Real-time payments are bank-to-bank transfers that settle in seconds, around the clock, every day of the year, including weekends and federal holidays. In the United States they move over two networks: the Federal Reserve’s FedNow Service and The Clearing House’s RTP network. Both now support transfers up to $10 million per transaction, both are final the moment they settle, and both are governed by a mix of federal consumer protection law, the Uniform Commercial Code for business transfers, and Treasury sanctions requirements that run invisibly behind every send.
How They Compare to ACH and Wire Transfers
If you’ve set up direct deposit or paid a bill through your bank’s website, you’ve used ACH. ACH is a batch system. Your bank collects outgoing instructions during the day and submits them in groups, and settlement runs one to three business days later. Nothing moves on weekends or federal holidays. Wire transfers are quicker but still typically settle within the same business day, cost $25 to $50 each, and shut down outside banking hours.
Real-time payments change nearly every dimension of that. Funds settle in seconds. The networks never close. Once a payment settles, it is final and cannot be reversed, which is similar to a wire and unlike ACH, where certain transactions can be pulled back. And the per-transaction cost sits well below wire territory. The main limit is geography: both FedNow and RTP currently handle only domestic U.S. transactions, though the Federal Reserve has proposed amending its rules in a way that could eventually open FedNow to cross-border payments through intermediary banks.1Federal Register. Collection of Checks and Other Items by Federal Reserve Banks and Funds Transfers Through the FedNow Service
The Two Networks That Carry Them
FedNow launched in July 2023 and is run by the Federal Reserve. Because it’s a central bank service, participating banks and credit unions settle directly through their existing Federal Reserve master accounts, and institutions of any size can sign up.2Federal Reserve. What Is the FedNow Service?
The RTP network is the private-sector option, operated by The Clearing House, which is owned by a consortium of large commercial banks.3The Clearing House. Owner Banks It went live in 2017 and was the first real-time payment platform in the U.S. market, and it now has over 1,130 participating financial institutions. Any federally insured depository institution can join.4The Clearing House. Real Time Payments Consumer-facing services such as Zelle can also route payments through RTP, so you may already be using these rails without realizing it.5The Clearing House. Zelle Over RTP Network
The networks run in parallel, and banks can participate in one, both, or neither. Whether you can send or receive a real-time payment depends on your bank’s enrollment, not on your account type.
What You Need to Send One
From the sender’s side, the information required is simple: the recipient’s nine-digit routing number and their bank account number. Some platforms let you use a verified phone number or email address linked to an account through a secure directory instead. You’ll usually find your own routing and account numbers in your mobile banking app, on your statements, or at the bottom of your checks.
When you enter the details, your bank performs a preliminary validation. If the numbers don’t match a valid account, the transaction can be rejected before it reaches clearing. That is the one safety net before finality takes over, so accuracy matters.6Federal Reserve Financial Services. What Is ISO 20022 and Why Does It Matter?
Transaction Limits
Both networks support transfers up to $10 million per transaction. FedNow raised its cap from $1 million to $10 million in November 2025, and individual banks are free to set lower caps based on their own risk tolerance.7Federal Reserve Financial Services. FedNow Service Will Raise Transaction Limit to $10 Million The RTP network also tops out at $10 million.4The Clearing House. Real Time Payments Your own ceiling will often be lower, set by your bank for your account.
Fees charged to you depend on your bank. The Federal Reserve charges participating banks $0.045 per outgoing FedNow credit transfer, with the monthly participation fee waived in 2026 and the first 2,500 credit transfers each month free.8Federal Reserve Financial Services. FedNow Service 2026 Fee Schedule Those are interbank fees. Some banks absorb them for customers; others pass them through.
Settlement Is Final: What That Means for You
The single most important thing to understand about a real-time payment is that it is irrevocable. Once the receiving bank accepts the funds, the sender cannot cancel, recall, or reverse the transaction. That is different from checks, which can bounce or be stopped, and from ACH, where certain transfers can be reversed inside defined windows. On RTP, settlement is final and the sending bank has no mechanism to pull the money back.9The Clearing House. Real Time Payments – Institution
Both sender and recipient get confirmation through their banking app, text, or email once settlement completes. Those notifications are the formal record. The speed is convenient. The finality is non-negotiable.
If Money Goes to the Wrong Account
Because real-time payments are irrevocable, typing the wrong account number creates a real problem. The RTP network does provide a standardized message that lets a sending bank request a return of funds from the receiving bank.9The Clearing House. Real Time Payments – Institution But it is a request, not a command. The receiving bank can forward it to its account holder, and if that person agrees, they can send the funds back. If they refuse, your bank has no power to force the reversal.
Your remaining option is to ask, and if that fails, to pursue the recipient in court. Triple-check routing and account numbers before you authorize any real-time transfer.
Protections for Unauthorized Transfers
If someone else gets into your account and sends a real-time payment without your permission, Regulation E, the federal rule implementing the Electronic Fund Transfer Act, caps how much you can be held liable for. The cap depends on how quickly you report the problem.10eCFR. 12 CFR Part 1005 – Electronic Fund Transfers (Regulation E)
- Report within two business days and your liability is capped at $50 or the amount of the unauthorized transfers before you notified the bank, whichever is less.
- Report after two business days but within 60 days of the statement showing the transfer, and liability rises to a maximum of $500, calculated based on what the bank can show would not have occurred if you had reported sooner.
- Fail to report within 60 days of your statement and you can be liable for the full amount of unauthorized transfers that occur after that 60-day window, if the bank can demonstrate timely notice would have prevented them.
The clock runs from when the bank sends the periodic statement reflecting the unauthorized transfer.11eCFR. 12 CFR 1005.6 – Liability of Consumer for Unauthorized Transfers Once you report, the bank has ten business days to investigate. It can take up to 45 days if it needs more time, but only if it provisionally credits your account within the initial ten-day window while the investigation continues.10eCFR. 12 CFR Part 1005 – Electronic Fund Transfers (Regulation E)
One useful clarification: the CFPB has said that when someone steals your credentials through phishing or hacking and uses them to send a payment, the transfer still counts as unauthorized, even if you were the one who inadvertently shared the credentials. A bank cannot use your negligence to push you past Regulation E’s liability caps.12Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Electronic Fund Transfers FAQs
The Scam Gap: Authorized Payments You’ll Regret
Those protections only cover unauthorized transfers. Under the Electronic Fund Transfer Act, an unauthorized transfer is one initiated by someone other than you, without your permission, from which you receive no benefit.13Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1693a – Definitions
If a scammer tricks you into sending a payment yourself, through a fake invoice, a romance scam, or someone impersonating your bank or a government agency, you authorized the transfer. The deception doesn’t change that legally. This is called authorized push payment fraud, and Regulation E’s liability caps do not apply.14Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. 12 CFR Part 1005 (Regulation E) – Section 1005.6 Liability of Consumer for Unauthorized Transfers Combined with the irrevocability of real-time settlement, the money is gone and you may have no legal right to recover it from your bank.
Congress has considered legislation that would treat fraudulently induced transfers the same as unauthorized ones, but no such law has passed. Neither the CFPB nor the FDIC has issued binding guidance requiring banks to reimburse victims of authorized fraud. Some banks reimburse certain scam losses voluntarily. They are not required to.
The practical rule follows from that: never send a real-time payment based on an unexpected request, even one that appears to come from your bank, an agency, or a company you recognize. Hang up, find the number yourself, and verify before authorizing anything.
Business Transfers Play by Different Rules
Regulation E’s consumer protections do not apply to commercial transfers. Business payments are governed by Article 4A of the Uniform Commercial Code, which most states have adopted. Article 4A takes a different approach, allocating risk through negotiated security procedures rather than statutory liability caps.
If a bank sends a business payment late, in the wrong amount, or not at all, damages are generally limited to interest on the delayed funds plus incidental expenses. Consequential damages, such as lost profits from a deal that collapsed because the payment didn’t arrive, are only recoverable if the bank agreed to that liability in an express written agreement.15Legal Information Institute. UCC 4A-305 – Liability for Late or Improper Execution or Failure to Execute Payment Order Almost no bank agrees to that voluntarily. A business counting on a real-time payment to close a time-sensitive deal should know that unless broader liability was bargained for in advance, the recovery ceiling is locked in place.
Request for Payment: Billing on the Same Rails
Both networks support a feature called Request for Payment, which flips the typical flow. A business sends a payment request to a customer’s bank, effectively a digital invoice, and the customer approves it with a tap. The customer’s bank presents the request, the customer authorizes it, and the payment settles instantly. FedNow charges $0.01 per Request for Payment message in 2026.8Federal Reserve Financial Services. FedNow Service 2026 Fee Schedule
Because both networks use the ISO 20022 messaging standard, structured remittance data such as an invoice number can travel inside both the request and the resulting payment. That lets businesses reconcile the two sides automatically rather than matching paper and spreadsheets after the fact.6Federal Reserve Financial Services. What Is ISO 20022 and Why Does It Matter? For a business handling thousands of invoices a month, that is where the real operational payoff shows up.