Mortgage Rate Spread Over the 10-Year Treasury: 1971–2026
The mortgage spread is the 30-year fixed mortgage rate minus the 10-year Treasury yield. It is the price a lender adds over the risk-free rate to cover credit risk, the borrower's option to refinance, and the cost of servicing the loan. When the spread is wide, mortgages are expensive for reasons that have nothing to do with the Federal Reserve.
This page publishes the weekly spread from 1971 to 2026. The annual average has ranged from 1.07 percentage points in 1975 to 3.11 in 1982. The latest weekly reading puts the spread at 2.26 percentage points (a 7.24% mortgage against a 4.98% 10-year on 2026-10-29).
Mortgage spread over the 10-year Treasury by year, 1971–2026
| Year | Annual average | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 (YTD, 43 of 52 weeks) | 1.99 pp | −0.31 pp |
| 2025 | 2.30 pp | −0.21 pp |
| 2024 | 2.51 pp | −0.34 pp |
| 2023 | 2.85 pp | +0.46 pp |
| 2022 | 2.39 pp | +0.88 pp |
| 2021 | 1.51 pp | −0.70 pp |
| 2020 | 2.21 pp | +0.41 pp |
| 2019 | 1.80 pp | +0.16 pp |
| 2018 | 1.64 pp | −0.02 pp |
| 2017 | 1.66 pp | −0.15 pp |
| 2016 | 1.81 pp | +0.10 pp |
| 2015 | 1.71 pp | +0.08 pp |
| 2014 | 1.63 pp | 0.00 pp |
| 2013 | 1.63 pp | −0.22 pp |
| 2012 | 1.85 pp | +0.18 pp |
| 2011 | 1.67 pp | +0.20 pp |
| 2010 | 1.47 pp | −0.29 pp |
| 2009 | 1.76 pp | −0.62 pp |
| 2008 | 2.38 pp | +0.68 pp |
| 2007 | 1.70 pp | +0.08 pp |
| 2006 | 1.62 pp | +0.04 pp |
| 2005 | 1.58 pp | +0.01 pp |
| 2004 | 1.57 pp | −0.25 pp |
| 2003 | 1.82 pp | −0.11 pp |
| 2002 | 1.93 pp | −0.01 pp |
| 2001 | 1.94 pp | −0.10 pp |
| 2000 | 2.04 pp | +0.26 pp |
| 1999 | 1.78 pp | +0.09 pp |
| 1998 | 1.69 pp | +0.45 pp |
| 1997 | 1.24 pp | −0.12 pp |
| 1996 | 1.36 pp | −0.02 pp |
| 1995 | 1.38 pp | +0.10 pp |
| 1994 | 1.28 pp | −0.17 pp |
| 1993 | 1.45 pp | +0.06 pp |
| 1992 | 1.39 pp | 0.00 pp |
| 1991 | 1.39 pp | −0.20 pp |
| 1990 | 1.59 pp | −0.25 pp |
| 1989 | 1.84 pp | +0.34 pp |
| 1988 | 1.50 pp | −0.33 pp |
| 1987 | 1.83 pp | −0.67 pp |
| 1986 | 2.50 pp | +0.69 pp |
| 1985 | 1.81 pp | +0.38 pp |
| 1984 | 1.43 pp | −0.68 pp |
| 1983 | 2.11 pp | −1.00 pp |
| 1982 | 3.11 pp | +0.34 pp |
| 1981 | 2.77 pp | +0.45 pp |
| 1980 | 2.32 pp | +0.56 pp |
| 1979 | 1.76 pp | +0.54 pp |
| 1978 | 1.22 pp | −0.20 pp |
| 1977 | 1.42 pp | +0.16 pp |
| 1976 | 1.26 pp | +0.19 pp |
| 1975 | 1.07 pp | −0.55 pp |
| 1974 | 1.62 pp | +0.42 pp |
| 1973 | 1.20 pp | +0.03 pp |
| 1972 | 1.17 pp | −0.18 pp |
| 1971 | 1.35 pp | — |
Why the spread moves
The spread is the lender's pricing, not the Fed's. The 10-year Treasury anchors the mortgage rate, but the gap between them is set by the private market. It widens when lenders price in more prepayment risk (volatile rates) or more credit risk (weakening borrowers), and narrows when the mortgage pipeline is efficient and competition is fierce.
The prepayment option is the largest component. A borrower can always refinance when rates fall, so the lender is short an option. That option is worth more when rates are volatile, which is why the spread tends to spike in the same episodes that move the curve sharply — the spread reached its widest annual reading in 1982, a year of rapid rate moves.
Why this matters for buyers. A wider spread is a tax on the borrower that no Fed cut removes. A buyer watching only the 10-year Treasury misses the part of the rate that a refinance timing decision actually trades on. Tracking the spread is how you tell “rates fell because the Treasury fell” from “rates fell because lending got cheaper” — only the second is a durable improvement in affordability.
Frequently asked questions
What is the mortgage rate spread today?
The 30-year fixed mortgage is 7.24% against a 4.98% 10-year Treasury on 2026-10-29, a spread of 2.26 percentage points. The 2026 average is 1.99 percentage points.
Why do mortgage rates run higher than Treasury yields?
A lender must cover three things a Treasury holder does not: the credit risk of the borrower, the borrower's option to refinance when rates fall, and the cost of servicing the loan. The 2026 average gap is 1.99 percentage points.
Does the Fed set mortgage rates?
No. The Fed sets short-term policy, and mortgage rates follow the long end of the Treasury market plus a private-market spread. A Fed cut can lower the 10-year, but the spread can widen at the same time and leave the mortgage rate little changed.
Source and method
All figures on this page are computed at build time from the 30-Year Fixed Rate Mortgage Average series (FRED identifier MORTGAGE30US) published by the Freddie Mac and distributed by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Annual figures are averages of the underlying observations; growth and inflation rates are year-over-year changes of those annual averages. Where a year is incomplete the figure is labelled YTD and the number of observations behind it is shown in the table.
Data through week ending 2026-10-29. Page rebuilt 2026-11-04. The snapshot used here is the series as published on the date above. Source agencies revise these series after first publication — benchmark revisions to GDP, seasonal-factor revisions to CPI, and the usual two monthly revisions to retail sales — so a figure here can differ from the latest vintage at the source without either being wrong. The link below always shows the current vintage. Raw series: FRED — 30-Year Fixed Rate Mortgage Average. Chart and table code licensed CC BY 4.0 — reuse freely with attribution to CapitalWire. Spotted an error? Tell us — we correct and date the change.
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CapitalWire. (2026). Mortgage Rate Spread Over the 10-Year Treasury: 1971–2026. Retrieved 2026-11-04, from https://infornkn.com/data/mortgage-spread/BibTeX
@misc{capitalwiremortgage_spread,
title = {Mortgage Rate Spread Over the 10-Year Treasury: 1971–2026},
author = {{CapitalWire}},
year = {2026},
note = {Data: Freddie Mac via FRED, series MORTGAGE30US},
url = {https://infornkn.com/data/mortgage-spread/}
}HTML link
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