Plan to send your closing wire at least one full business day before your scheduled closing, and verify every digit of the wiring instructions by phone before you hit send. That’s the short answer to when to wire money for closing: early enough that Fedwire has time to move the funds during banking hours, and only after you’ve confirmed the account details through a channel other than email. Wire fraud targeting real estate closings cost victims over $173 million in 2024, so timing and verification matter equally.
How Far Ahead to Send the Wire
Most title companies and escrow officers recommend initiating your wire 24 to 48 hours before your closing appointment. Roughly half the states have “good funds” laws that prevent the title company from disbursing anything until your wire has fully cleared into their escrow account, and many title companies in other states follow the same practice as policy. If the money hasn’t landed and cleared by the time everyone sits down at the table, the closing stalls.
The Fedwire Funds Service, which handles nearly all domestic closing wires, opens at 9:00 PM Eastern the night before each business day and stops processing customer transfers at 6:45 PM Eastern.1Federal Reserve Bank Services. Wholesale Services Operating Hours Your bank’s internal cutoff is earlier. Many banks stop accepting outgoing wire requests between 2:00 and 5:00 PM to leave time for review and transmission before the Fedwire window closes. Miss your bank’s cutoff by five minutes and the transfer rolls to the next business day.
Weekends and federal holidays are dead zones. Fedwire does not process transfers on Saturdays, Sundays, or any day the Federal Reserve observes as a holiday.1Federal Reserve Bank Services. Wholesale Services Operating Hours A Monday closing means Friday afternoon is already tight, and a three-day holiday weekend can create a four-day gap when no wire moves at all. Count backward from your closing date on a real calendar and find the last business day with enough margin.
The consequences of late funds escalate fast. A seller may charge per-diem fees to cover their ongoing mortgage, tax, and insurance costs for each day of delay. If the delay stretches far enough, the seller can treat the missed closing as a breach of contract and walk away. Purchase agreements usually spell out what happens when the closing date is missed, and the buyer who caused the delay has very little leverage.
What’s on Your Wiring Instructions
Your escrow officer or title company will send you a formal wiring instructions document, usually a day or two before closing. Every digit on it matters. A typical sheet contains four pieces of information: the receiving bank’s name, its nine-digit ABA routing number, the title company’s escrow or trust account number, and a reference line with your escrow file number so the title company can match the incoming funds to your file.
The routing number and account number deserve the most attention. Under federal regulations governing Fedwire, banks are allowed to rely on the account number alone to direct funds, even if the name on the transfer doesn’t match.2eCFR. 12 CFR Part 210 – Collection of Checks and Other Items by Federal Reserve Banks and Funds Transfers Through the Fedwire Funds Service and the FedNow Service (Regulation J) Transpose two digits and your money lands in the wrong account, and the bank has no obligation to catch the mismatch. Read the numbers back to the teller or triple-check them character by character online.
Verify Instructions Before You Send a Dollar
Real estate wire fraud is one of the most financially devastating scams in operation. In 2024, the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center recorded $2.77 billion in losses from business email compromise schemes, many of which targeted real estate transactions.3FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center. 2024 IC3 Annual Report The playbook is almost always the same. A criminal compromises the email account of a real estate agent, title company employee, or lender, then sends the buyer altered wiring instructions that route the closing funds to an account the criminal controls. By the time anyone notices, the money is gone.
The red flags are subtle but consistent. Email addresses with slight misspellings of a legitimate domain. Last-minute changes to previously confirmed wiring instructions. Urgent language pressing you to send immediately. Vague or inconsistent formatting. Any request to change wiring details that arrives by email or voicemail should be treated as suspicious by default.
Your defense is simple but requires discipline:
- Verify by phone every time. Before sending a dollar, call your escrow officer or title company at a number you already had from earlier in the transaction, not a number included in the email with the instructions. Confirm the bank name, routing number, and account number verbally.
- Pick up instructions in person when you can. That eliminates the email vulnerability entirely.
- Ignore last-minute changes. Legitimate title companies don’t suddenly switch bank accounts days before closing. If you get new instructions by email, assume fraud until you verify through an independent channel.
- Confirm receipt immediately after sending. Call the title company at a known number and ask them to confirm the funds arrived, rather than waiting for them to contact you.
Why Verification Matters More Than Fixing It Later
Wire transfers lack the consumer protections that cover debit card transactions and most other electronic payments. The federal error-resolution rules that require your bank to investigate disputes and provisionally credit your account do not apply to wires. Once a wire leaves your account, the governing law shifts to a set of commercial banking rules that strongly favor finality.
Under the Uniform Commercial Code, which governs wire transfers in every state, a payment order generally cannot be canceled after the receiving bank has accepted it unless that bank agrees to the reversal.4Legal Information Institute (LII) at Cornell Law School. UCC 4A-211 – Cancellation and Amendment of Payment Order Before acceptance you can cancel if the bank gets your request in time to act on it. After acceptance you’re asking the receiving bank for a favor it has no legal obligation to grant. If the money has already been withdrawn from the fraudster’s account, there’s nothing left to reverse.
The law also places the risk of misdirected payments on the sender in most circumstances. If your bank followed commercially reasonable security procedures when processing your wire, any loss from an unauthorized or misdirected transfer falls on you, not the bank. That’s the opposite of how credit card fraud works, and it’s why verification before sending matters so much more than trying to fix things after.
If you do discover a misdirected wire, act within minutes. Contact your bank immediately and request a recall. The FBI’s Financial Fraud Kill Chain process can sometimes intercept funds before they’re moved, but the window is extremely narrow and recovery drops sharply once even a few hours pass.
How to Send the Wire
You have two options: visit your bank in person or use an online banking portal. For closing wires, an in-person visit is often the safer and more reliable choice. Many banks cap online wire transfers at $25,000 to $50,000 per day, and your closing costs will frequently exceed that threshold. Citibank, for example, limits standard online domestic wires to $50,000 per business day. If your closing requires more than your bank’s online limit, you’ll need to walk into a branch with a government-issued ID.
Expect the in-person process to take 30 to 60 minutes. The bank will have you fill out a wire authorization form with the details from your wiring instructions, verify your identity, and confirm the amount against your available balance. Some banks require a secondary verification step, such as a callback to a number on file, before releasing a large outgoing wire. Stay near your phone until you get confirmation that the wire has been submitted.
Domestic outgoing wire fees typically run $25 to $30, though some banks charge up to $40. A few online-focused banks and brokerages charge nothing. The fee is usually deducted separately, so factor it in when calculating your available balance.
When a Cashier’s Check Works Instead
Wire transfers are the default for real estate closings, but some title companies accept cashier’s checks, particularly for smaller amounts. A cashier’s check is drawn against the bank’s own funds rather than yours, which gives it more credibility than a personal check. The trade-off is speed: a cashier’s check can take one to two days to clear after deposit, compared to a wire that often clears within hours.
Title companies that accept cashier’s checks frequently cap them at $10,000 to $50,000. Above that threshold, they’ll require a wire. If you’re bringing a cashier’s check, confirm with your escrow officer in advance that they’ll accept it, what the maximum is, and whether it will delay your closing. In good-funds states, a cashier’s check that hasn’t cleared by closing day creates the same problem as a late wire.
Confirming the Funds Arrived
After the wire is sent, ask your bank for the Federal Reference Number, sometimes called the IMAD (Input Message Accountability Data) number. This alphanumeric code is assigned to every Fedwire transfer and serves as a unique tracking identifier. Give it to your escrow officer right away so they can monitor the incoming credit on their end rather than waiting for it to appear.
Most domestic closing wires arrive within a few hours, sometimes faster. But sent and received are not the same thing. Your bank may confirm the wire left your account while the receiving bank is still processing the credit. The only confirmation that matters is the one from your title company saying the funds have arrived and cleared in their escrow account. Until you hear that, stay available by phone in case either bank has questions.