Matured savings bonds

$34.9 billion in savings bonds has stopped earning and never been cashed. Here is what final maturity means and what to do with a matured bond.

• Treasury reported $34.9 billion in matured, unredeemed savings securities as of August 31, 2026 - savings bonds and notes that have stopped earning interest but have never been cashed (MSPD, Table III).
• That total has grown from $7.8 billion in January 2001 to $34.9 billion today.
• Matured savings bonds do not expire: they stop earning interest at final maturity but remain redeemable at full value (TreasuryDirect).
• Interest on a savings bond becomes reportable for federal income tax in the year it reaches final maturity or is cashed, whichever comes first (TreasuryDirect).
• The Treasury Hunt® search tool was retired on September 30, 2025 (TreasuryDirect); claims for lost or unredeemed bonds now go through Treasury's savings bond forms.

$34.9 billion and growing

Source: Monthly Statement of the Public Debt, Table III (Fiscal Data API), retrieved at build time.

Do savings bonds expire?

No - but they do stop growing. Every savings bond has a final maturity date (30 years for EE and I bonds, 20 for HH, 30–40 for the old Series E). After that date it earns nothing, no matter how long you hold it. The paper is still money: Treasury will redeem a matured bond at its full accumulated value with no deadline (TreasuryDirect: cashing old bonds). Which series have stopped earning entirely: A through K (including all Series E, last matured June 2010), all Savings Notes, and all Series HH (last matured August 2024). The only bonds still earning today are I bonds and EE bonds issued in the last 30 years (TreasuryDirect, TreasuryDirect).

What happens at final maturity

• Interest stops. The value freezes at final maturity.
• The tax clock does not. Deferred interest is reportable for federal income tax in the year the bond matures or is redeemed, whichever comes first (TreasuryDirect) - so a long-matured bond's interest was technically reportable in its maturity year even if it was never cashed.
• Electronic bonds are paid automatically when they stop earning; the matured-unredeemed problem is a paper-bond problem (TreasuryDirect).

Matured unredeemed savings securities, 2001–2026

Treasury publishes the matured-unredeemed total monthly in the Monthly Statement of the Public Debt. Download the full monthly series: matured-unredeemed-savings-bonds.csv

Savings securities outstanding, August 31, 2026 ($ millions)

Source: Monthly Statement of the Public Debt, Table III (Fiscal Data API). Series HH is reported by Treasury as a small negative amount in recent months; all HH bonds are matured.

Finding forgotten bonds: Treasury Hunt is gone

TreasuryDirect's Treasury Hunt® search tool - long the standard answer for "how do I find savings bonds in my name" - was retired as of September 30, 2025 (TreasuryDirect). The current official paths:

• Lost, stolen, or destroyed bonds: file a claim through TreasuryDirect's savings bond forms (FS Form 1048).
• Bonds you hold that may already be cashed: write to Treasury Retail Securities Services, P.O. Box 9150, Minneapolis, MN 55480-9150 with the serial numbers (TreasuryDirect).
• A deceased relative's bonds: see inherited savings bonds.

Treasury's own analysis of why $35B+ sits unredeemed - decades-old paper records, a paper redemption process - is in its 2021 Report on the Redemption of Savings Bonds (Executive Order 13968), which noted that only about one percent of all matured savings bonds have never been redeemed; the absolute total keeps growing anyway.

Ready to cash one? How to cash savings bonds · look up its value in the value tables · full claim walkthrough: unclaimed savings bonds · check any bond's status with the checker.

Frequently asked questions