How to Cash In War Bonds: Steps, Inheritance, and Taxes

To cash in war bonds, take them to a bank where you hold an account, or mail them to the U.S. Treasury with a completed FS Form 1522. The original war bonds were Series E savings bonds sold between 1941 and 1980, and every one of them has reached final maturity, meaning they no longer earn a penny of interest. Holding onto them costs you money in inflation and lost returns, so the practical answer is to redeem them.1TreasuryDirect. Timeline of U.S. Savings Bonds

Confirm What You Have and What It’s Worth

The series is printed on the face of every paper bond. If it says Series E, the bond has stopped earning interest: bonds issued before December 1965 earned interest for 40 years, and bonds issued after November 1965 earned interest for 30 years. Either way, the clock has run out on all of them.1TreasuryDirect. Timeline of U.S. Savings Bonds

Before heading to the bank, find out what each bond is currently worth. The Treasury’s free Savings Bond Calculator at TreasuryDirect.gov asks for three pieces of information from the face of the bond: the series, the denomination, and the issue date (month and year). It returns the current redemption value and the original purchase price. A serial number is not required.2TreasuryDirect. Calculate the Value of Your Paper Savings Bonds

Write the values down. You’ll want them for two reasons: to know what to expect from the teller, and to figure out how much taxable interest you’ll owe the IRS.

Cashing War Bonds at a Bank

Walking into a bank where you have an account is the fastest route. Not every branch handles savings bond redemptions, though, and many that do impose a dollar limit per visit.3TreasuryDirect. Cashing EE or I Savings Bonds Call ahead. Ask three things: whether they cash savings bonds at all, what their per-visit limit is, and what identification they require.

Bring the paper bonds, a valid government-issued photo ID (driver’s license, passport, or state ID), and your Social Security number.4TreasuryDirect. FS Form 1522 – Special Form of Request for Payment of United States Savings and Retirement Securities The teller will have you sign each bond on the back in their presence, and the proceeds usually deposit straight into your account.

If you have more bonds than the bank’s limit allows, you can either make multiple visits or mail the rest to the Treasury.

Mailing Bonds to the Treasury

When no local bank will help you, or when the pile exceeds bank limits, you can mail the bonds to the Treasury for redemption. Download FS Form 1522 from TreasuryDirect.gov and complete it. The signature requirement depends on how much you are redeeming:

Send the signed form and the bonds to Treasury Retail Securities Services, P.O. Box 9150, Minneapolis, MN 55480-9150.5TreasuryDirect. Contact Us The Treasury warns that mail-in redemptions take at least six weeks because of volume, and cases where you are not the named owner can stretch to two months or longer.6TreasuryDirect. TreasuryDirect Home

When the Name on the Bond Doesn’t Match Yours

Old bonds often carry a name that no longer matches the current owner because of a marriage or divorce. For a straightforward name change, the fix is simple. At the bank, sign both the name printed on the bond and your current legal name, with a brief note explaining the change. Something like: “Mary Smith, now Mary Jones (name changed due to marriage).”7TreasuryDirect. Changing Information About EE or I Savings Bonds (Reissuing) You don’t need to produce a marriage certificate.

Genuine errors are treated differently. If the first or last name printed on the bond is entirely wrong, or belongs to someone else, the bond has to be formally reissued before it can be cashed. That requires FS Form 4000 and a trip through the Treasury by mail.

Cashing War Bonds Left by a Deceased Owner

Old savings bonds often surface after a parent or grandparent has died. How they get redeemed depends on how the bond was registered and whether the estate is going through probate.

If the bond names a surviving co-owner, that person is treated as the sole owner and can cash it normally on proof of the other owner’s death. If the bond names a beneficiary and the original owner has died, the beneficiary becomes the full owner once a certified death certificate is presented.8eCFR. 31 CFR Part 315 Subpart L – Deceased Owner, Coowner or Beneficiary

Bonds registered solely in the deceased person’s name belong to the estate. When the estate is being handled by a court, the executor or administrator requests payment by presenting letters of appointment (Letters Testamentary or Letters of Administration) dated no more than one year before the redemption request.8eCFR. 31 CFR Part 315 Subpart L – Deceased Owner, Coowner or Beneficiary

When no court is involved and the deceased’s total Treasury securities are worth $100,000 or less, a close family member (blood relative, legally adopted child, or surviving spouse) can act as a voluntary representative by completing FS Form 5336, signed in front of a certifying official.9TreasuryDirect. FS Form 5336 – Disposition of Treasury Securities Belonging to a Decedent’s Estate Being Settled Without Administration Above $100,000, or if no close family member is available, formal probate is required.

Lost, Stolen, or Destroyed War Bonds

A missing paper bond does not mean the money is gone. The Treasury keeps records and can replace lost, stolen, or destroyed bonds, though the replacement will be an electronic bond in a TreasuryDirect account rather than a new paper certificate.

Start with FS Form 1048. If you know the serial number, use the standard version. If you don’t and the bond was issued before 1974, there’s a separate version of FS Form 1048 for that situation. Complete the form, get your signature notarized, and mail it to the Treasury.10TreasuryDirect. Get Help for Lost, Stolen, or Destroyed EE or I Savings Bond

For bonds issued in 1974 or later where the serial numbers are unknown, the Treasury previously ran a search tool called Treasury Hunt. That tool was discontinued in September 2025 under the SECURE Act 2.0.11TreasuryDirect. Treasury Hunt For post-1974 bonds without serial numbers, contact the Treasury directly for current guidance.

Search requests take at least seven months to process.6TreasuryDirect. TreasuryDirect Home If the original bond turns up after a replacement has been issued, you must return it to Treasury Retail Securities Services.

Taxes on the Interest

When a savings bond is cashed, the interest earned over its lifetime is taxable as ordinary income on your federal return in the year of redemption. The original purchase price is not taxed. Only the growth is.12Internal Revenue Service. Savings Bonds 1 For a $25 war bond now worth $85, the $60 in accumulated interest is what you owe federal tax on.

Cashing a stack of decades-old bonds all at once can produce a surprisingly large tax hit, because you are reporting decades of deferred interest in a single year. If the total interest across all bonds you redeem exceeds $1,500, you must complete Schedule B and attach it to your Form 1040.

Your 1099-INT comes from whoever processes the redemption. If a bank cashes the bond, the bank issues the form either at the transaction or by January 31 of the following year.13TreasuryDirect. 1099 Tax Statements for Paper Savings Bonds and TreasuryDirect

One meaningful piece of good news: savings bond interest is exempt from state and local income tax.14Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 31 USC 3124 – Exemption From Taxation If your state has an income tax, make sure the bond interest is subtracted when your state return is prepared. This is easy to miss and leads to paying more than you owe.

Taxes When You Inherited the Bonds

When ownership changed because the original owner died, the tax picture splits. The deceased owner’s final return is responsible for interest that accrued up to the point the bond was reissued or transferred. The new owner owes federal tax only on interest earned after that point.15TreasuryDirect. Tax Information for EE and I Bonds

The 1099-INT you receive when you cash the bond will show the entire lifetime of interest under your name and Social Security number. If part of that interest was already reported on the deceased owner’s final return, you’ll need to document that to the IRS to avoid being taxed twice. Keep copies of the deceased owner’s final return and any 1099s that were filed with it.

A Note on Newer EE and I Bonds in the Same Stack

The rules above cover the war-era Series E bonds people typically find in a drawer or safe deposit box. If your pile also includes newer Series EE or I bonds, two timing rules apply that don’t affect the older bonds. An EE or I bond cannot be cashed at all during its first 12 months. Bonds issued before February 2003 had a shorter six-month lockout.16eCFR. 31 CFR Part 351 Subpart B – Maturities, Redemption Values, and Investment Yields of Series EE Savings Bonds – Section 351.6 And if an EE or I bond is cashed before the five-year mark, the last three months of interest are forfeited.17TreasuryDirect. I Bonds After five years, no penalty applies. Series EE and I bonds keep earning interest for 30 years from their issue date, so unlike a war bond, one still inside its earning window is worth continuing to hold.