Buying savings bonds — TreasuryDirect (2024)

Buying electronic EE or I savings bonds

TreasuryDirect is the official United States government application in which you can buy and keep savings bonds.

Learn about TreasuryDirect Open a TreasuryDirect account

To buy a savings bond in TreasuryDirect:

Go to your TreasuryDirect account.
Choose BuyDirect.
Choose whether you want EE bonds or I bonds, and then click Submit.
Fill out the rest of the information.

For information on registration, see Registering your bonds (Who owns them).
If you plan to give the bond to someone else, see Giving savings bonds as gifts.

You can buy an electronic savings bond for any amount from $25 to $10,000 to the penny. For example, you could buy an electronic savings bond for $75.38.

In any one calendar year, you may buy up to $10,000 in Series EE electronic savings bonds AND up to $10,000 in Series I electronic savings bonds for yourself as owner of the bonds. That is in addition to the amount you can spend on buying savings bonds for a child or as gifts.

See more about how much can I spend and how much can I own.

Buying through our Payroll Savings Plan

Another way to buy savings bonds is to have your employer send money from each paycheck directly to your TreasuryDirect account.

You decide how much to set aside for savings bonds, then it all happens automatically (like getting the rest of your paycheck to your bank by direct deposit.)

To set up a Payroll Savings Plan

If you don't yet have a TreasuryDirect account, open an account.
Go to your TreasuryDirect account and follow the instructions to set up a Payroll Savings Plan.
Choose the type of savings bonds you want (EE or I) and the amount you want for each bond.
Ask your employer to send money from each paycheck to your TreasuryDirect account.

To have your employer send the money

You will fill out a direct deposit form that needs this information:

The "receiving bank name": TREASURYDIRECT (all capitals, no space)
The routing number for TreasuryDirect: 051736158
Your 10-digit TreasuryDirect account number, no hyphens, with a P at the end

(Example: A123456789P)

How much money you want to have your employer send from each paycheck
Where the form asks if this is a savings account (22) or a checking account (23), you can choose either. That doesn't matter to our system.

Tell your employer that they can send the money to us in any of these 3 ACH file formats:

What happens in TreasuryDirect

The money your employer sends each time goes into a special Payroll Savings Plan Certificate of Indebtedness (C of I) in your TreasuryDirect account. Every time the balance in that specific C of I is large enough to buy the bond you chose at the amount you chose, we issue you that type of savings bond for that amount.

For example: If you want to buy $50 Series I savings bonds and you ask your employer to send $25 from each paycheck to your TreasuryDirect account, we issue a $50 bond for you after every other payday. You don't have to think about it again or do anything else. You keep getting more savings bonds automatically until you change or end your Payroll Savings Plan.

Each savings bond earns interest for you in your TreasuryDirect account until you tell us to cash the bond or until it reaches the end of its 30-year interest-earning life.

Buying paper Series I savings bonds

The only way to get a paper savings bond now is to use your IRS tax refund.

You can buy any amount up to $5,000 in $50 increments.

We may issue multiple bonds to fill your order. The bonds may be of different denominations. We use $50, $100, $200, $500, and $1,000 bonds. Again, the amount of your purchase can be any multiple of $50, from $50 to $5,000. You need to tell us only the amount. We determine denominations.

To buy paper savings bonds, you use IRS Form 8888 to specify how much of your refund should go to savings bonds and how much to you directly (by check or by direct deposit to your bank account).

On Form 8888, you also specify who will own the bonds. That means, you can give paper savings bonds to yourself or to anyone else (as a gift). If you have enough money in your refund, you can buy multiple bonds and, if you wish, you can give them multiple registrations.

You may buy up to $5,000 in paper savings bonds with each year's tax refund.

See more about how much can I spend and how much can I own.

Registering savings bonds (Who owns them?)

Whether you buy an electronic bond or a paper bond, you must specify who owns the bond.

You may name yourself, a child, yourself and someone else (either as another owner or as the beneficiary), or indeed anyone you want to give the savings bond to as a gift.

But the person (or people) you name must meet these conditions:

Managing savings bonds for a child under 18

See the note above about using savings bonds for higher education. Whether the bonds are paper or electronic, to use them for college expenses, the bonds must be in an adult's name, not the child's!

But with that exception, you can name the child as the owner of either paper or electronic savings bonds.

Paper savings bonds

If you buy paper savings bonds for your child, you have the responsibility for keeping the bonds.

Electronic savings bonds

If you buy electronic savings bonds for a child, here's how that works:

The child needs a TreasuryDirect account that is linked to the account of a parent or other adult custodian. You (the parent or other adult custodian) may open a TreasuryDirect account for the child. You can then buy savings bonds or other securities, as well as conduct other transactions, for the child. Other people can buy savings bonds for the child as gifts to go into the child's linked account.

See more About linked accounts

I've got you covered! Let's break down the concepts related to buying electronic EE or I savings bonds through TreasuryDirect:

TreasuryDirect Account Creation: This is the official platform provided by the U.S. government for purchasing and managing savings bonds. To start, you need to open a TreasuryDirect account.
Purchase Process: Once you have your account set up, you can buy savings bonds through this platform. You select the type of bond (EE or I) and specify the amount you want, ranging from $25 to $10,000 in penny increments. There are yearly limits for personal purchase ($10,000 each for EE and I bonds) apart from additional allowances for buying bonds as gifts or for children.
Payroll Savings Plan: This method involves instructing your employer to deduct a chosen amount from your paycheck and deposit it directly into your TreasuryDirect account, where it accumulates in a specific certificate of indebtedness until it reaches the value to purchase the selected bond.
Direct Deposit Information: To set up the Payroll Savings Plan, you provide your employer with specific details like the receiving bank name ("TREASURYDIRECT"), the routing number (051736158), your 10-digit TreasuryDirect account number (with a 'P' at the end), and the preferred ACH file format for money transfer.
Certificate of Indebtedness: Funds accumulated from the Payroll Savings Plan are kept in a separate certificate until they reach the amount necessary to purchase the chosen savings bond. Once that threshold is met, the bond is automatically issued to you without any further action needed on your part.
Paper Series I Savings Bonds: These can only be obtained through IRS tax refunds, allowing purchases in denominations of $50 increments up to $5,000. You use IRS Form 8888 to specify the amount from your refund to be allocated to bonds and how much you want directly.
Registration and Ownership: Whether electronic or paper bonds, ownership needs specification. Bonds can be registered under your name, a child's name, jointly with someone else, or gifted to anyone meeting specific criteria such as having a Social Security Number and meeting U.S. citizenship or residency requirements.
Managing Bonds for a Child: Bonds for children can be purchased and managed by linking their TreasuryDirect account to that of a parent or guardian. This allows for the purchase of bonds or receipt of gifted bonds into the child's account. However, if intending to use bonds for the child's higher education expenses, they should be in the adult's name, not the child's.

These steps and concepts form the backbone of buying electronic EE or I savings bonds through TreasuryDirect, covering various methods, limitations, and ownership considerations.