To send an ACH payment to someone, log into your bank’s website or app, open the external transfer or “send money” section, add the recipient using their nine-digit routing number, account number, and account type (checking or savings), enter the amount, authenticate the transfer, and submit. Most consumer banks charge nothing for this, and about 80% of ACH payments settle within one business day.1Nacha. The Significant Majority of ACH Payments Settle in One Business Day or Less The mechanics are simple. The details that trip people up are the recipient information, the cutoff times, and what happens if a digit is wrong.
What You Need From the Recipient
Every ACH payment needs four things:
- The recipient’s full legal name as it appears on the bank account
- The nine-digit ABA routing number for their bank
- Their account number
- Whether the account is checking or savings
The routing number identifies the financial institution and sits in the bottom-left of any check or inside the bank’s online dashboard.2American Bankers Association. ABA Routing Number: Find Your Number, and Search Database The account number is printed to the right of it on a check. If the recipient doesn’t have a paper check handy, ask them for a voided check or a direct deposit authorization letter from their bank. Most banking apps also show both numbers under an “account details” or “direct deposit” section.
Get the account type right. Checking and savings accounts follow different internal processing rules at the receiving bank, and picking the wrong one can bounce the payment back.
Check every digit twice before you submit. If you enter an incorrect routing or account number and the payment settles, your bank is generally not required to recover the funds. The Electronic Fund Transfer Act, implemented through Regulation E, carves sender errors out of many of its consumer protections.3Federal Reserve. Electronic Fund Transfer Act Recovering a misdirected payment means your bank has to contact the receiving bank and request a voluntary return, which can take weeks and isn’t guaranteed. Some banks charge $25 to $50 in administrative fees for the effort.
The Steps at Your Bank
When you push money to another person’s account, you’re initiating an ACH credit. That’s different from an ACH debit, where a company pulls money from your account to pay a bill. As the sender of a credit, you control the timing.
At most banks the process runs like this:
- Log into your bank’s app or website and open the section for external transfers. It’s usually labeled “Send Money,” “Transfer to Another Bank,” or “Pay a Person.”
- Add the recipient. Enter the routing number, account number, account type, and the recipient’s name. Some banks make you save the recipient as a payee before you can send.
- Enter the amount and pick a send date. You can usually schedule for today or a future date.
- Authenticate. Expect a one-time passcode by text or email, or a biometric prompt on mobile.
- Review the confirmation screen showing the amount, recipient, and estimated delivery date, then submit. Your bank generates a transaction reference number.
Save the confirmation email. If anything goes wrong weeks later, the reference number is the starting point for getting the bank to investigate.
When the Money Will Arrive
ACH doesn’t move in real time. Banks collect outgoing payments into batches and submit them to the Federal Reserve or a private clearinghouse at scheduled intervals. Standard ACH credits settle in one to two banking days, with two banking days the maximum under Nacha rules for anyone other than the U.S. Treasury.
If your bank offers Same Day ACH and you submit before the cutoff, funds can settle the same business day. The Federal Reserve runs three Same Day ACH windows:4Federal Reserve Financial Services. FedACH Processing Schedule
- Submission by 10:30 AM ET, settlement at 1:00 PM ET
- Submission by 2:45 PM ET, settlement at 5:00 PM ET
- Submission by 4:45 PM ET, settlement at 6:00 PM ET
Those are the deadlines for your bank to submit to the Federal Reserve, not the deadlines your bank gives you. Most banks set internal cutoffs an hour or more earlier to give themselves time to batch and transmit. If speed matters, look up your bank’s specific Same Day ACH cutoff rather than assuming you have until 4:45 PM.
How Much You Can Send and What It Costs
Two limits apply to any ACH payment: the network cap and your bank’s own limits.
At the network level, Same Day ACH is capped at $1,000,000 per individual payment.5Nacha. ACH Payments Fact Sheet That ceiling was raised from $100,000 in March 2022 and applies per item, not per batch.6Federal Reserve Financial Services. Same Day ACH Frequently Asked Questions Standard, non-same-day ACH credits don’t have a hard per-transaction network limit, but your bank will still impose one.
Bank limits vary widely. A standard consumer checking account might allow anywhere from $1,000 to $25,000 per day depending on the institution, your history, and your balance. Banks display these limits somewhere inside the transfer interface. If you need to move more than your daily cap, call your bank. Some will raise the limit temporarily after verifying your identity.
For personal accounts, most banks charge nothing for standard ACH transfers that settle in one to two business days. Same Day ACH may carry a small fee at some banks and be free at others. Compare that to a domestic wire transfer, which routinely runs $15 to $50 to send.
If You Sent It to the Wrong Place
When an ACH payment can’t be completed, the receiving bank sends it back with a return code. The ones you’re most likely to see:
- R01, insufficient funds
- R02, account closed
- R03, no account found (the classic typo)
- R04, invalid account number format
- R16, account frozen
Returned funds typically hit your account within a few business days. Your bank should notify you, but watch your balance after any transfer, especially the first one to a new recipient.
The worse scenario is entering a valid but wrong account number, meaning a real account that belongs to someone other than your intended recipient. The payment goes through, and getting it back depends on the goodwill of the receiving bank and account holder.
Cancelling Before It Settles
If you catch a mistake quickly, call your bank and ask them to cancel. Whether that works depends entirely on timing. Once your bank submits the batch to the clearinghouse, cancellation becomes much harder. Some banks let you cancel pending transfers directly in the app if the payment hasn’t been picked up for processing yet.
Reversing After It Settles
Once a payment has settled, the sender’s bank can initiate a reversal, but only for specific reasons: the payment was a duplicate, it went to the wrong account, the amount was incorrect, or the timing was off.7Nacha. End User Briefing: Reversals The reversal has to be sent within five banking days of the original settlement date.8Nacha. ACH Network Rules: Reversals and Enforcement After that window, your bank has to fall back on asking the receiving bank for a voluntary return.
Reversals aren’t a general “undo” button. Nacha rules prohibit reversals for reasons like running short on funds or simply changing your mind, and improper use can lead to penalties against the originating bank. That’s why banks are cautious about starting one.
Unauthorized Transfers Are a Different Problem
Regulation E gives you strong protections when someone else initiates a transfer from your account without your permission. Your liability depends on how fast you report:9Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. 12 CFR Part 1005 (Regulation E) – Liability of Consumer for Unauthorized Transfers
- Within 2 business days: capped at $50 or the unauthorized amount, whichever is less
- After 2 business days but within 60 days of your statement: up to $500
- After 60 days from your statement: unlimited liability for later transfers
Important boundary: these caps cover transfers you didn’t authorize. They don’t cover payments you sent yourself to the wrong account, and they don’t cover scams where you were tricked into pushing money to a fraudster. If you typed in the account number and hit send, Regulation E’s liability caps don’t apply, even if you were deceived. Check your bank statements regularly. The 60-day clock starts when the statement is sent, not when you open it.
When ACH Isn’t the Right Tool
For most person-to-person payments where same-hour delivery isn’t critical, ACH is the cheapest option. Two alternatives to know about:
Wire transfers settle the same day, often within hours, but they cost $15 to $50 domestically and are essentially final once sent. Banks generally state in their agreements that you can’t cancel or reverse a completed domestic wire.
Payment apps like Zelle, Venmo, and PayPal ride on the ACH network but hide the routing and account details behind a phone number or email. That’s faster to set up, but you give up the direct visibility of a bank-generated reference number. Fees vary by app and by whether you want an instant transfer.
International ACH is possible through a special format called an IAT, but not all banks offer it to consumers, and the data requirements are heavier.10Federal Reserve Financial Services. International ACH Transaction (IAT) Frequently Asked Questions If you’re paying someone abroad, ask your bank first or plan on using a wire or a dedicated international payment service.