The average savings account at an American bank pays 0.38 percent a year. A one-year certificate of deposit across the same universe of institutions pays 1.71 percent, roughly four and a half times as much. Both figures come from the same federal table, published the same morning, and the distance between them is the whole story for a household sitting on idle cash.
What the FDIC’s August 17 table actually reports
Every third Monday of the month, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation publishes a set of national deposit rates. They are not a survey of advertised specials and not a ranking of banks. They are averages of the rates paid by all insured depository institutions and credit unions for which the agency has data, weighted by each institution’s share of domestic deposits, which is why a handful of very large banks paying very little pulls the savings number so low.
The current release carries rate cap information as of August 17, 2026, and the FDIC’s national rates page lists the full set: savings at 0.38 percent, interest checking at 0.07 percent, money market accounts at 0.63 percent, and certificates of deposit at 0.22 percent for one month, 1.14 for three months, 1.41 for six months, 1.71 for twelve, 1.57 for twenty-four and 1.36 for sixty. The published rates are based on information available on the last business day of the prior month.
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The 4.38 percent column on that page is not an offer
Anyone scanning the same table will see much larger numbers to the right: 4.38 percent next to savings, 5.65 percent next to the twelve-month CD. Those are national rate caps, and they are not rates a saver can go collect anywhere.
The caps exist because of a supervisory rule. Institutions that are less than well capitalized are barred from bidding for deposits at rates that significantly exceed their prevailing market, and the cap sets the ceiling on what such an institution is permitted to offer. The FDIC calculates it as the higher of the national rate plus 75 basis points, or 120 percent of the yield on a similar-maturity Treasury obligation plus 75 basis points. It describes a regulatory limit on a troubled bank, not a product. A saver who reads 4.38 percent as an available yield is reading a restriction as an advertisement.
The genuinely useful comparison sits in a different column of the same table. The FDIC lists the Treasury yield it used for the twelve-month calculation at 4.08 percent, against an average twelve-month CD of 1.71. The gap between what a government security of the same maturity was yielding and what the average bank was paying for the same commitment of a saver’s money is the clearest measure on the page of how little competition there is for ordinary deposits.
The savings average has barely moved in a year
Deposit rates are often described as responding to the interest rate environment. The national savings average has responded very little. The FDIC table published a year earlier, on August 18, 2025, put savings at 0.39 percent, interest checking at 0.07 and the twelve-month CD at 1.76. Twelve months later the savings figure has fallen by a single basis point and interest checking has not moved at all.
The CD side moved more, and in both directions. The three-month average dropped from 1.54 percent to 1.14 over the year, and the twelve-month average slipped from 1.76 to 1.71. Between the July and August tables, though, the twelve-month figure rose from 1.68 to 1.71 while savings held at 0.38. The archived monthly releases sit on the FDIC’s previous rates page, which is the record to check before assuming a deposit rate has kept pace with anything.
Where the CD curve peaks, and where it stops paying
The August table does not reward patience past a year. Averages climb steadily from 0.22 percent at one month to 1.14 at three, 1.41 at six and a peak of 1.71 at twelve months, and then fall: 1.57 at twenty-four months, 1.34 at thirty-six, 1.27 at forty-eight and 1.36 at sixty.
That shape has a practical consequence for a retiree deciding how long to tie up money. On these national averages, a five-year commitment pays 0.35 percentage points less per year than a one-year commitment, while giving up four additional years of flexibility and accepting an early-withdrawal penalty for the whole stretch. The averages also disguise which products are being compared: savings and interest checking rates reflect the $2,500 product tier, while money market and CD rates represent an average of the $10,000 and $100,000 tiers.
What a national average does and does not describe
A weighted national average describes the market, not any particular bank. Individual institutions sit well above and well below every figure in the table, and the FDIC publishes the averages for a supervisory purpose rather than as shopping advice. The number that governs a specific household is the rate printed on its own statement, which is why the table is most useful as a benchmark: an account paying 0.38 percent is paying exactly what the deposit-weighted national average pays, and one paying 0.01 percent is not.
Safety does not distinguish the options on this page. Savings accounts, money market deposit accounts and certificates of deposit at an insured bank are all covered by FDIC deposit insurance, automatically, to at least $250,000 per depositor at each insured bank. Within that limit the choice between 0.38 percent and 1.71 percent is not a choice about risk. It is a choice about a term, and the FDIC republishes the price of that term on the third Monday of every month.
This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by a human editor. Figures are linked to their primary sources; where a claim could not be verified from the public record, we say so.
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