The Justice Department has been reviewing the rules for several years and has not publicly signaled how it might change them. Mr. Holder disclosed his plans in a meeting on Wednesday with Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York, according to an official briefed on the meeting who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the conversation was private.

Mr. de Blasio was elected in November after running a campaign in which he heavily criticized the Police Department’s stop-and-frisk tactic, which overwhelmingly targets minorities and which a federal judge declared unconstitutional. The mayor and attorney general did not discuss when the rule change would be announced, the official said.

A senior Democratic congressional aide, however, said the Obama administration had indicated an announcement was “imminent.”

The Justice Department would not confirm the new rules on Wednesday night but released a short statement saying that the mayor and the attorney general discussed “preventing crime while protecting civil rights and civil liberties.”

In the past, Mr. Holder has spoken out forcefully against profiling. “Racial profiling is wrong,” he said in a 2010 speech. “It can leave a lasting scar on communities and individuals. And it is, quite simply, bad policing — whatever city, whatever state.”

Officials in the Bush administration made similar statements, however, which is why civil rights groups have eagerly waited to hear not just Mr. Holder’s opinion, but also the rules he plans to enact.

As written, the Justice Department’s rules prohibit federal agents from using race as a factor in their investigations unless there is specific, credible information that makes race relevant to a case.