Fixed Rates Rose Again This Week. Bank Rate Has Not Moved Since 17 September

Average fixed mortgage rates rose again this week. Bank Rate has not moved since 17 September, when the Monetary Policy Committee held it at 3.75% on a 6 to 3 vote, with three members preferring 4% (Bank of England, Monetary Policy Summary and minutes, 17 September 2026).

Rightmove's mortgage tracker, updated 25 September 2026, puts the average two year fixed rate at 5.49%, up 0.07 percentage points over the week, and the average five year fix at 5.47%, up 0.05. The cheapest deals moved further. The lowest two year fix rose 0.20 to 4.75% and the lowest five year fix rose 0.20 to 4.83%. Moneyfacts, in its weekly roundup of 24 September 2026, reported that many lenders had raised fixed residential rates for another consecutive week and put the movement down to swap rates.

Why pricing moved when Bank Rate did not

Bank Rate feeds fairly directly into variable and tracker borrowing. Fixed rates are priced off the cost of buying fixed term funding, and that cost reflects where the market thinks rates are going rather than where they are today.

The September minutes expect CPI inflation to rise to around 3.75% in Q4 2026 and slightly above 4% in Q1 2027, and say the risks to that outlook are tilted to the upside (Bank of England, 17 September 2026). A hold with three votes for an increase, sitting alongside an inflation path that keeps climbing, does not read to a funding market the way a quiet hold would.

What a fifth of a point in a week does to a live case

If you are already on a fixed rate, none of this reaches you until your product ends. It bites in the gap between application and completion, and the longer that gap runs the more it bites.

Cases run from overseas take longer. Certified identity documents and overseas income evidence take time to assemble, and pricing carries on moving while that happens. A 0.20 movement in the cheapest rates inside one week is why applications from abroad are worth starting earlier than feels necessary.

The term decision has quietly shifted

Buy to let borrowing is sized on the rent the property produces, not on the applicant's income. That holds for expat and non resident cases too, which catches out people who arrive braced for their foreign salary to be picked apart. The property carries the loan.

The rate used in that rental calculation depends on the product. Shorter fixes and variable products are tested against a stressed rate set above the pay rate. Five year fixes are generally tested at the rate actually being paid, so the term chosen changes how much rent the calculation demands.

That is why this week's averages deserve a second look. The average two year fix at 5.49% is now marginally above the average five year fix at 5.47%, so the shorter product is currently both the dearer one and the one tested against a higher rate.

None of which settles the question. Borrowing less now on a shorter rate, or putting in a larger deposit and refinancing in two years, works if rates fall. There is no certainty that they will, so it is a risky bet, and the cost of being wrong is a remortgage into a dearer market.

Maximum borrowing is in any case the lower of two limits, the loan to value cap applied to the valuation and what the rent supports. Which of the two binds varies case by case.

If you are weighing up a term choice, or have a case running from overseas while pricing moves, get in touch and we can go through where yours sits.

Sources

• Bank of England, Monetary Policy Summary and minutes, September 2026, published 17 September 2026
• Rightmove mortgage tracker, rate data updated 25 September 2026
• Moneyfacts weekly mortgage roundup, updated 24 September 2026