Every month the FDIC posts a table of national deposit rates next to a column of rate caps. They look like two versions of the same number. They are not. One describes what banks pay. The other limits what a few banks may pay.

Golden-hour city street outside a bank branch, with blurred pedestrians passing brick and glass storefronts under warm, high-contrast sunlight.
A bank branch on an ordinary street. The rate table says little about any single branch until you know which rules apply to it.

What the FDIC table is and who it binds

The FDIC publishes its National Rates and Rate Caps page monthly, generally on the third Monday. The October 2026 edition is dated October 19, 2026. The methodology sits under Section 337.7 of the FDIC's Rules and Regulations, effective April 1, 2021, as described in an FDIC Financial Institution Letter.

The cap does not apply to every bank. It limits the rates that insured banks and savings associations that are less than well capitalized may offer. The sources reviewed do not say it limits healthy banks. The table covers savings, interest checking, money market accounts and CDs of several terms.

Two ideas sit side by side on the page:

  1. The national rate is an average yield, weighted by each institution's share of domestic deposits rather than by branch count.
  2. The rate cap is a regulatory ceiling, derived from that average and from market yields, that applies only to less-than-well-capitalized institutions.

The first is descriptive. The second is a rule. Reading one as the other is the most common mistake.

How the national rate and the cap are built

The national rate is a deposit-weighted average of rates paid on a standard deposit product by insured institutions and credit unions. Big institutions hold more deposits, so they pull the average harder than small ones. That is the logic of weighting by deposits.

The cap works differently. As summarized in secondary material, it is the higher of two figures. I could not check this against the rule text, which was unreadable in the copy retrieved, so treat the wording as a summary:

  • The national rate for the product plus 75 basis points.
  • 120 percent of a Treasury yield of similar maturity, plus 75 basis points.

For savings, checking and money market accounts, the Treasury leg is described as the federal funds rate plus 75 basis points. In October 2026 that rate was 3.88 percent, which gives 4.63 percent. That matches the published cap for all three products.

Here is one CD worked through. The 3-month national rate was 1.14 percent, so the first test gives 1.89 percent. The 3-month Treasury yield used was 4.20 percent. Multiply by 120 percent and you get 5.04. Add 0.75 and the cap is 5.79 percent. The Treasury leg won, and it won for every product that month.

What the October 2026 numbers show

National rates were low. Savings averaged 0.38 percent, interest checking 0.07 and money market 0.63. CDs ran from 1.14 percent at 3 months to 1.76 percent at 12 months. The 24-month average was 1.55, the 36-month 1.39 and the 60-month 1.41. The FRED release table carries the national-rate series, and the FDIC page carries the table itself.

The caps sat far higher. For a constrained institution, the CD ceiling was 5.79 percent at 3 months, 5.95 at 6 months and 6.20 at 12 months. It reached 6.61 at 24 months, 6.75 at 36 months and 6.86 at 60 months. The gap between a 1.76 percent average and a 6.20 percent ceiling on 12-month CDs is more than four points.

Year over year, the 3-month CD average fell from 1.52 to 1.14 percent. The 12-month average rose from 1.68 to 1.76. Savings slipped from 0.40 to 0.38. The caps move with Treasury yields, so they can climb even when the averages fall.

A cap near 6 percent does not mean any bank is paying 6 percent. It is a ceiling, not a rate sheet.

What a saver should do with this

The main practical question is simple. Is the bank well capitalized? That status decides whether the cap applies to it at all. The sources reviewed do not define the term or explain how a consumer can check an institution's capitalization, so I will not claim a lookup exists. Ask the bank directly. You can also use the FDIC's BankFind tool to confirm that an institution is FDIC insured, which is a separate question from its capital category.

One detail is worth keeping in mind. Under the rule as described, a less-than-well-capitalized bank may not offer a CD rate above the published cap for that term. An offer above the cap would therefore be a prompt to ask questions, though in October 2026 caps were high enough that few retail offers would come near them.

The table also leaves out a lot. It does not cover 1-month or 48-month CDs in the summary reviewed. The sources do not explain the local market rate cap that applies to less-than-well-capitalized institutions. They also do not address deposit insurance limits, early-withdrawal penalties or taxes on interest. For those, read the bank's own account disclosure before you fund a CD.

Use the national rate as a rough baseline for what is typical. Compare it with the actual offers in front of you. Treat the cap as a rule that matters only for banks in a weaker capital category.

Please seek a professional. This article is general information, not financial, tax or insurance advice. Please seek a licensed financial, tax or insurance professional about your own situation.