Your Bank Must Make $275 of a Check Deposit Available the Next Business Day. The Rest Turns on Six Exceptions.

When a bank tells a customer that a deposited check is on hold, the question underneath is which rule applies. Regulation CC, the Federal Reserve and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau rule implementing the Expedited Funds Availability Act, sets the outer limit. It is a floor on speed, not a schedule banks must follow: a bank is free to be faster, and many are.

What has to be available the next business day

Section 229.10 lists the categories. Cash deposited in person with a bank employee must be available the next business day; cash deposited any other way gets the second business day. Electronic payments — wire transfers and ACH credits — are available the business day after the bank receives them.

A set of low-risk checks also qualifies when deposited in person into the payee's account: U.S. Treasury checks, U.S. Postal Service money orders, and checks drawn on a Federal Reserve Bank or a Federal Home Loan Bank. State and local government checks and cashier's, certified or teller's checks qualify on the same in-person condition, and some require a special deposit slip. A check drawn on another branch of the same bank qualifies if both branches sit in the same state or check processing region. Deposited any way other than in person, these same items move to the second business day.

The $275 that is not tied to a category

Then there is the catch-all. Section 229.10(c)(1)(vii) requires next-day availability for the lesser of $275 or the aggregate of other checks deposited to the customer's accounts on a single banking day. This is the provision that applies to an ordinary personal or business check — the first $275 of it, regardless of what the bank does with the rest.

A second, separate amount governs cash withdrawals. Under section 229.12(d) a bank may delay a cash withdrawal by one business day, but must make $550 available for withdrawal by 5 p.m. on the business day the funds become available. The rule states that this is in addition to the $275.

The schedule for everything else

• Local checks, and the government and bank checks above that are local but not covered by the next-day rule: second business day.
• Nonlocal checks, and certain non-next-day Federal Reserve, Federal Home Loan Bank, state, local government, cashier's, certified or teller's checks: fifth business day.
• Deposits at a nonproprietary ATM — one the bank does not own or operate: no later than the fifth business day.

The six exceptions

Section 229.13 is where most real-world holds live. Each exception suspends the availability schedules rather than extending them by a fixed period.

• New accounts. An account is new for its first 30 calendar days. The first $6,725 of checks deposited on a banking day follows the standard schedule; anything above that must be available no later than the ninth business day. Cash and electronic payments still get next-day treatment.
• Large deposits. The schedules do not apply to check deposits exceeding $6,725 on one banking day.
• Redeposited checks. The schedules do not apply to a check that was returned and then redeposited, with exceptions for checks returned only for a missing endorsement or for being postdated.
• Repeated overdrafts. The schedules may be suspended for six months after the last overdraft if the account was negative on six or more banking days in the prior six months, or on two or more days by $6,725 or more.
• Reasonable cause to doubt collectibility. The bank must hold a well-grounded belief that the check is uncollectible, and the rule bars basing that belief only on the class of check or the class of depositor.
• Emergency conditions. Communications or equipment failures, another bank's suspension of payments, war or other emergencies beyond the bank's control, provided the bank acts with due diligence.

Why the numbers moved in 2025

The dollar amounts are not discretionary. Section 607(f) of the Expedited Funds Availability Act, added by the Dodd-Frank Act, requires the Board and the CFPB to adjust them every five years by the annual percentage increase in the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers, rounded to the nearest $25. The joint final rule, published May 20, 2024 at 89 FR 43737, measured July 2018 to July 2023, found CPI-W up 21.8%, and applied it.

Three consumer-facing figures changed: the minimum next-day amount from $225 to $275, the cash withdrawal amount from $450 to $550, and the new-account, large-deposit and repeated-overdraft threshold from $5,525 to $6,725. The civil liability figures in section 229.21 also rose — individual actions from a $100 to $125 minimum and a $1,100 to $1,350 maximum, and the class-action ceiling from $552,500 to $672,950. The agencies noted the liability minimum had not moved in the prior cycle because of rounding, so the new figure absorbs two five-year periods of inflation.

All of it took effect July 1, 2025. Under section 229.11 the next adjustment falls on July 1, 2030, and every fifth July thereafter.

This article summarises a federal regulation for general explanation. A specific hold is governed by the bank's own disclosed availability policy and the account agreement.