FDIC insurance covers money you deposit at a member bank — checking accounts, savings accounts, money market deposit accounts, certificates of deposit, and a handful of official bank-issued items — up to $250,000 per depositor, per insured bank, for each ownership category. It does not cover investments, insurance products, or crypto, even when you buy them through your bank. The dividing line is simple in principle: if it’s a deposit at an FDIC-insured bank, it’s protected; if it’s anything else, it isn’t.
Deposit Accounts That Are Covered
The FDIC insures the following deposit products at member banks:1FDIC.gov. Understanding Deposit Insurance
- Checking accounts, including negotiable order of withdrawal (NOW) accounts
- Savings accounts, both standard and high-yield
- Money market deposit accounts (MMDAs)
- Certificates of deposit (CDs), including brokered CDs when pass-through requirements are met
- Cashier’s checks, money orders, and other official items issued by the bank, if the bank fails before they’re cashed
Coverage includes both principal and accrued interest through the date a bank fails.2FDIC.gov. Deposit Insurance FAQs That matters more than people realize. If you hold a $248,000 CD and it has earned $4,000 in interest, your insured balance is counted as $252,000, and $2,000 of it is uninsured. Interest sits inside the limit, not on top of it.
Deposits held in a foreign currency at a U.S. insured bank are also covered. If the bank fails, the FDIC converts the balance to U.S. dollars using the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s exchange rate on the failure date, and that converted amount is what the standard rules apply to.3eCFR. 12 CFR Part 330 – Deposit Insurance Coverage
What FDIC Insurance Does Not Cover
The FDIC only insures deposits. Products sold through a bank’s investment or insurance arms are not covered, even when you bought them at the same branch where you keep your checking account. Excluded items include:4Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Financial Products That Are Not Insured by the FDIC
- Stocks, bonds, and mutual funds, including municipal securities and exchange-traded funds
- Crypto assets, whether held at a bank or through a third-party platform
- Annuities and life insurance policies, which are underwritten by insurance companies
- U.S. Treasury bills, bonds, and notes, which carry their own backing from the full faith and credit of the U.S. government but are not FDIC-insured
- Safe deposit box contents; the FDIC insures deposits of money, not physical property
Money market mutual funds deserve a separate warning because of the name overlap. A money market deposit account at a bank is insured. A money market mutual fund, even one offered through the same bank, is not. The word “money market” alone tells you nothing about coverage; you have to know which product you actually bought.
How the $250,000 Limit Works
The standard insurance amount is $250,000 per depositor, per FDIC-insured bank, for each ownership category.1FDIC.gov. Understanding Deposit Insurance That phrase does a lot of work, and understanding it is the difference between knowing your money is safe and only hoping it is.
Within a single ownership category at one bank, all your balances are added together. A $150,000 checking account and a $120,000 savings account held in your name alone at the same bank are treated as $270,000 in one bucket, with $20,000 uninsured. Opening the second account at a different branch does not change this; branches of the same bank are the same institution for insurance purposes.
Different ownership categories at the same bank are insured separately. The main categories are:
- Single (individual) accounts. Accounts owned by one person with no beneficiaries. Sole proprietorship business accounts fall into this category and are added to the owner’s personal accounts.5eCFR. 12 CFR 330.6 – Single Ownership Accounts
- Joint accounts. Each co-owner’s share of qualifying joint accounts at one bank is insured up to $250,000, so a two-owner joint account can carry up to $500,000 of coverage. To qualify, all co-owners must be real people with equal withdrawal rights.6eCFR. 12 CFR 330.9 – Joint Ownership Accounts
- Certain retirement accounts. Traditional IRAs, Roth IRAs, SEP IRAs, and SIMPLE IRAs held in deposit products get their own $250,000 limit, combined across all qualifying retirement accounts at one bank. Naming beneficiaries on an IRA does not raise the limit.7FDIC.gov. Certain Retirement Accounts
- Revocable trust accounts. Payable-on-death, in-trust-for, and living trust accounts are insured up to $250,000 per owner, per beneficiary, per bank. Coverage caps at $1,250,000 per owner once there are five or more beneficiaries.8FDIC.gov. Trust Accounts (12 CFR 330.10)
- Irrevocable trust accounts. Each owner or beneficiary gets up to $250,000, separate from their other accounts at the same bank, provided the bank’s records document the fiduciary relationship.9FDIC.gov. Accounts Held by IDI as Trustee of Irrevocable Trust
- Business accounts. Corporations, partnerships, and LLCs engaged in independent business activity receive $250,000 per bank, separate from the personal accounts of owners or partners. Multiple accounts for the same entity at one bank are combined.10eCFR. 12 CFR 330.11 – Accounts of a Corporation, Partnership or Unincorporated Association
- Employee benefit plan accounts. Deposits held by 401(k)s, pensions, and profit-sharing plans are insured on a pass-through basis up to $250,000 for each participant’s non-contingent interest. Only the deposit portion is covered; mutual fund and stock holdings inside the plan are not.11FDIC.gov. Employee Benefit Plan Accounts
Deposits at different FDIC-insured banks are insured separately. Holding the same type of account at two insured banks gives you $250,000 of coverage at each.
Custodial Accounts for Minors
Accounts opened under the Uniform Transfers to Minors Act or Uniform Gifts to Minors Act belong to the child, not the custodian, for insurance purposes. The money is treated as the minor’s single-ownership funds and is insured up to $250,000 separately from the custodian’s personal accounts at the same bank.12FDIC.gov. Financial Institution Employees Guide to Deposit Insurance – Single Accounts If the child also has individual deposits in their own name at the same bank, those are combined with the custodial account.
Fintech Apps and the Pass-Through Catch
An app that holds your money, pays interest, or lets you send payments is not itself FDIC-insured. The FDIC has stated this directly: nonbank companies are never FDIC-insured, and funds you send them are not eligible for deposit insurance until the company actually places them in an FDIC-insured bank and specific record-keeping conditions are met.13FDIC.gov. Banking With Third-Party Apps
Pass-through coverage depends on the fintech or its partner maintaining accurate records showing who owns which dollars. If those records fail when a partner bank fails, your money may not be insured. Before trusting an app with real money, identify the specific insured bank that will hold your funds and read the terms carefully. The 2024 collapse of Synapse Financial Technologies left some depositors locked out of their funds for months when the middleware between customers and the actual banks lost track of balances.
How to Verify Your Bank Is Insured
Not every institution that takes deposits is FDIC-insured. The FDIC runs a free lookup tool called BankFind at banks.data.fdic.gov, where you can search by bank name or location to confirm membership. Insured banks are required to display the official FDIC sign at teller windows and on their websites. For fintech apps and neobanks, don’t trust the marketing; look up the named partner bank in BankFind yourself.
Credit Unions Are Covered Separately
If you bank at a credit union, FDIC insurance does not apply to you. Federally insured credit unions are protected instead by the National Credit Union Share Insurance Fund, administered by the National Credit Union Administration. The structure mirrors FDIC coverage: $250,000 per member, per credit union, for each ownership category, with the same breakdowns for individual, joint, retirement, and trust accounts.14National Credit Union Administration. Share Insurance Coverage The protection is functionally the same; the agency behind it is different.