FS Form 5394: Claiming a Decedent’s Bonds, Signatures, and Tax

FS Form 5394 is the Treasury form you file to claim a deceased person’s savings bonds and other Treasury securities when they didn’t pass automatically to a surviving co-owner or named beneficiary. It works in only two situations: the estate went through probate and has been closed, or the estate is being settled under a state small-estate procedure with no court-appointed representative. Filed correctly, it either cashes the securities out by direct deposit or reissues them into a new owner’s TreasuryDirect account.¹

Do You Actually Need This Form

Many inherited bonds never touch Form 5394. If the bond names a surviving co-owner or beneficiary, it passes directly to that person and never becomes part of the estate, and a simpler process handles it.²

Form 5394 covers securities that belong to the estate, and only in these two circumstances:¹

A court appointed a representative, that person finished their duties, and the court discharged them and closed the estate.
The estate is being settled under a state law that doesn’t require a court-appointed representative, such as a small estate affidavit or summary administration.

If neither fits, a different form applies. For non-administered estates where the total redemption value of Treasury securities is $100,000 or less and no representative has been appointed, use FS Form 5336 instead.³ For open estates where a court-appointed representative is still serving, follow the Treasury’s instructions for court-appointed representatives.⁴ Choosing the wrong form is one of the most common reasons claims stall.

What Form 5394 Covers

The form applies to a wide range of Treasury securities, not just savings bonds. It covers Treasury Bills, Notes, Bonds, TIPS, Floating Rate Notes, Savings Notes, and all series of savings bonds including EE, I, E, H, and HH.¹ If the deceased held several kinds, a single Form 5394 can cover all of them.

Documents to Gather Before You Start

Assembling paperwork before you touch the form prevents most of the back-and-forth that drags claims out for months. You need three things: the bond details, proof of death, and proof of entitlement.

Bond Details

For each security, you need the serial number, issue date, face amount, and the exact registration showing how the owner’s name appeared.¹ Paper bonds carry this information on the certificate itself. If the bonds are missing, see the section below on lost bonds.

Proof of Death

Submit a certified copy of the death certificate for every deceased person named on the registration, bearing an official seal from the issuing authority.¹ Order extra certified copies when you request them, because the Treasury does not return the copies after processing.

Proof of Entitlement

Which document you need depends on how the estate was handled. For a closed estate, submit a certified copy of the final account or the court’s decree of distribution, under court seal.¹ For a small estate or summary administration, submit whatever document your state’s law provides to validate your authority (typically a small estate affidavit or court order) in accordance with that state’s requirements.⁴

Filling Out the Form

The form has four parts, and getting them right the first time is the single biggest factor in how quickly your claim moves.

Part A: Decedent’s Information

Enter the full name, Social Security Number, and state of legal residence of the last deceased owner named on the securities. If more than one person on a bond has died, this section refers to the one who died most recently.¹

Part B: Circumstances of Request

Check the box that matches your situation, either an administered and closed estate or settlement under a state statute. Your choice has to match the legal documents you’re submitting. If you check “closed estate” but attach a small estate affidavit, the Treasury will reject the claim.

Part C: Persons Entitled

List every person or entity entitled to receive the securities or payment, exactly as the court documents describe them, along with each recipient’s basis of entitlement. Recipients named in a will are “legatees.” Family members inheriting under state law when there was no will are “heirs.”⁵ Names and designations must match your court documents.

Part D: Disposition of Securities

This is where you tell the Treasury what to do with each bond. Use a separate Part D entry for each different registration or type of distribution. The options depend on the series:¹

Older paper series (A through K, E, F, G, H, HH): payment by direct deposit. Series HH can also be reissued in paper form with a single owner, co-owner, or beneficiary.
Series EE and I bonds, paper or electronic: payment by direct deposit, or reissue or transfer to a TreasuryDirect account.

One detail catches people out. The Treasury no longer reissues Series EE bonds in paper form; since February 2014, any reissue has to go into a TreasuryDirect account as an electronic bond, or the bond is cashed out.⁶ The recipient must have an active TreasuryDirect account before the claim is processed.⁷ If you plan to request reissue, set that account up at TreasuryDirect.gov before you mail the form.

Getting Your Signature Certified

After you complete the form, you sign it in front of an authorized certifying officer. This is where a lot of claims get sent back. A regular notary public generally cannot certify Form 5394. The Treasury only allows notaries when a specific form’s instructions say so.⁸

The easiest option for most people is a bank, credit union, or savings and loan. Any officer at a bank or trust company incorporated in the United States is authorized to certify.⁹ Designated employees expressly authorized by their institution can also certify and sign over the title “Designated Employee.” The officer verifies your identity, then signs with their name, title, and the institution’s official seal or stamp.

Other authorized certifying officers include judges and clerks of U.S. courts, commissioned military officers (for service members and their families), and U.S. diplomatic or consular representatives abroad.⁹ If you’re overseas and can’t reach an American consulate or a foreign branch of a U.S. bank, a foreign notary can certify your signature, but a U.S. diplomatic or consular officer must then attest that certification under seal.

Where to Mail It

Send the completed form, the unsigned physical bonds if you have them, and all certified supporting documents to:¹⁰

Treasury Retail Securities Services
P.O. Box 9150
Minneapolis, MN 55480-9150

Use registered or insured mail. The Treasury recommends registered mail for bond certificates, and that advice matters even more when you’re also enclosing certified death certificates and court documents.¹¹ Keep photocopies of everything. Originals like death certificates are not returned once a claim is processed.

Processing times vary with the type of security and the complexity of the estate. Simple claims with complete documentation move faster. If you haven’t heard anything after a few months, calling Treasury Retail Securities Services is reasonable.

If the Bonds Are Lost or Missing

Finding out a relative owned bonds you can’t locate is common, and it’s a separate problem from Form 5394. To search for bonds, the old Treasury Hunt tool was taken offline on September 30, 2025, under the SECURE Act 2.0, and inquiries now go through state unclaimed property programs.¹² Start at unclaimed.org (run by the National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators) and check the state where the purchaser lived at the time of purchase. You may need the purchaser’s full legal name, state of residence, a death certificate, and proof of your relationship.

To claim bonds when you have the details but not the paper certificates, file FS Form 1048, the Treasury’s form for lost, stolen, or destroyed bonds.¹³ Include a certified death certificate for any deceased registrant. If a court has appointed you as legal representative, include a certified copy of your letters of appointment, under court seal, dated within one year of submission. If no representative has been appointed, contact the Bureau of the Fiscal Service for instructions. When you don’t know the serial numbers, attach FS Form 3500 with whatever identifying information you have.

Tax on What You Receive

Inherited savings bonds raise two tax questions: income tax on the accrued interest and, in rare cases, estate tax.

Savings bond interest is treated as income in respect of a decedent, so someone owes federal income tax on the interest that built up during the deceased owner’s lifetime. Who pays depends on what happens next. If the bonds are cashed as part of settling the estate, the estate reports the interest. An estate with $600 or more in gross income for a tax year must file Form 1041.¹⁴ If the bonds are reissued instead, the Treasury issues a Form 1099-INT in the deceased person’s name and Social Security Number for all interest earned up to the reissue date, and the new owner owes tax only on interest earned after that.¹⁵

Paper bonds have a wrinkle. When a paper bond is eventually cashed, the 1099-INT covers all interest the bond ever earned, issued under the name and Social Security Number of whoever cashed it.¹⁵ If some of that interest was already reported on the deceased person’s final return or the estate’s return, you’ll need to show the IRS that a portion belongs to someone else. IRS Publication 550 explains how to make that adjustment.

For federal estate tax, the 2026 exemption is $15,000,000.¹⁶ Bonds won’t trigger federal estate tax unless the total estate exceeds that. Some states set much lower thresholds for their own estate or inheritance taxes, so check state rules if the estate is large.

1
TreasuryDirect. Agreement and Request for Disposition of a Decedent’s Treasury Securities
2
TreasuryDirect. Death of a Savings Bond Owner
3
TreasuryDirect. Non-Administered Estates – Savings Bonds
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TreasuryDirect. Court-Appointed Representatives
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eCFR. 26 CFR 1.642(h)-3 – Meaning of Beneficiaries Succeeding to the Property of the Estate or Trust
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eCFR. 31 CFR 353.48 – Restrictions on Reissue
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TreasuryDirect. Changing Information About EE or I Savings Bonds (Reissuing)
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TreasuryDirect. Signature Certification
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eCFR. 31 CFR 315.55 – Individuals Authorized to Certify
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TreasuryDirect. Contact Us
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TreasuryDirect. Dealing With Old Paper Treasury Marketable Securities
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TreasuryDirect. Treasury Hunt
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TreasuryDirect. Claim for Lost, Stolen, or Destroyed United States Savings Bonds
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Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 1041 and Schedules A, B, G, J, and K-1
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TreasuryDirect. Tax Information for EE and I Bonds
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Internal Revenue Service. What’s New — Estate and Gift Tax