Where to Cash Savings Bonds Without a Bank Account?

To cash savings bonds without a bank account, mail your paper bonds to the U.S. Treasury with FS Form 1522 and the Treasury will send you a paper check in return. If you would rather not mail them, you can try a local bank or credit union that redeems bonds for non-customers, but policies vary and many decline. Either route, have a valid government-issued photo ID, your Social Security number, and the physical bond certificates ready before you start.

What You Need in Hand First

Federal rules require proof of identity before any savings bond is paid out. Under 31 CFR Part 353, only the named owner, co-owner, or a legally authorized representative can receive payment.¹ Bring an unexpired driver’s license or U.S. passport, and make sure the name on it matches the name on the bond.

Your Social Security number is used to report the interest for federal income tax purposes, so you’ll need that too. And you need the physical certificates themselves. Paper bonds are surrendered when you cash them, meaning you hand them over permanently. Without the actual paper, a standard redemption can’t proceed. A separate process exists for lost or destroyed bonds, described at the end.

Mailing Your Bonds to the Treasury

When no bank will help, the reliable path is sending the bonds directly to the federal government. You’ll complete FS Form 1522, available on the TreasuryDirect website.² The form asks for the issue date and serial number of every bond you’re redeeming. If you have more bonds than the form fits, attach a separate list or use the supplemental FS Form 3500.³ Confirm your current mailing address on the form is correct, because the Treasury will mail your payment there.

Signature Certification Rules

If the total redemption value is more than $1,000, your signature must be certified before you mail the form. For $1,000 or less, no certification is needed. The form allows you to sign in front of a notary public or an authorized certifying officer.³

Authorized certifying officers include employees at banks, trust companies, credit unions, and organizations that are members of the Federal Home Loan Bank System. You don’t need to be a customer of that institution. You just need an officer there to verify your identity and stamp the form. Judges and clerks of U.S. courts, certain IRS officials, and commissioned officers of the Armed Forces can also certify, though military officers can only certify for service members, their families, and civilian employees at their installation.⁴ If a notary handles it, the form must carry the notary’s official seal or stamp.

Where to Send It

Send the completed FS Form 1522 and all bond certificates to:

Treasury Retail Securities Services
P.O. Box 9150
Minneapolis, MN 55480-9150³

Use certified or registered mail so you have a tracking number and proof of delivery. You’re sending valuable financial instruments through the postal system, and a paper trail protects you if anything goes missing.

How Long It Takes

The Treasury advises that mail-in redemptions take at least six weeks when the bonds are in your name. Requests involving bonds not in your name, such as bonds belonging to a deceased family member, take at least two months.⁵ Because there’s no bank account for direct deposit, the Bureau of the Fiscal Service will mail a Treasury check to the address on your form.

Trying a Bank or Credit Union as a Non-Customer

Some banks and credit unions will redeem savings bonds for people who aren’t customers. It isn’t guaranteed. Each institution sets its own policy, and many decline non-customer redemptions because of the fraud risk. Smaller community banks and credit unions tend to be more flexible than large national chains.

Branches that do offer it often cap the amount they’ll cash for a non-customer in a single visit, and they may want more than one form of ID. Call ahead. Confirm the branch handles savings bond redemptions for non-customers, and ask about dollar limits and any extra documentation. Checking several locations improves your odds.

Cashing the Treasury Check Without an Account

Once the Treasury check arrives, you still need to turn it into cash. A few options work without a bank account:

Retail check-cashing stores will cash government checks for a fee, typically a percentage of the check, generally around 1% to 4% depending on the company and location.
Large retailers cash government checks too. Walmart, for example, does so at its Money Center locations, and fees at major retailers tend to be lower than at dedicated check-cashing stores.⁶
Some bank branches will cash a Treasury check over the counter even for non-customers, since it’s drawn on the U.S. Treasury, but policies vary.

Fees eat into the interest your bonds earned. On a large redemption, that cost adds up. If your total is substantial, opening a basic no-fee checking account at a credit union just to deposit the check may leave you with more money in the end than paying a percentage to cash it.

The One-Year Holding Rule and Early Penalty

Before you go to the trouble of mailing anything, check the issue dates on your bonds. Both Series EE and Series I bonds must be held for at least one year before they can be cashed. A request submitted before that will be refused.²

If you cash a bond you’ve held for less than five years, you forfeit the last three months of interest. Redeem at 18 months and you receive 15 months of interest.⁷ After five years, no penalty applies.

Reporting the Interest at Tax Time

The interest on savings bonds is subject to federal income tax but exempt from state and local income tax.⁸ Most bondholders defer reporting until the bond is cashed or matures, which means you may owe tax on years of accumulated interest all at once in the year of redemption.

When you cash a bond that produces $10 or more in reportable interest, the entity processing the redemption issues a Form 1099-INT to you and the IRS.⁹ Include that interest as income on your federal return for the year you cashed the bond. If your bonds have been earning for many years, plan for the tax bill before you spend the proceeds.

If Your Paper Bonds Are Lost, Stolen, or Damaged

You can still recover value from bonds you no longer have. The Treasury handles these claims through FS Form 1048, and you can request either a replacement bond in a TreasuryDirect account or direct payment.¹⁰ If you know the serial numbers, fill out FS Form 1048, get your signature certified, and mail it in. If you don’t know the serial numbers and the bond was issued in 1974 or later, the Treasury Hunt tool on TreasuryDirect.gov can search for your bonds and generate a version of the form that lets the claim proceed without them. A separate version of FS Form 1048 exists for bonds issued before 1974 with unknown serial numbers.

Once a lost bond has been replaced or paid, the original certificate belongs to the U.S. government. If it turns up later, mail it to Treasury Retail Securities Services, P.O. Box 9150, Minneapolis, MN 55480-9150.¹⁰

1
eCFR. 31 CFR Part 353 – Regulations Governing Definitive United States Savings Bonds, Series EE and HH
2
TreasuryDirect. Cashing EE or I Savings Bonds
3
TreasuryDirect. FS Form 1522 Special Form of Request for Payment of United States Savings and Retirement Securities
4
eCFR. 31 CFR 353.55 – Individuals Authorized to Certify
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TreasuryDirect. Contact Us
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Walmart. Money Center
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TreasuryDirect. I Bonds
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TreasuryDirect. Tax Information for EE and I Bonds
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Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Forms 1099-INT and 1099-OID
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TreasuryDirect. Get Help for Lost, Stolen, or Destroyed EE or I Savings Bond