Banking Day, Business Day, and Cutoff Times: Regulation CC

Under Regulation CC, a business day and a banking day are not the same thing, and a deposit’s cutoff time decides which day the clock actually starts on. A business day is any weekday that isn’t on the regulation’s own list of holidays. A banking day is a business day on which your specific branch is open for substantially all of its normal functions. A cutoff time is the hour after which a deposit rolls to the next banking day. Getting any of the three wrong by a day is how people end up surprised by a hold that runs longer than they expected.

What Regulation CC Means by Business Day

A business day is any calendar day other than Saturday, Sunday, or one of the specific dates the regulation itself excludes. The list is fixed in the regulation text at 12 C.F.R. § 229.2(g), and it names each date individually rather than pointing generally to “federal holidays”:

January 1 (New Year’s Day)
Third Monday in January (Martin Luther King, Jr. Day)
Third Monday in February (Washington’s Birthday)
Last Monday in May (Memorial Day)
July 4 (Independence Day)
First Monday in September (Labor Day)
Second Monday in October (Columbus Day)
November 11 (Veterans Day)
Fourth Thursday in November (Thanksgiving Day)
December 25 (Christmas Day)

Because the list is closed, holidays that aren’t on it don’t count. Juneteenth National Independence Day became a federal holiday in 2021, but the regulation text has not been updated to add June 19. Under the literal language of § 229.2(g), June 19 is still a business day for Regulation CC purposes even if your bank closes its doors that day.¹

When January 1, July 4, November 11, or December 25 falls on a Sunday, the following Monday is treated as the observed holiday and is not a business day.¹ The regulation doesn’t address these dates falling on a Saturday, because Saturday is already carved out. So if Christmas lands on a Saturday and your employer observes it on Friday, that Friday is still a business day for Regulation CC.

What Makes a Day a Banking Day

A banking day is narrower. Under 12 C.F.R. § 229.2(f), it’s any business day on which a particular bank office is open to the public for carrying on substantially all of its banking functions.² Every banking day is a business day, but a business day is not always a banking day. If your branch closes on a Tuesday for staff training, Tuesday remains a business day under the regulation, but it is not a banking day at that branch.

The “substantially all” language is what does the work. A skeleton Saturday session where the only things you can do are pull cash from the ATM or reach a safe deposit box would not qualify. The branch has to be running the full range of activity it normally handles on a weekday. That’s why Saturday openings do not turn Saturday into a banking day: Saturday is excluded from the business-day definition in the first place, so it can never be a banking day no matter how many hours the branch is open.

The practical result is that a deposit handed to a teller on Saturday is legally received on Monday. If Monday is one of the listed holidays, receipt rolls to Tuesday.¹ The countdown to funds availability starts from that next banking day, not from the calendar day you actually made the deposit.

Cutoff Times and When a Deposit Counts as Received

Even on a banking day, a deposit only counts as received that day if you make it before the branch’s cutoff time. Section 229.19(a) sets floors, not ceilings:

For in-person deposits at a staffed branch, the cutoff can be set no earlier than 2:00 p.m.
For deposits at ATMs, contractual branches, or off-premise facilities, the cutoff can be set no earlier than 12:00 noon.

Banks are free to pick later cutoffs than these minimums, and they can pick different cutoffs for different channels. One bank might use 5:00 p.m. at the teller window and a much later time for mobile check deposits. Whatever times the bank picks, it has to apply them consistently and disclose them.³

The regulation’s cutoff provision names ATMs, contractual branches, and off-premise facilities. It doesn’t specifically call out mobile deposits or remote deposit capture. In practice, most banks treat mobile deposits as their own channel with a separately disclosed cutoff, and that disclosed time is what governs your deposit.

Miss the cutoff and your deposit is treated as received on the next banking day. That single rollover is where most of the surprises come from, especially near a weekend or one of the excluded dates.

How the Three Definitions Stack Around Weekends and Holidays

The three concepts work in sequence. First, is the calendar day a business day? If not, no deposit made that day can count as received. Second, if it is a business day, is your branch open for substantially all functions? If not, it isn’t a banking day at that office. Third, if it is a banking day, did you deposit before the cutoff? If not, receipt shifts to the next banking day.

Consider a check dropped at the teller window at 3:30 p.m. on a Friday, at a branch with a 2:00 p.m. teller cutoff, where the following Monday is Christmas Day. The Friday deposit is after cutoff, so it is treated as received the next banking day. Saturday and Sunday are not business days, so they are out. Monday is on the excluded list, so it is out too. Receipt lands on Tuesday. Any hold period the bank is allowed to apply counts business days from Tuesday, not from Friday. A two-business-day hold that would have released Wednesday if it started Monday now releases Thursday. That extra calendar time is entirely a product of how the three definitions interact.

The direction to check before making a time-sensitive deposit is straightforward: confirm the cutoff for the channel you’re using, then look at the next few calendar days for any weekend or listed holiday between the deposit and when you need the money.

Where These Definitions Stop Answering the Question

Two situations sit at the edge of the business-day and banking-day framework and are worth naming so you don’t assume the standard rules cover them.

Deposits made at a nonproprietary ATM (one owned by another bank or a third party) are subject to their own timing rule: funds do not have to be available until the fifth business day after the banking day of deposit, whether the deposit was cash or a check.⁴ The banking-day and cutoff definitions still determine when the clock starts, but the length of the wait is set separately from what a proprietary ATM or teller deposit would trigger.

Mobile deposits are not named in the cutoff-time floors. The cutoff that governs a mobile deposit is whatever the bank has disclosed for that channel, and that disclosure is where you should look before assuming a late-evening upload will be treated as same-day.

Beyond that, the definitions are the definitions. A day either meets § 229.2(g) or it doesn’t. A branch is either open for substantially all functions or it isn’t. A deposit either beats the disclosed cutoff or it rolls to the next banking day. The rest of Regulation CC — how long a hold can run once the clock starts, when a bank can extend a hold, what has to be disclosed to you — builds on top of these three definitions, but every hold period in the regulation begins by asking the same three questions.