Treasury offered $82 billion of 26-week bills on Monday, Sept. 28, and the high investment rate came in at 4.441%, or 4.44%. That is up from 4.023%, or 4.02%, at the Sept. 8 auction of the same six-month bill. A saver comparing the two dates sees a gap of 0.418 percentage point in three weeks.
Reading the Fiscal Data auction table
The U.S. Treasury’s Fiscal Service publishes every auction in its Fiscal Data bill-auction query. The row for the 26-week bill auctioned Sept. 28 lists an Oct. 1 issue date, a maturity of April 1, 2027, a high investment rate of 4.441% and a high discount rate of 4.285%. The Sept. 8 row for the same bill shows 4.023%. The auction drew a bid-to-cover ratio of 2.64 on the $82 billion offering.
A bill is a short-term loan to the government with no coupon. Buyers pay less than face value at auction and receive face value at maturity, and the difference is the return.
Two ways of quoting one auction
The table carries two percentages for the same auction, and they should not be mixed. The 4.285% figure is the discount rate, a convention built on face value and a 360-day year. The 4.441% figure is the investment rate, which restates the return on the price actually paid, and it is the closer match to an interest rate quoted on a savings account or certificate. This report uses the investment rate throughout. Quoting 4.285% next to a bank’s advertised yield would understate what the bill earns.
What a $10,000 bill works out to
The table lets the return be worked out directly. A $10,000 bill priced at the 4.285% discount rate for the 182 days from Oct. 1, 2026, to April 1, 2027, costs about $9,783.37, since $10,000 times 4.285% times 182 divided by 360 is $216.63. Held to maturity, it pays back $10,000 and earns that $216.63. The figures are derived from the table’s numbers and ignore any fees a broker might charge.
The same money in an average savings account looks different. The national savings rate in the FDIC series carried by the St. Louis Fed’s FRED database is 0.37% for September 2026. On $9,783.37, half a year at 0.37% is roughly $18 in simple interest. Many banks pay more than the national average, and the average is not what any one bank offers, but the distance between about $18 and $217 explains why the auction figure draws attention.
The three-week move also has a dollar size. An extra 0.418 percentage point on a $10,000 purchase is $41.80 a year, or about $20.90 over the six months to maturity, in simple-interest terms. That gap is derived from the two published rates and applies only to bills bought at the respective auctions.
Thirteen-week bills moved the same way
The shorter bill shows the same direction, with a rise of 0.321 percentage point between the two auctions. The 13-week bill auctioned Sept. 28 came in at a 4.211% investment rate, against 3.890% on Sept. 8. A four-week bill auctioned Sept. 24 sat at 3.915%. Three bills, three maturities and three different yields show a curve that slopes upward with maturity in the table, with the six-month bill above both shorter ones.
The Federal Reserve’s H.15 release gives a second look from the resale market. It lists the six-month bill at 4.21% on Sept. 25, up from 4.16% on Sept. 21, and the three-month bill at 4.08% on Sept. 25.
The hike sits between the two auctions
The calendar explains the timing more than any commentary does. The Sept. 8 auction took place before the Federal Reserve’s decision, and the Sept. 28 auction came after it. The FOMC statement of Sept. 16 raised the target range for the federal funds rate by a quarter point, to 3-3/4 to 4 percent. The effective federal funds rate on the H.15 table was 3.88%, inside that range.
The table also shows what is not yet known. The 52-week bill auction dated Sept. 29 had no result posted when the data was read, and the yields of later auctions can move in either direction.
What the auction result leaves open
An auction rate fixes the return only for the bill bought at that auction. A six-month bill held to April 1, 2027, pays its face value on that date, and the money then has to be placed again at whatever rates prevail. A saver who bought at 4.441% has no guarantee the next auction, or the one after, will clear anywhere near that level. The table published after each sale is where the next result will show.
What the Treasury table establishes
The Fiscal Service data establishes three things: a 4.441% investment rate on the Sept. 28 six-month bill, a 4.023% rate on the Sept. 8 auction, and a 4.285% discount rate that describes the same sale another way. The bank savings average from the FDIC series, 0.37%, is the comparison point. Every other figure in the report is arithmetic on those published numbers.
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An AI assistant helped draft this article, which was checked against the Treasury auction table and Federal Reserve pages cited above.
