If you suspect a relative owned U.S. savings bonds that were never cashed, or you know bonds were issued in your name but the paper certificates are gone, the way to find unclaimed savings bonds changed on September 30, 2025. The Treasury’s old TreasuryHunt lookup is closed, and searches now go through your state’s unclaimed property office via unclaimed.org. If you already know the bonds exist and just can’t locate them, you can skip the state route and file a claim directly with the Bureau of the Fiscal Service using FS Form 1048. Savings bonds never expire, so there is no deadline to claim them.
Start With Your State’s Unclaimed Property Office
TreasuryDirect now points anyone searching for lost bonds to unclaimed.org, the official site of the National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators (NAUPA). From there you pick a state and contact that state’s unclaimed property office.
The reason for the change is in the SECURE Act 2.0. The Treasury Department now shares the names and last-known addresses of bond owners, co-owners, and beneficiaries with state governments so the states can help reunite people with their bonds. States are prohibited from using that information to seize or escheat the bonds; the data is strictly for locating the rightful owner.
If you aren’t sure which state to contact, start with the state where the original purchaser lived when the bond was bought, or their last known address. NAUPA can offer general guidance through unclaimed.org if you get stuck.
What to Gather Before You Search or File
Having specific details dramatically improves your odds, whether you’re working through a state office or filing directly with the Treasury. The Social Security number of the original purchaser is the single most useful identifier. Beyond that, pull together whatever you can find:
- The full legal name of the original purchaser as it appeared on the bond
- State of residence at the time of purchase or the last known address
- Approximate issue dates, denominations, and bond series
- Names of any co-owners or beneficiaries listed on the bond
- Serial numbers if you have them
- A death certificate and proof of relationship if you’re claiming as an heir
Old filing cabinets, safe deposit boxes, and bank statements from the purchase era are worth checking. Even a bank ledger entry showing a purchase date and denomination gives the Treasury something to work with. If you have almost nothing, file anyway with whatever details you remember. Government staff will attempt a manual search using partial information.
The bond types most often sitting unredeemed are Series E, EE, I, and HH. Series E bonds were issued from 1941 through 1980 and reached final maturity 40 years after issuance, so the last of them stopped earning interest in 2020. Series EE and I bonds earn interest for 30 years from the issue date. Series HH bonds have a 20-year maturity. Paper denominations ranged from $10 up to $10,000 depending on the series and era.
Filing a Claim When You Know the Bonds Exist
If bonds were issued in your name or a family member’s name and the certificates are lost, stolen, or destroyed, you file FS Form 1048 with the Bureau of the Fiscal Service. The form is on the TreasuryDirect website. It asks for the bond series, approximate issue dates, denominations, serial numbers if known, and the registration details, meaning the owner, co-owner, or beneficiary names.
Don’t let missing information stop you. If you can’t remember serial numbers or exact issue dates, enter your best estimates. More detail speeds the search, but partial information is far better than no claim.
Getting Your Signature Certified
You cannot simply sign Form 1048 and mail it. A certifying officer must witness your signature and apply an official seal or stamp. Most people handle this at a bank or credit union where they already have an account, often as a free customer service, though policies vary.
If a bank isn’t convenient, several other officials are authorized:
- A notary public in the United States, if the specific form allows it, with the notary’s seal or stamp
- Commissioned or warrant officers of the U.S. Armed Forces, for military personnel, civilian field employees, and their families
- A judge or clerk of a U.S. court, using the court’s seal
- U.S. diplomatic or consular officials, for Americans living abroad, using the embassy or consulate seal
- Managers and officers at foreign branches of U.S. banks, using the institution’s seal or signature guarantee stamp
Where to Send It and How Long It Takes
Mail the completed form and any supporting documents to Treasury Retail Securities Services, P.O. Box 9150, Minneapolis, MN 55480-9150. Include a certified copy of the death certificate if the original owner has died, and legal proof of any name change since the bond was issued. Send everything together by certified mail so you have a tracking number.
Claims for lost, stolen, or missing bonds currently take at least six months to process. Complex cases run longer, especially when records are incomplete or multiple bonds are involved. The Bureau will contact you by mail if they need more information. Once a claim is approved, direct deposit is faster and more secure than a paper check if you supply your routing and account numbers.
Replace or Cash Out
On Form 1048 you choose between replacing the bond and cashing it. Replacements are issued electronically into a TreasuryDirect account; the Treasury no longer prints paper replacement certificates, so you’ll need to open a TreasuryDirect account before a replacement can be processed. If the bond hasn’t hit final maturity, the electronic version keeps earning on the original schedule. If the bond is already fully matured, cashing out is the obvious call because it is no longer earning anything.
Claiming Bonds From Someone Who Has Died
What happens to savings bonds after an owner’s death depends on how the bond was registered. If a living co-owner or beneficiary is named on the bond, that person claims it directly, and the bond is not part of the deceased’s estate. The survivor can cash it or have it reissued in their own name.
When no living person is named on the bond, the path depends on how much the deceased person’s total Treasury securities are worth.
Estates of $100,000 or Less
If the total redemption value of all the deceased person’s Treasury securities is $100,000 or less as of the date of death, you may be able to avoid formal probate. The Treasury allows a voluntary representative to handle the claim using FS Form 5336.
To qualify, all of the following must be true: no person named on the bond is still living, the estate has not been and will not be formally administered through a court, the estate has not been settled under state small-estate procedures, and the total Treasury securities are worth $100,000 or less at the date of death.
Federal regulations set the order of priority for who can serve as voluntary representative:
- Surviving spouse
- Child of the deceased, natural or adopted
- Descendant of a deceased child
- Parent of the deceased
- Brother or sister of the deceased
- Descendant of a deceased brother or sister
- Next of kin under the law of the state where the deceased lived
The voluntary representative must be at least 18 years old. They can ask for the bonds to be cashed, transferred, or distributed to the people entitled under the applicable state’s inheritance laws.
Estates Over $100,000
If the Treasury securities exceed $100,000 in total redemption value at the date of death, Form 5336 isn’t available. A court-appointed representative with letters of appointment, certified and dated within one year of submission, has to file the claim. In practice that means probate or whatever estate administration process the state requires.
Check the Value Before You Decide Anything
Before you spend time on a claim, or once you find paper bonds in a drawer, use the free savings bond calculator on TreasuryDirect to see what they’re worth. You pick the series, enter the denomination printed on the certificate, and type in the issue date. The calculator shows the total value with accumulated interest and flags whether the bond has reached final maturity.
This matters because bonds held past maturity lose purchasing power to inflation every year. A fully matured bond sitting in a drawer is doing nothing. A bond still inside its interest-earning window is a different decision.
Taxes When You Finally Redeem
When you cash a savings bond, the accumulated interest is subject to federal income tax. It is exempt from state and local income taxes, and from federal estate and gift taxes.
Most people defer reporting the interest until the year the bond is cashed or reaches final maturity, whichever comes first. In that year you receive a Form 1099-INT showing the total interest earned over the bond’s life. If you cash it at a bank, the 1099-INT comes shortly after redemption or by January 31 of the following year. For bonds held in TreasuryDirect, the form appears in your online account by January 31.
One thing catches people off guard. If you’ve held a bond for decades and cash it all at once, the entire lump sum of accumulated interest lands on your tax return in a single year. On a bond bought 30 years ago, that can be enough to push you into a higher bracket. There is no way to spread the income across earlier years unless you had already been reporting interest annually as it accrued.
You can report annually instead of deferring, but once you do, the choice applies to all savings bonds tied to that Social Security number on your return. Switching from annual reporting back to deferral requires filing IRS Form 3115.