Banks above $1 billion in assets collected $2.96 billion in combined overdraft and non-sufficient funds fees in the first six months of 2026. The number comes from a Motley Fool Money analysis of bank regulatory filings, relayed in a Stacker feature, and no regulator published it. For households, the more useful finding sits next to it: two of the largest banks charge very different prices for the same mistake.
An analysis of filings, not a regulator’s tally
The $2.96 billion is the work of Motley Fool Money, a personal finance publisher, which analyzed Call Report data from the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council, drawing on Schedule RI item RIADH032. The Stacker report carrying the figure describes it as “$2.96 billion in combined overdraft and non-sufficient funds (NSF) fees in just the first six months of 2026.” No FFIEC or banking-agency release states the total, so every mention of it should name the analysis behind it.
The scope has two limits. The total covers banks with more than $1 billion in assets, so smaller banks and credit unions fall outside it. It also covers six months, not a year. Stacker notes that the pace mirrors 2024 and 2025 and approaches about $6 billion annually, which matches doubling the half-year figure to roughly $5.92 billion.
The combined figure also blends two kinds of charge. An overdraft fee applies when a bank pays an item that exceeds the balance, while a non-sufficient funds fee applies to a returned item, the old bounced-check case. The report gives the two as a single total, so it cannot say how much of the $2.96 billion came from each, or how many households that money represents.
$34 an item against $10: one overdraft, two prices
Fee schedules explain much of that revenue. According to the same report, JPMorgan Chase charges $34 per overdraft item, capped at three fees per day. Bank of America charges $10 per overdraft, capped at two fees per day, after reducing the amount from $35 in May 2022.
The caps turn the per-item prices into daily ceilings. Three fees at $34 comes to as much as $102 in a single day at JPMorgan Chase, while two fees at $10 comes to as much as $20 at Bank of America. A household with several small automatic debits hitting an empty account on one morning faces a bill that differs by more than five times depending on which bank holds the account. The report also puts the industry average fee at about $35, a figure it attributes to the CFPB, and says JPMorgan Chase accounts for 19 percent of reported overdraft revenue.
The same arithmetic shows how the daily cap works as a limit and not a discount. A fourth overdrawn item on the same day at either bank would, under the reported caps, carry no additional fee, though the item itself would still be paid or returned.
Who pays: 12 percent of Americans, unevenly
The report cites Federal Reserve data showing that 12 percent of Americans paid an overdraft fee in 2025. The burden is not spread evenly. Lower-income households, younger consumers and Black and Hispanic Americans paid at higher rates, which the report links to lower average checking balances in those groups.
That pattern matters more than any single fee. A household with a thin balance and bills clustered at the start of the month is more exposed to a chain of fees than a household that carries a cushion, and the schedule above decides how long the chain can run in a day.
What the CFPB has posted, and what it has not
Overdraft fees are a consumer-finance topic the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has addressed before, and its public page on bank accounts still tells readers that “there are steps you can take to reduce or eliminate overdraft fees,” and points to a guide titled “Know your overdraft options.” It also says a consumer could be charged overdraft fees in connection with checks, electronic payments or debit cards.
The bureau’s newsroom shows no overdraft item in its latest eight entries. The most recent is dated August 14, 2026, an announcement about complaint narratives, and the entries run back to January 2026 without an overdraft action. That is an absence in the newsroom listing, not a statement about any rule or policy.
A low-balance alert as the cheapest control
The Stacker report quotes personal finance expert Joel O’Leary: “Set up a low-balance alert and treat that number like it’s your actual zero.” It adds regular account monitoring and moving to a bank without overdraft fees, which are typically online institutions, as other approaches.
Those steps work at the household level, and the fee schedules show why the choice of bank matters. For the figure itself, the controlling source is the Motley Fool Money analysis of FFIEC Call Report data as relayed by Stacker on September 25: $2.96 billion across banks above $1 billion in assets for the first six months of 2026.
A short reference for bank-account trouble
The Bank Account & Debt Protection Kit is written for households that keep running into trouble with a checking account, from a frozen balance to a collector’s letter. It gives one short reference to read before a call to the bank.
The Bank Account & Debt Protection Kit is a 10-page kit that includes the 2-month bank protection rule and a protected-funds and dispute log for tracking account problems.
Click here to see The Bank Account & Debt Protection Kit →
AI assistance contributed to this article, and each figure was checked against the sources linked above.
