U.S. Treasury Direct made it easier to add and change bank accounts as a funding source for your account. Previously they required a paper form with bank notary in order to change your bank. Now, you can easily change banks or even save multiple banks to the same login.
A lot of us hold I Bonds in a Treasury Direct account, and some people buy Treasury Bills there too (though most prefer doing T-Bills through a brokerage).
The change took place a few months back, but it still comes up in discussion periodically and we’ve never spelled this out, so I thought it worth a mention. I’ve even used Treasury Direct as a way of meeting a direct deposit requirement for a bank bonus.
The dreadful email has arrived…
“As of January 31, 2025, you will no longer be able to ask your bank to transfer funds directly from your bank account into your C of I through an ACH credit. However, you can still fund your C of I from your bank account through TreasuryDirect.” “After January 31, 2025, any transfers (ACH credits) initiated by your bank to your C of I will be rejected.”
RIP pushing to CofI , I just got the same email.
CAUTION: My C of I appears to be partially frozen after my most recent push into it from SoFi:
Available for security purchase: $1,xxx.xx
Available for redemption: $.00
There was already a small balance in the C of I before the push, which is also frozen. I haven’t received an email or a message in my Investor Inbox.
Presumably I can still exit the position by buying a T-Bill but it throws a monkeywrench into my DD machinery.
If anyone else has pushed to C of I since the Payroll announcement, please chime in.
I pushed $2K from Chase to C of I two days ago and the money was available for redemption as of yesterday. Just like in the past, no issue.
Freeze lifted as of this morning. Yesterday morning I ordered a 4-week T-Bill funded by my C of I; not sure if those two are connected or not.
If you have not ever had to submit a medallion stamp to them, you have to call. I got frozen in the beginning of my account after a few transactions, my account got frozen, no notice.
When I called, security told me I had to send to them a medallion stamp from the bank. It’s their way of verifying your identity. Mine happened during covid. Took them a month to clear it out.
Not sure if you still have to mail that to them or if it still takes that long to clear it, but don’t delay calling them since it can take a while.
Received an email from Treasury.gov titled: Payroll Certificate of Indebtedness – Action Required.
Chuck 
William Charles
“TreasuryDirect aims to provide Americans a safe, secure way to save for the future. Because we want our customers to maximize the benefit of investing in Treasury securities, we are discontinuing the ability to fund a Certificate of Indebtedness (C of I) though payroll. You are receiving this email because within the last year, you funded your C of I from your paycheck. You will need to take action before January 31, 2025.
What is C of I?
C of I is a non-interest earning Treasury security intended to be used as a source of funds for purchasing eligible interest-bearing securities.
What’s happening?
As of January 31, 2025, TreasuryDirect customers will no longer be able to fund C of I from their paycheck.
What do I have to do?
Contact your payroll provider to stop electronic deposits before January 31, 2025. After this date, any deposits to your C of I will be rejected.
How do I learn more?
Additional information about Payroll C of I can be found here. We will also be sending reminder emails in advance of the change.”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Impact: No longer able to send funds directly to Payroll C of I.
This does not impact using the Zero-Percent C of I account.
You now have two options for using TD for DD requirements:
It was nice while it lasted.
wow…
Is everything after the “Impact:” your own words? I wouldn’t imagine TD cares about your DD requirements, lol.
So we are to assume the select banks that you can push funds to Treasury Direct C of I will no longer be able to do so.
Basically, use the system as designed. ✅ Done.
I never used payroll to fund the c of i, I used sofi to fund it. Thus far, I have not received the email you received. What’s the subject line of your email?
Read the 1st para… “You are receiving this email because within the last year, you funded your C of I from your paycheck.”
Replace “paycheck” with Chase, Elements, or whatever bank Paul used to push to the C of I.
P1 – P2 – P3… no such email, because we weren’t pushing funds in.
That’s my point. I WAS pushing funds in, but have NOT received the email.
Probably going out in phases then. At least they are giving notice.
Yeah, if I recall though, when setting it up originally, from their instructions page, it had different instructions for employerers than it did for banks. I think it involved adding a number or letter, or removing a number or letter. I’m getting old, and it’s been years ago that I read that instructions page, so it’s quite possible that I am remembering weong. But at this point, hoping it only affects the payroll and not the bank. It’s possible that you might be right that they are sending it out in batches or phases. I’m just pointing out that as of now I haven’t received it and therefore, if it only affects the payroll portion, then paulintexas (and others) can simply use sofi going forward.
Got it. Very possible. Guess we will see.
I cannot imagine anyone sending a real payroll DD to the Govt. Makes my heart hurt.
How do you even do a push to TD? Does the TD account have a routing/account number?
See #1901093
Very few banks ACH/external transfer online banking interface will accept the account number because it has a letter.
Yes, there’s a page on how to link it, but it’s your account number (that you use to log in), and the routing number is 051736158. The routing number is on the Treasury direct page explaining how to link it, but i don’t know the link for that page. I wrote the routing number down so I didn’t need the page anymore. Not many banks will let you link it though because it has a letter. Sofi works, elements works. I think there’s a few others floating around in a post on doc somewhere. The usefulness is because pushes don’t have the 5 business day hold. You can use it almost immediately. Once I had an availability issue for like maybe 7 hours where I saw it was in the balance but not available yet. Definitely beats waiting 5 days though.
Looks like
Johnz has the ACH directions…
See #1843648
Chuck
also, TD tells you the ACH instructions in your online account:
TD online >Manage Direct > Manage My Account, View My Funding Options: scroll down to ACH Credits
*** Update ***
Chuck 
William Charles
This is associated with the “The payroll savings plan will be discontinued on January 31, 2025.” which was used by employers to sign you up for Savings Bonds. I have recently had this type of account – which is why I may have gotten the notice.
The Payroll Savings Plan — TreasuryDirect
So, if funds are deposited directly into the “Zero-Percent C of I account” versus the “Payroll C of I account” then this shouldn’t impact using currently connected banks. Sorry for the panic.
Thanks for the update paul. Was there some different procedure for the payroll savings plan? Im wondering if it still might affect the direct funding of the Treasury direct account. Did it use a different account number variation? I very vaguely remember that there was some differentiation but not sure if I am remembering correctly.
Yes, if you sign up for a Savings Bond program the employer would add a “P” suffix to your TD account number which connected the employer deposit to your “Payroll C of I” account. It is definitely a separate, single purpose account, and is not linked to the Zero Percent C of I account.
“A Payroll Zero-Percent Certificate of Indebtedness is a Treasury security that does not earn any interest. It was intended to be used as a source of funds to purchase Series EE and Series I Savings Bonds through the Payroll Savings Plan.”
So, this really was a false alarm, and it should have no impact on currently connected accounts that send directly to the Zero Percent C of I account.
No problem. Thanks so much for refreshing my memory and confirming.
Besides the “P”, was there any difference between Payroll C of I and regular C of I? Why did they have separate accounts?
The Zero Percent C of I is available to all TD account holders and is used to hold funds for you to purchase everything offered at TD (T-Bills, Notes, Bonds, EE or I Series Savings Bongs, etc.).
Does that make sense?
Technically there would be an impact on the regular C of I, namely the “multiples of $100” clause.
My bad. I’ve been eating a lot of crow lately. I’ll try to read better – maybe I need some new glasses!
So, there’s still a max of $1,000 per transaction limit (pulling), but it can be ANY amount under $1,000. Well, then pulling is just as flexible except for the multiple transactions (if more than $1,000 is needed) & the 1 week hold time 😉
There is no limit on *pushing* funds into C of I (except for limits imposed by the sending bank).
Is that how you see it?
Thanks! I wonder why I didn’t receive an email yet?
If you did something similar, then you should be getting a letter; otherwise, I’m probably an outlier in the Doc crowd.
Got it, thanks for clarifying! I did not do anything with the payroll C of I account so hence no email for me. Thanks again!
I tried to add my BMO account and received the “unable to be verified” message. After several attempts it now states a hold has been placed on the bank account and I must submit an account authorization form to lift the hold. Based on previous posts, it seems calling them to find out why they weren’t able to verify BMO would be a waste of time.
If the names match, double check the routing & account numbers. Could your account be locked? You might want to call BMO and verify there isn’t an issue at their end.
To get past sending in documentation I simply deleted the account and then resubmitted with the correct name, and everything went through the second time.
Not doubting you, but how did you know the name mismatch was the problem? gchope below was able to add P2’s named account to his TD.
TD verifies accounts by sending a $0 ach debit transaction and waiting to see if they complain…its up to the external FI whether they care if the name is slightly off or nah
They may have different methods for certain banks, like when you link an EWS bank to another EWS bank, sometimes it’s automatic without credentials or trials.
I’m pretty sure TD uses the same method regardless of the Fi you’re trying to link…
Anyone who’s had the misfortune of having to navigate their site can probably vouch for this, lol
ETA: just to add some context, I think you and eric (and myself) all noticed that TD sends a ACH prenotification to the external account, but thought it was related a pending deposit or withdrawal. It’s actually TD’s version of microdeposits that doesn’t require verification, instead they wait and see if the external FI sends NOC (notice of change) which tells them there is some problem with the account.
Frankly, I didn’t really think the TD account name mattered much, but it may just depend on the specific bank policies. I have no way of confirming, just providing a DP and a possible solution.
Thanks…it could be the one you used just happened to complain when the Individual Named didn’t match (so you’d be right, it was just the specific bank policy)…can you share who it was?
Ok, for people using TD for bonuses, I was able to add my P2s bank account with her name to my TD account. Did anyone try to change the payment destination of a T-Bill in their own account to get deposited to P2s account with a different name? P2 is my wife, so there should be no gift tax implications, but my concern is that there will be some issues on the payment due to the first name mismatch and the amount is pretty big and I don’t want it to get locked for this reason.
I suspect you would only have issues with those FI who don’t like P1’s DD going to P2, which are very few…
You can try a small CofI push or $100 T-bill and see if there’s any pushback.
Test #2 (typing instead of copy & pasting).
#1823625
It turns out that the system does not disallow tagging from other posts like you thought. You just need to type out the comment # (or guest #) instead of copy/pasting it.
Although, it still seems to work for copy/pasting sometimes as I described in comment #1937687 .
Thank you for indirectly pointing this workaround out to me.
Ostrich Rider,
Please let me know if you received a “Mention” email for this comment. I noticed that
James already commented in this post before 
JD tagged him so I’m not 100% sure that this is a workaround yet.
#1823625
I just confirmed that JD did not find a workaround, unfortunately. ☹
The same thing that I described in #1 in the comment below happened here so Ostrich Rider did not receive a “Mention” email.
https://www.doctorofcredit.com/ameriprise-financial-350-savings-bonus/#comment-1930576
Your “#1” works just fine. I just tested it with my P2 on a little used page.
Your issue (
Eric 🔗 ) is likely due to operator error. My guess: If you are pasting in the comment number, you need to right mouse click and select “Paste as plain text”.
I’d bet you are using “normal” copy & paste, probably using the keyboard shortcuts. Pasting it that way includes metadata, and doing that invalidates the link/tag.
If you’re correct, then why did my comment below work correctly? I used Ctrl+C & Ctrl+V for both instances.
The only difference is that
James had already commented in this post and Ostrich Rider had not.
https://www.doctorofcredit.com/u-s-treasury-direct-makes-it-easy-to-add-change-bank-accounts/#comment-1937661
I know what works for me.
My test:
https://www.doctorofcredit.com/legal/#comment-1937683
Type the @ symbol and start to type any name… select any non-moderator on the list so it formats it properly…. then replace just the guest number. You can type it in, or paste it in as plain text.
Got 1 email notification @ 1 PM
Eric
The email was actually at 1:11 PM, correct? It had to be #1937690.
BTW, I knew that I picked the right person to tag that would respond to me. 😀
I just used copy/paste for the comment # in my reply to
Ostrich Rider. It’s a bad habit that I need to kick!
Yes, 1:11
How long does it take for the Treasury Bill proceeds from TD to a bank account to hit the bank account? For example, if I purchase a 4-week Treasury Bill tomorrow, when should I expect the proceeds to hit my bank account?
Also, can I submit the order today, or wait for an action date/tomorrow? Do you specify the price for Treasury Bills or would the discounted price automatically apply?
Short answer, about 5 weeks. To be exact, Nov 26th. If your bank does early payday, probably Nov 25th arrival.
When you schedule a T-bill purchase, you schedule it for the Maturity amount. ie $500
They pull the amount it costs based on the auction results. ie $498.xx
You don’t know future auction rates, only past… so you don’t know the exact amount that will be pulled.
A 4-Week T-bill queued up today would have an auction date of 10-24-2024 and an issue date of 10-29-2024. So, 10-29 they will pull $498.xx from whatever account you assigned, and on 11-26 they will push $500 to whatever account you assigned.
I am sure there are more technical answers that could be given, but I think this is what you wanted to know. If you want money there faster, to get your bonus counter started at a certain bank, use the C of I. But that still takes over a week from point A to B, and no interest is earned… The only way to speed that up is if you use one of the few banks that can push directly to C of I.
It will hit your FI the business day before the maturity date, but its up to them whether they offer early DD or not. No need to wait until tomorrow, you can submit orders anytime before the auction closes (usually 11am ET for the 4-week) and even schedule out a couple months in advance. You specify how much you want to buy, and whatever the auction comes in at is the price everyone gets. Also, if its not immediately obvious, you can place multiple orders for the same auction if you want multiple payments made at the same time. The source/destination of each order is independent. You can change the destination up to about a week before maturity.
Great, thank you for the detailed response.
Good luck!
Anyone able to link AmEx Business Checking account from TreasuryDirect side? Gives me an error, other business accounts work fine (this is for a TreasuryDirect Sole Prop EIN account).
A PSA for those of you trying to link to Chase from Chase so that you can push funds to TD. The Chase mobile app did not work for me to link to the account. The mobile app would not let me add a letter to the account number and also would not let me change the bank name to “TREASURYDIRECT” as per the instructions on TD’s website.
I was able to connect the accounts successfully by using a web browser. I used my account number without the “P” suffix, and changed the bank name to TREASURYDIRECT.