FOMC 2026: Which Meetings Come With a Dot Plot — the October Meeting Does Not

If you want to know whether a given FOMC meeting will produce a dot plot, the Federal Reserve calendar answers it with a single character. **Meetings that come with projections carry an asterisk.** The footnote under the 2026 list says exactly this: **"* Meeting associated with a Summary of Economic Projections."**^[1]

**On the 2026 calendar, October 27-28 has no asterisk. December 8-9 does.** So a question like "what will the dots show at the October meeting" has no answer — **there are no dots at that meeting.** The next set after September comes in December.^[1]

**The asterisked meetings in 2026 that this page confirmed on the calendar are March 17-18, June 16-17 and December 8-9.** **This page did not verify every row of the year**; it read the October and December entries and the footnote, plus the earlier asterisked dates visible in the same list.^[1]

The calendar does not use the phrase "dot plot" anywhere. The link on each asterisked row is labeled **"Projection Materials"**, and the footnote calls the document a **"Summary of Economic Projections"**. **The dot plot is one chart inside that document, not the document itself.**^[1]

This matters when searching. **A query built around "dot plot" will not match the Fed's own page**, which is where the release schedule actually lives. **This page does not judge which term is more correct** — it records that the official page uses one and most coverage uses the other.^[1]

**An unasterisked meeting is not a quiet one.** Each 2026 row on the calendar links to a Statement, an Implementation Note, a Press Conference and, later, Minutes. **Only the projection materials are limited to asterisked meetings.**^[1]

**The minutes arrive after a gap.** The calendar shows release dates in parentheses next to each Minutes link — for the January 27-28 meeting it reads **"(Released February 18, 2026)"**, and for March 17-18, **"(Released April 08, 2026)"**. **Roughly three weeks, though this page did not check whether that interval holds for every meeting.**^[1]

**As of 2026-09-23, the October 27-28 and December 8-9 meetings have not yet taken place.** The calendar lists them as scheduled dates. **Whether they occur as listed, and what they produce, is not something this page can confirm in advance.**^[1]

**This page rests on a single source: the Federal Reserve's own calendar page.** There is no second, independent institution backing these dates here. **Not checked:** the exact release time of day, whether any 2026 meeting was added or moved after the calendar was published, and the separate schedules of the BLS or BEA (**bls.gov returned HTTP 403 to this page and could not be read**).^[1]