Treasury says it screened more than 1.1 billion federal payments worth about $3.7 trillion in fiscal 2026, and that its bank-account verification became fully operational on Sept. 30, 2026. The figures come from an Oct. 6 Treasury press release on the fraud-prevention work ordered by President Trump in March 2025. Treasury says about 13,500 payments worth $175 million that would have gone to deceased people were identified and returned.
Account verification is the part that reaches ordinary payees. Treasury describes it as a check that the bank account receiving a federal payment belongs to the intended payee, along with a check that the taxpayer identification number tied to the payment is present and properly formatted. A payment that fails can be caught and returned before the money goes out, which means anyone paid by direct deposit should know that the name on the account matters.
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What account verification checks
Treasury’s press release, issued with the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, says the department piloted account verification in fiscal 2026. The test confirms that the account receiving a payment belongs to the person it is meant for. It also looks at whether the taxpayer identification number tied to the payment is there and in the right format.
The release says payments that fail those checks can be identified and returned before funds go out. It gives no count of payments stopped by account verification alone. The numbers it does give cover the larger screening program, and they are the ones in the headline.
The screening numbers Treasury reported
Treasury says about 99 percent of federal programs now have access to its Do Not Pay system, up from about 4 percent at the end of fiscal 2025. It says the system screened more than 2.3 billion records against its data sources, nearly four times the 641 million screened in 2025. The department added nine new datasets.
The payments themselves are the larger totals. Treasury says it screened more than 1.1 billion federal payments, totaling about $3.7 trillion. About 13,500 of them, totaling $175 million, would have gone to deceased individuals and were returned instead. That is roughly $13,000 a payment on average, which is a simple division of Treasury’s two figures, not a number the release states.
Secretary Scott Bessent said Treasury is “moving beyond ‘pay and chase’ and making prevention the federal government’s first line of defense.” Pay and chase refers to sending a payment first and trying to recover it afterward.
The timing helps place the numbers. Treasury’s fiscal year ends Sept. 30, so the totals in the Oct. 6 release cover the year that had just closed, and the account verification capabilities became fully operational on the last day of it. The jump from about 4 percent to about 99 percent of programs with Do Not Pay access happened inside that one year.
Treasury’s release is a progress report from the department, not an audit. The figures are Treasury’s own, and the release does not include figures from the agencies that sent the payments or from an outside reviewer.
The executive order behind it
The release points to Executive Order 14249, “Protecting America’s Bank Account Against Fraud, Waste, and Abuse,” signed March 25, 2025 and published in the Federal Register three days later. The order tells Treasury to consider requiring that a payment’s account number is held at a financial institution and is open and valid, and that it belongs to the payee or a valid designee.
It also asks Treasury to consider requiring that the payee is not a deceased individual, to the greatest extent permitted by law, and that a proper tax identification number or payee ID is supplied. Payments that fail verification could be returned by Treasury’s chief disbursing officer. The order also calls for a transparent process for requesting exemptions from the verification requirements.
The order also builds in time for the screening. It says payment files must be submitted with enough lead time for fraud and improper-payment checks, and that same-day payments should go in as far ahead as reasonably practicable. Treasury’s role under the order includes updating its guidance so payments it disburses go through pre-certification checks, including the Do Not Pay Working System.
What it means for a Social Security deposit
Social Security said in a March 2025 announcement that it planned to use the Treasury Bureau of the Fiscal Service’s Account Verification Service, which provides instant bank verification to help prevent direct deposit fraud. That announcement said direct deposit changes would be processed within one business day.
The Treasury release does not name Social Security, Veterans Affairs or any other paying agency, and it does not say how many beneficiaries have had a payment returned. It also does not say what happens to a returned payment afterward.
The paying agency, such as Social Security, is the place to ask about a payment that does not arrive, and the missing deposit is the signal. Benefits that do not land on the expected date are worth a call the same day, not at the end of the month.
Does the bank account on file match the name on the benefit?
Treasury’s checks run before the money leaves, so a mismatched name or a mistyped tax number on file can turn into a deposit that never arrives. The Treasury release says nothing about how a returned payment is reissued, which leaves the beneficiary to notice and call.
The Social Security Check Protection Kit is a 75-page guide that includes the 2026 payment calendar, so a late deposit stands out the day it is due. It also has a first-24-hours plan for a late or missing payment, which lists what to check first.
Get the missing-deposit kit and payment calendar for a returned federal payment →
This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.
