Mortgage rates and the 10-year Treasury
By Samprit Biswas, editor · Updated October 8, 2026
Mortgage rates, here the weekly average prime offer rate (APOR) for a 30-year fixed loan, and the 10-year Treasury yield, what the U.S. government pays to borrow for ten years, tend to rise and fall together. They are not the same rate, and they do not move by the same amount.
Why they move together
Most U.S. mortgages are pooled into securities sold to investors, who weigh them against Treasury bonds. When Treasury yields rise, investors want more from mortgages too, and lenders' rates follow.
Why the gap between them moves
The gap, or spread, is not fixed. It widens when investors expect more homeowners to refinance early, when markets are unsettled, or when lenders are busy, and narrows when those ease. So a mortgage rate can fall less than the Treasury yield, or even rise while it falls.
How closely each loan follows
For each loan we measured how much of each weekly move in the yield its APOR followed, the pass-through, and how much of APOR's moves the yield explains, R squared, from zero to one.
| Loan | Pass-through | R squared | Weeks |
|---|---|---|---|
| 30-year fixed | 0.861 | 0.792 | 182 |
| 15-year fixed | 0.925 | 0.654 | 182 |
| 5/6 adjustable-rate | 0.064 | 0.027 | 182 |
Published rates. · FFIEC, week of Oct 5, 2026 · U.S. Treasury, Oct 7, 2026
Sources and licences
Average prime offer rates published by the FFIEC for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau; a U.S. government work in the public domain.
10-year par yield from the U.S. Department of the Treasury's daily par yield curve rates.
Why the adjustable rate follows least
An adjustable rate is priced off shorter-term rates, so the 10-year yield explains little of its moves. Our estimate for it moves mostly once a week, with APOR, and we call it our least certain.
How we use it
Between APOR's weekly updates, our estimate moves with each day's Treasury yield, by each loan's pass-through. How a mortgage rate is set draws the steps.
See the 30-year beside the Treasury
How to cite this page
InfinityRateWatch. "Mortgage rates and the 10-year Treasury." https://infinityratewatch.com/learn/mortgage-rates-and-the-treasury/. Data as of Oct 8, 2026.