What savings accounts are paying now
These are the national averages the FDIC publishes across every insured institution in the country — not an offer, and not the best rate available. They are the benchmark: if your own account pays less than the figure above, you are being paid below the national average by a bank that is counting on you not checking.
Why the national average is so far below the best rates
The average is dragged down by the largest branch banks, which hold an enormous share of the country's deposits and pay close to nothing on them. Because the figure is weighted by how much money sits in each account type, those balances dominate it.
Online banks and credit unions, with no branch network to fund, routinely pay several times the national average on an ordinary instant-access account. That gap is the single most actionable thing on this page: moving cash from a branch savings account paying near zero to a competitive online one changes nothing about your risk — deposits are insured to the same limit either way — and can multiply the interest you earn many times over.
The mechanics, the limits and what to watch for are covered in our guides to high-yield savings accounts, money market accounts and CD rates. To see what a rate change is actually worth on your own balance, use the savings calculator.
Mortgage and Treasury rates
The Freddie Mac survey is the weekly national average for a borrower with strong credit and a conventional loan — a benchmark, not a quote. The 10-year Treasury sits alongside it because mortgage rates track that yield far more closely than they track the Fed's policy rate, which is why mortgages can move in a week the Fed does nothing at all.
For the weekly detail, the spread and the 52-week range, see mortgage rates today.
Tax thresholds and contribution limits
These change once a year, when the IRS publishes its inflation adjustments. For 2026:
- Standard deduction: $16,100 single, $32,200 married filing jointly, $24,150 head of household.
- Top federal band: 37%, starting at $640,600 of taxable income for a single filer.
- IRA contribution limit: $7,500, or $8,600 from age 50.
Every band for all four filing statuses is on the 2026 tax brackets page, and the income tax calculator applies them to your own income.
How often each of these changes
Knowing the cadence tells you how much weight to put on a move:
- FDIC deposit averages — monthly. They move slowly, because they are averaged across thousands of institutions.
- Freddie Mac mortgage survey — weekly, published Thursdays. A single week's move is noise; the direction over a quarter is the signal.
- Treasury yields — continuously, while markets are open. This is the only figure here that can change while you read the page.
- IRS thresholds — once a year, announced in the autumn for the following tax year.
It also explains why the figures here will not always match a rate you see advertised elsewhere on the same day. A national average published a fortnight ago is not wrong because one bank changed its offer this morning — it is measuring something different, and slower, on purpose. The advertised rate tells you what one institution wants your money badly enough to pay; the average tells you what the market as a whole is doing, which is the only fair yardstick for judging your own account.
Where a figure has a deeper page behind it, that page is the better read: the income tax calculator applies the thresholds above to your actual income, and banking collects the account guides in one place.
Anything on this page that our feed cannot source simply does not appear. We would rather show you a shorter page than a number we cannot stand behind.
Questions people ask
Is the national average the rate I can get?
No — it is the benchmark, not an offer. It averages every insured institution including the large branch banks paying close to nothing, so competitive online accounts typically pay well above it. Use it to judge whether your own bank is treating you fairly.
Where do these figures come from?
Deposit averages from the FDIC's national rates publication, mortgage averages from the Freddie Mac primary mortgage market survey via FRED, Treasury yields from live market data, and tax thresholds from the IRS Revenue Procedure. Each carries the date it was published.
Why does my bank pay so much less than this?
Large branch banks fund their networks partly out of the interest they do not pay on deposits. Since the national average is weighted by balances, and most balances sit at those banks, the average itself is pulled down — while online banks with no branches pay several times as much.
How current is this page?
Each figure shows its own as-of date, because they refresh on different schedules — deposits monthly, mortgages weekly, Treasuries continuously, tax thresholds annually. A rate here without a date beside it would be an assertion rather than a report, so it is never rendered that way.