How hold dates, fees and limits are worked out

Every page and every tool reads two data files. The first holds the federal rules: the Regulation CC amounts and the Bank Secrecy Act thresholds, read on eCFR on October 27, 2026. The second holds 233 facts on 35 banks, stores, money transmitters, apps and agencies, of which 161 are actual figures or published wording and the rest are marked “not published”, “varies by location” or “page not readable”, each with one of 92 source pages and the date it was read. No fee or limit is typed into a page by hand: when the file changes, every page and every tool follows. Automated tests check the hold engine against examples worked out by hand from the regulation and its official commentary.

1. Check hold dates (Regulation CC)

• Business days. A business day is a weekday other than the federal holidays listed in 12 CFR 229.2(g): New Year’s Day, Martin Luther King Jr.’s Birthday, Washington’s Birthday, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas. When January 1, July 4, November 11 or December 25 falls on a Sunday, the next Monday is not a business day; when one falls on a Saturday, the Friday before stays a business day. Juneteenth is not in the regulation’s list; because most banks close and their disclosures say “federal holidays”, the calculator skips June 19 by default and lets you turn that off.
• Day of deposit. A deposit made after the bank’s cutoff, or on a day that is not a business day, counts on the next business day. A bank may not set the cutoff earlier than 2:00 p.m. at a branch or 12:00 noon at an ATM or off-premises facility (§ 229.19(a)(5)). Funds due on a day must be available by 9:00 a.m. or the opening of business (§ 229.19(b)).
• Next-day items (§ 229.10): cash and electronic payments; US Treasury checks; postal money orders, cashier’s, certified and teller’s checks and state or local government checks deposited in person to an employee of the bank (by the second business day otherwise, which is how a mobile deposit is treated here, the regulation not naming it); checks drawn on the same bank; and $275 of other checks deposited that day.
• Other checks (§ 229.12): the second business day. Every check is now local, since the Federal Reserve has a single check processing office. A deposit at another bank’s ATM may wait until the fifth business day. For cash withdrawals, the bank may take one more business day, except $550, available by 5:00 p.m..
• Exceptions (§ 229.13): new accounts in their first 30 calendar days (next-day items protected up to $6,725, the excess by the 9th business day, ordinary checks with no federal deadline); large deposits over $6,725 a day (only the excess may be held longer); redeposited checks; repeated overdrafts; reasonable cause to doubt payment; emergencies. The extra time is the “reasonable period” of § 229.13(h)(4): one more business day for a check drawn on the same bank, five for other checks, six for nonlocal ones. A next-day item caught by an exception first moves to the second-business-day schedule. The worked example of the official commentary (a $7,000 cashier’s check: $6,725 next day, $275 later) is one of the tests.
• Amounts were adjusted for inflation on July 1, 2025 under § 229.11; the next adjustment is due on July 1, 2030.

The dates are the latest ones the regulation allows. A bank may release funds sooner, and many do; your deposit receipt or the bank’s availability policy shows its own schedule. Credit unions follow the same rule.

2. Money order fees and caps

Each seller’s fee, cap per money order and accepted payment come from its own page, or from the issuer’s page when the store’s site could not be read: the Kroger and Publix figures come from Western Union’s own pages about those stores and are labelled so. Where the published fee is a maximum (“$1 max” at Walmart) or a typical one (“or less” at Kroger), the tools show it as such. The number of money orders is the amount divided by the cap, rounded up; the Postal Service fee is applied to each slip on its own band ($2.65 up to $500, $3.75 up to $1,000). When a seller publishes no cap, the number of slips is not counted. Bank fees are those of each bank’s fee schedule for its standard account; many premium accounts waive them, as noted in each row.

3. Transfer, deposit and cash limits

Zelle limits come from each bank’s service agreement or Zelle help page, Venmo, Cash App and PayPal limits from their help centers and terms, and ATM and debit card limits from deposit agreements and fee schedules. Many banks show limits only inside their app: they appear as “not published”. The days needed for a sum assume you send the most allowed each day and respect any weekly or 30-day cap, counted on a rolling window. Cash reporting follows 31 CFR 1010.311 (more than $10,000 a business day) and 31 CFR 1010.415 (cash purchases of money orders or cashier’s checks from $3,000 to $10,000).

4. Pages that could not be read

Some providers block automated reading or show nothing to visitors outside the United States. For Citizens, Huntington, KeyBank, no official page could be read, so the tools show nothing for them instead of numbers from third-party articles. The CVS and Dollar General sites could not be read either. These gaps are re-tried at each monthly reading.

5. Keeping figures current

A script re-reads every provider page cited here once a month, compares the text with the previous reading and lists the pages that changed. It never changes a figure on its own: a person reads the changed page, updates the data file and its date of reading. Corrections sent to the contact address follow the same path; the editorial policy describes it.

Method last reviewed on October 27, 2026.