Quantitative tightening (QT) is the Federal Reserve shrinking its balance sheet by letting the Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities it holds mature without buying replacements. Quantitative easing (QE) is the reverse: the Fed buys bonds with newly created reserves to push long-term rates down when cutting the policy rate is not enough.
Changes to QE or QT are normally announced with an FOMC rate decision. The next decision is due , with new economic projections and a press conference. The dates, decisions and statements are on the FOMC page.
QE takes duration out of the market. When the Fed holds more long bonds, private investors hold fewer, so they accept lower yields and the term premium falls. QT hands that duration back: more Treasuries have to find private buyers, which tends to lift the term premium and steepen the curve. QT also drains bank reserves, and when reserves get scarce, overnight rates such as SOFR start to drift up against the Fed's own rates.
The Fed does not usually sell bonds outright. It sets monthly caps on how much maturing debt it lets roll off, and reinvests anything above the cap. Changes to the caps, or a decision to stop, are announced with the FOMC statement, so balance sheet policy moves on rate decision days.
The Fed ran QE after the 2008 crisis and again from March 2020. Its first round of QT ran from October 2017 to August 2019, and in September 2019, weeks after it ended, repo rates spiked, a sign reserves had become scarce. The second round began in June 2022, and the Fed ended it on December 1, 2025.
