If you discover you have an outdated check, don’t panic—you might still be able to get your money. Though you want to avoid letting a check go out of date, there are some important considerations for a check that has become outdated. We are an independent, advertising-supported comparison service. There are a few ways to determine if a check is stale, whether you got it or wrote it. Allow ample time for the check to reach the intended recipient, especially if you’re sending it by mail. However, dealing with physical checks poses a challenge – keeping track of their whereabouts.
Rejected after acceptance:
However, if you’ve ever found a check several months after it was issued, you may have wondered, “Do checks expire? ” It’s a good question to ask, and the answer will likely depend on the type of check. Stale-dated checks refer to expired checks or checks that banks and credit unions will no longer process. Stale checks are the result of the check expiry period passing, which is six months after the check issuance date. But there are several exceptions, and there’s no guarantee that banks will reject checks after that time.
Cashier’s checks
That means if you find a stale check made out to you, contact your bank and the check-issuing bank and find out their policies. If somebody fails to deposit or cash a check you wrote, they may have difficulty negotiating the check after six months. However, you still owe the money, and banks can choose to process the payment. So let’s say that as a business owner, you wrote a check to a vendor. Your checks provide instructions to the bank not to cash the check after 180 days.
Savings Accounts & CDs
If the vendor responds, you can move forward with a replacement check and voiding the outstanding check. If the vendor fails to respond, do not just void stale dated checks the check. Some cashier’s checks have no specific expiration date and should theoretically be valid for as long as the issuing bank is operating.
BankersOnline is a free service made possible by the generous support of our advertisers and sponsors. Advertisers and sponsors are not responsible for site content. Please help us keep BankersOnline FREE to all banking professionals. Support our advertisers and sponsors by clicking through to learn more about their products and services. If you try to cash a stale check or someone tries to deposit a stale-dated check that you’ve written, here are a few things to look out for.
- Checks become outdated mainly as a way to protect the account holder.
- Eventually, the person or business that the check is from might switch banks.
- As per the law, usually, the 6-month time frame for check clearance is applied to personal and business checks in the U.S.
- Still, it may take some work to retrieve money owed to you.
- No, you cannot deposit a stale check into your account because, by virtue of being stale, it is not eligible to be deposited.
- A “stale” check — one that hasn’t been cashed within six months of the original issue date — can cause you problems and cost you in bank fees.
- Making the call may be awkward, but accidentally slapping your grandma with a hefty overdraft fee is worse.
- State and local governments may set their own expiration dates, so if you lose the check or more than six months have gone by, it’s best to contact the agency that sent it to you.
- We do not endorse the third-party or guarantee the accuracy of this third-party information.
Ultimately, it may depend on the type of check involved, explained in detail below, and what the bank chooses to do. It may take some convincing, but it’s possible to have the bank settle the check for you, even after expiration. You should also keep diligent records of the attempts you made to contact the business owner. Businesses have so many checks flowing through them that depositing a check after this date may cause it to bounce. It could also cause problems with things like the balance sheet and cash flow statement. But figuring out what to do if a check resurfaces may seem confusing, especially if they resurface months, or even years, later—perhaps well after their expiration date.