SNB Holds Rate at 0% as Franc Stays Strong, Inflation Low

The Swiss National Bank kept its policy rate at 0% on September 24, 2026, marking at least its third straight quarterly hold this year. The Swiss National Bank held rates at 0% as low inflation and a strong franc enable it to diverge from other central banks, though markets expect hikes ahead, according to CNBC's coverage of the decision.

What the SNB decided and why

Speaking after the announcement, SNB Chairman Martin Schlegel said policymakers had decided to keep rates unchanged based on the inflation picture. Asked whether the bank was watching other central banks raise rates, Schlegel said: "We make monetary policy for Switzerland." On the franc, which has been a persistent source of pressure on Swiss exporters and import prices, he indicated the bank's approach has shifted: "This means we are in a different situation, but we still have the willingness to intervene in the FX market if necessary." Bloomberg's coverage of the same meeting reported that the Swiss National Bank dialed down its threat of intervention to weaken the franc and raised inflation forecasts while keeping interest rates unchanged.

At the press conference, Vice Chairman Antoine Martin addressed the inflation outlook directly. FXStreet reported he was addressing the press conference following the September monetary policy assessment, in which the central bank held interest rates unchanged at 0%, and cautioned that price pressures could persist. That comment sits alongside, rather than against, the bank's broader message that inflation remains low: Switzerland's inflation has been running near the bottom of the SNB's comfort zone for months, and the September update reflects a forecast that price growth edges up from very low levels rather than a warning of a sudden inflation spike.

The franc's role in the decision

The Swiss franc's strength has been the other half of the SNB's calculus all year. As investors sought protection from widespread market volatility in 2025, the Swiss franc rose more than 12% against the dollar. That followed a longer run of appreciation: in a separate CNBC report from January 2026, the franc was described as trading near an 11-year high, with one source cited telling CNBC that "greater political sensitivity around FX interventions further constrains the SNB's room for maneuver, sharpening the trade-off between price stability and growth." A stronger franc makes imported goods and commodities cheaper in Swiss-franc terms, which is one reason Swiss inflation has stayed low even as some other economies faced firmer price pressure.

Key figures

How this fits the year's pattern

The September hold was not a surprise to economists who track the bank. The Swiss National Bank will keep its policy rate on hold on March 19 and through 2026, according to nearly all economists polled by Reuters, as the central bank deals with opposing inflation risks, Reuters reported back in March, correctly anticipating that the SNB would stay at zero rather than follow the tightening moves the seed summary attributes to other central banks. The SNB's own June forecast reinforced that expectation: the bank's economists put average annual inflation at 0.6% for 2026, 0.6% for 2027 and 0.7% for 2028, and that projection was explicitly built on the assumption that the policy rate stays at zero for the entire forecast horizon, according to the bank's own June 18 press release. By September, Bloomberg's reporting indicates the inflation forecast had been revised upward again, even as the rate itself did not move, showing a central bank adjusting its read on prices without yet adjusting the tool it uses to influence them.

What remains unverified from the sources reviewed is the exact size of that September inflation-forecast revision, when it might translate into a rate move, and which other central banks' tightening cycles the SNB is being compared against. Those specifics were not detailed in the reporting examined here, and readers should treat any near-term hike as a market expectation rather than an SNB commitment: Schlegel's comments framed policy as set for domestic conditions, not to track peers.