in the domestic economy. Businesses told the RBA they are raising prices or looking to, and recent inflation figures came in stronger than the Board expected at its previous meeting.

In the Board's words: "The Board remains focused on ensuring that high inflation does not become embedded." It also kept the door open to going further, saying it "will continue to do what it considers necessary to bring inflation sustainably back to target, including increasing the cash rate target further if needed." That is not a forecast of another rise, but it is a clear signal that the Board is not finished until the inflation data says so.

The statement also noted that housing prices have fallen in most capital cities and new housing loans have declined noticeably, and that growth in consumer spending is easing. For Adelaide, where prices held up longer than the eastern capitals, the next few months of data will show whether the same pattern is arriving here.

Source: RBA cash rate target table and Monetary Policy Board statements, 2026. The cash rate was 3.60% from August 2025 until the February 2026 rise.

What it means for your repayments

Lenders pass a cash rate rise on to variable home loan rates within two to three weeks. NAB, for example, lifted its variable home loan rates by 0.25 percentage points from Friday 9 October 2026, and the other major lenders moved on a similar timetable. If you have a variable loan, your October or November repayment is the one where you will see it.

The table below shows what one 0.25 point rise costs each month, and what all four 2026 rises add up to, for a principal and interest loan with 30 years to run. The starting point is a variable rate of 5.75% in January 2026 moving to 6.75% by October, which is roughly what a competitive owner occupier rate has done this year. Your own figures will differ, so treat these as the order of magnitude rather than a quote.

Principal and interest, 30 years remaining, variable rate 5.75% to 6.75%. Rounded to the nearest dollar.

If your fixed rate is ending in the next six months, the jump is larger than the table shows, because you move from a rate set in a lower-rate year straight to today's variable rate in one step. Our guide to break costs on fixed rates explains what to check before the roll-off date, and the repayment calculator lets you test your own balance at the new rate.

If you are buying: pre-approvals and borrowing power

Lenders assess every application at the actual rate plus a buffer of at least 3 percentage points, as APRA requires. When variable rates rise by 0.25, the assessment rate rises with them, so the same income supports a smaller loan than it did in January. Every rise this year has trimmed borrowing power a little further.

A pre-approval is conditional, and most lenders re-run the serviceability check when rates change or when the pre-approval is more than a few months old. If you were pre-approved earlier in 2026 and have not bought yet, do not assume the figure still stands. Ask your broker to re-test it before you bid at auction or sign a contract. Our pre-approval guide covers how long a pre-approval lasts and what causes a lender to revisit it.

For first home buyers, the 5% Deposit Scheme is unchanged by the rate decision: there are still no income caps and no limit on places, and the Adelaide price cap is $900,000. The rate rise affects how much you can borrow, not whether you qualify for the scheme.

Should you fix your rate now?

Fixed rates are priced off what the market expects the cash rate to do over the fixed term, not off today's cash rate. By the time the RBA moves, lenders have usually already moved their fixed rates. So the question is not "will rates go up again" but "is the certainty worth the price the lender is charging for it, for my situation".

Fixing suits people who need their repayment to be predictable for the next two or three years and would struggle with another rise. It suits less well if you plan to sell, refinance or make large extra repayments within the fixed term, because break costs can be significant. For many borrowers a split loan, with part fixed and part variable, caps the downside without giving up all the flexibility. Our fixed versus variable guide and the article on whether to fix now go through the trade-offs in detail.

We will not tell you where rates are heading, and we would be wary of anyone who does. In May the major banks' forecasts ranged from no more rises to two more. What actually happened was two holds and then a rise in September. The honest answer is to make a decision you can live with under more than one outcome.

Where the savings usually are

After four rises in a year, the gap between what lenders charge existing customers and what they offer new customers tends to widen. The quickest check is to compare your current variable rate with the rate your own lender is advertising to new borrowers for the same loan type. If there is a meaningful gap, a repricing request often closes most of it without refinancing at all, and that is the first thing we do for clients after every rate decision.

If your lender will not move, refinancing is the next step. Competition for refinancers remains strong, and our refinancing review compares your loan against 60+ lenders at no cost. If you have an offset account or redraw, the offset versus redraw examples show how to get more out of the money you already have against the loan.

Some borrowers find that higher assessment rates mean they no longer qualify to refinance, even though they have never missed a repayment. If that is you, read our page on what to do when you cannot refinance. There are lenders and approaches that work in that situation, and repricing with your current lender does not require a new serviceability test.

What happens next

The Monetary Policy Board meets twice more in 2026, with decisions due on 3 November and 8 December. The September statement said the Board would be "attentive to the data", which means the inflation and jobs figures released between now and then matter more than any commentary.