Federal check-hold rules treat a bank account as “new” for its first 30 calendar days, and during that window one provision lets a bank release only part of a large deposit on the ordinary schedule. Under 12 CFR 229.13, the slice above $6,725 deposited on any one banking day can wait until the ninth business day. The mechanics are permanent features of Regulation CC, and they matter most to anyone opening an account to park a large check.
What makes an account “new” under Regulation CC
The definition sits at the top of the exception. According to the text of section 229.13(a), an account is considered new “during the first 30 calendar days after the account is established.” The clock starts when the account is opened, not when the first deposit lands, and the label lapses on its own once those 30 days have passed.
There is a carve-out that matters for anyone switching banks within the same institution. An account is not treated as new if each customer on it has held another account at the same depositary bank for at least 30 calendar days, measured within the 30 days before the new account was established. A retiree who has banked with an institution for years and simply opens a second savings or checking account there is generally outside the exception. A first-time customer, or a joint owner who has never banked there, is not.
How the $6,725 line splits a deposit in two
The operative language is specific. A deposit in a new account is subject to the check-availability rules in section 229.10(c) “only with respect to the first $6,725 of funds deposited on any one banking day,” and “the amount of the deposit in excess of $6,725 shall be available for withdrawal not later than the ninth business day following the banking day on which funds are deposited.” Everything turns on the words “any one banking day”: the threshold is measured per day, so the same money split across several days is treated differently from one large deposit.
The arithmetic follows directly from the text. If checks covered by section 229.10(c), such as a cashier’s check or a certified check, total $10,000 on a single banking day, the first $6,725 gets the ordinary next-business-day treatment and the remaining $3,275 can be held until the ninth business day. The same section defines a business day as any calendar day other than a Saturday, Sunday or one of the listed federal holidays, according to the definitions in 12 CFR 229.2. Nine business days therefore stretch across nearly two calendar weeks, and longer when a holiday intervenes.
What a new account cannot delay
The exception has limits that the shorthand version of the rule tends to omit. Deposits of cash and electronic payments in a new account still fall under sections 229.10(a) and (b), which require the funds to be available on the business day after the banking day of deposit. Section 229.10(c) also sets a small dollar floor: the lesser of $275 or the total of other checks deposited that banking day is treated with next-business-day availability, and the protected check types include Treasury checks, U.S. Postal Service money orders, cashier’s, certified and teller’s checks, and checks drawn on the same bank, mostly when deposited in person, according to section 229.10.
The picture for ordinary personal checks is different. Section 229.13(a)(1)(iii) states that a new account “is not subject to the availability requirements” of the paragraphs that cover ordinary local and nonlocal checks, or of section 229.12 at all. The FDIC’s consumer compliance examination manual describes the practical result: next-day availability is still required for cash and electronic payments, while local check deposits to a new account “may face extended holds without regulatory time limits,” leaving the bank’s own written policy to govern. A reader who assumes the ninth business day is a ceiling on every held check would be reading more into the rule than it says.
Two other exceptions that use the same dollar figure
The number $6,725 recurs in Regulation CC, which is why the new-account exception is easy to confuse with its neighbors. The large-deposit exception in section 229.13(b) lets a bank apply longer holds to the portion of aggregate check deposits above $6,725 on any one banking day, and this applies to accounts of any age. The repeated-overdraft exception in section 229.13(d) allows delays for six months after the last overdraft if an account has shown six or more negative-balance days within the preceding six months, or two or more days with balances negative by $6,725 or more.
The rule also gives banks room to extend holds further when there is reasonable cause to doubt a check will be paid. The Federal Reserve’s regulation caps reasonable extensions at up to one business day for certain checks, five for specified categories and six for others, with longer periods requiring the bank to justify them. Notice rules apply to those other exceptions: the FDIC manual says a bank must give written notice with the account number, deposit date, delayed amount and reason whenever it invokes an exception, other than for new accounts.
Where the dollar amounts come from and when they change
The $6,725 figure is not a fixed number written into the statute. It is an inflation-adjusted threshold. The Federal Reserve Board and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau published the adjustment in the Federal Register on May 20, 2024, in a notice titled “Availability of Funds and Collection of Checks”. The notice raised the new-account and large-deposit amounts from $5,525 to $6,725 effective July 1, 2025, and lifted the next-business-day minimum from $225 to $275 and the cash-withdrawal amount from $450 to $550.
Federal Reserve Legal Division counsel Andrew Ruben and Ian C.B. Spear, an assistant director in the Division of Reserve Bank Operations and Payment Systems, are the named contacts on that notice. It sets the next scheduled adjustment for July 1, 2030, in line with the five-year inflation-adjustment cycle, so the ninth-business-day line at $6,725 stands until then unless the regulation is amended sooner.
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This article was produced with AI assistance and checked against the primary sources linked above.
Warren Cohen is a finance writer based in Phoenix, Arizona, covering personal finance topics including credit, banking, and beginner investing. He earned his degree in business administration from Arizona State University and began his career working in consumer finance, where he gained direct experience with lending and credit systems. He now writes for personal finance websites and fintech platforms, focusing on clear, practical content that helps readers make informed financial decisions.
