A cashier’s check photographed through a banking app does not get the same availability treatment as one handed across a teller’s counter. Regulation CC lists the checks that a bank must make available by the next business day, and for four of those categories the text adds a condition: the check has to be deposited in person to an employee of the depositary bank. When it arrives any other way, the same regulation sets a later outer limit of the second business day.
Where 12 CFR 229.10(c)(1) puts the in-person condition
Section 229.10 of Regulation CC, issued by the Federal Reserve Board and codified at 12 CFR Part 229, is titled “Next-Day Availability.” Its paragraph (c)(1) opens with a flat command: a depositary bank must make funds available by the next business day after deposit for a defined list of items. The eCFR, which showed the section as current as of September 30, 2026 and last amended May 20, 2024, lists seven.
Four of them carry the phrase that matters here. A U.S. Postal Service money order, a check drawn on a Federal Reserve Bank or Federal Home Loan Bank, a check drawn by a state or local government, and a cashier’s, certified or teller’s check each qualify only if the deposit is, in the regulation’s words, “in person to an employee of the depositary bank.” Each of those items must also go into an account held by a payee of the item.
Two of the four add further conditions. The state or local government check must be deposited at a bank located in the state that issued it, and for both that category and the cashier’s, certified or teller’s check category the bank may require a special deposit slip or envelope, if it requires one at all.
Paragraph (c)(2): what the rule sets for a check that is not deposited in person
The regulation does not leave those four categories unaddressed when the in-person step is missing. Paragraph (c)(2) says a bank must make funds available “not later than the second business day after the banking day on which funds are deposited” for a check that meets the requirements of those four categories “except that it is not deposited in person to an employee of the depositary bank.”
That wording is why a phone deposit of a cashier’s check lands one business day behind a teller deposit of the same check. A mobile or remote deposit involves no employee of the bank at the moment of deposit, so it cannot satisfy the in-person condition. The text speaks of a deadline: the second business day is the latest date by which a bank must make the funds available, and nothing in (c)(2) prevents a bank from releasing them sooner under its own policy.
What the rule does not say about phone deposits
The popular shorthand, that federal law gives a bank an extra day whenever a check is deposited by phone, goes further than the text. Paragraph (c)(2) reaches only the four categories above. It is a ceiling on how long a bank may take for those items, and it is not a general grant of extra time on every remotely deposited check.
Other items on the next-day list carry no in-person condition at all. A check drawn on the Treasury of the United States qualifies under (c)(1)(i) when deposited in an account held by a payee of the check, and the paragraph says nothing about how it arrives. The same is true of the $275 provision in (c)(1)(vii), which covers “the lesser of $275, or the aggregate amount deposited on any one banking day to all accounts of the customer by check or checks not subject to next-day availability.” Its wording turns on the amount and the account, not on the channel.
The on-us category in (c)(1)(vi) has its own wording: a check “deposited in a branch of the depositary bank and drawn on the same or another branch of the same bank,” where both branches sit in the same state or the same check processing region. That is a branch condition, not an in-person-to-an-employee condition, and (c)(2) does not extend a second-business-day rule to it.
Ordinary checks sit under a different section
A personal or business check from another bank is not on the next-day list in the first place, so the in-person condition does nothing for it. Those deposits fall under the schedules in 12 CFR 229.12, the permanent availability schedule that the delayed categories fall back to. The nonproprietary ATM definition and its separate timing are treated in a companion article in this series and are not repeated here.
The practical split is therefore narrow and checkable against the text. For a postal money order, a cashier’s check, a certified check, a teller’s check, a Federal Reserve or Home Loan Bank check, or a state or local government check, the way the item reaches the bank decides whether the regulation’s ceiling is the next business day or the second. For a Treasury check, the next-day rule does not turn on the channel.
A bank’s own deposit agreement may be more generous than the floor, since the regulation sets the latest permitted date and not the earliest. The authority for every date above is the eCFR text of § 229.10(c)(1) and (c)(2), last amended May 20, 2024 and published as current on September 30, 2026.
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This article was written with AI assistance and verified line by line against the primary records linked in it.
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.
