Matured savings bonds
$35.2 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 $35.2 billion in matured, unredeemed savings securities as of — 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 $35.2 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.
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
| As of | $ millions | |
|---|---|---|
| 7,126 | $7.1 billion | |
| 8,026 | $8.0 billion | |
| 9,233 | $9.2 billion | |
| 10,552 | $10.6 billion | |
| 13,289 | $13.3 billion | |
| 14,228 | $14.2 billion | |
| 15,255 | $15.3 billion | |
| 16,245 | $16.2 billion | |
| 16,636 | $16.6 billion | |
| 16,492 | $16.5 billion | |
| 16,232 | $16.2 billion | |
| 15,731 | $15.7 billion | |
| 16,100 | $16.1 billion | |
| 16,408 | $16.4 billion | |
| 17,204 | $17.2 billion | |
| 19,406 | $19.4 billion | |
| 23,504 | $23.5 billion | |
| 24,320 | $24.3 billion | |
| 25,470 | $25.5 billion | |
| 27,161 | $27.2 billion | |
| 29,450 | $29.5 billion | |
| 33,076 | $33.1 billion | |
| 39,240 | $39.2 billion | |
| 37,846 | $37.8 billion | |
| 36,667 | $36.7 billion | |
| 35,245 | $35.2 billion |
Savings securities outstanding, June 30, 2026 ($ millions)
| Category | $ millions |
|---|---|
| Series EE (unmatured) | 26,328.6 |
| Series I (unmatured) | 86,230.8 |
| Series HH | -2.7 |
| Total unmatured savings securities | 112,654.9 |
| Total matured, unredeemed | 35,245.3 |
| Total savings securities | 147,900.2 |
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 · check any bond's status with the checker.