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HH Savings Bonds: Final Maturity, Redemption, and Deferred Interest

Series HH bonds are no longer sold, and their final interest-earning dates make them different from newer savings products. Owners and heirs may still need to redeem them, correct their registration, or understand interest deferred from older bonds exchanged into HH bonds. This guide combines Treasury's handling and tax explanations, with the maturity context made explicit. It helps separate the bond's principal from interest that may become reportable when the bond is redeemed or matures.

Adapted from public-domain educational material published by U.S. Treasury. Fynoptic has organized and edited the material and added introductory and practical guidance. Sources were reviewed on October 28, 2026; original publication dates, where available, are listed below.

Final-maturity context

All Series HH bonds reached final maturity and stopped earning interest by August 2024. Any discussion of semiannual interest in the source material describes how HH bonds operated before maturity. A bond that remains uncashed can still require redemption and tax attention, but keeping it does not extend its earning period.

Cashing HH savings bonds

This page is only about Series HH savings bonds. For other bonds:

Cashing EE or I savings bonds

Cashing old bonds from other series

For these special situations, you want a different page.

Affected by a disaster

Death of a savings bond owner

Living estates (where a court has appointed a legal guardian for someone who owns bonds)

Trusts (where a trustee wants to cash savings bonds)

We no longer sell HH savings bonds. All Series HH Savings Bonds have reached final maturity as of August 1, 2024, and are no longer earning interest.

HH bonds pay interest for 20 years. All HH savings bonds have reached final maturity.

Note: Do not buy savings bonds from someone else or in an online auction site. You cannot cash them. You can only cash savings bonds that you own or co-own unless you have legal evidence or other documentation that we accept to show you are entitled to cash the bond.

What is my HH bond worth?

An HH bond is worth its face value. If the bond says $500, it was bought for $500 and is now worth $500.

While you own (or co-own) the bond, the HH bond pays interest for up to 20 years.

When can I cash in my HH bond?

All remaining HH bonds are eligible to be cashed at any time.

All Series HH Savings Bonds have reached final maturity. If you have any HH bonds with the issue date of 2004, the deferred interest, if any, shown on the face of each bond will be reportable to the IRS even if you have not cashed your bond yet. Deferred interest is reportable in the year the bond reaches final maturity or the year it is redeemed, whichever occurs first.

How do I cash in my HH bond?

We pay you for your HH bonds. You cannot cash them at a bank or other financial institution.

Notes:

  • You cannot cash part of an HH bond. The bond must be cashed for its full amount.
  • You must have a bank account where we can send the money. We pay only by direct deposit.
  • If you are not listed as the owner or co-owner on the bond, you must include legal evidence or other documentation to show that you are entitled to cash the bond. (Send a legible copy. We do not return the documents you send us.)

To tell us to cash your HH bond:

  1. Get FS Form 1522.
  2. Fill it out.

  3. Get your signature certified, if necessary.

    (If the value of the bond(s) you are cashing is more than $1,000, you will need to have your signature certified. See FS Form 1522 for more about the signature requirements.)

  4. Send the bonds, the filled-out and signed FS Form 1522, and any supporting documents to:

    Treasury Retail Securities Services P.O. Box 9150 Minneapolis, MN 55480-9150

Will I get a form for my tax return?

If we are only paying the face value with no interest or deferred interest, then you owe no tax on what we pay you. You will not get a form for your tax return.

If what you get when you cash in your HH bond includes an interest payment or deferred interest, we mail you an IRS Form 1099-INT by January 31 of the following year.

As all HH bonds have reached final maturity, any deferred interest shown on the face of the bonds will be reportable at the end of calendar year 2024, regardless of whether you redeem your securities if they were issued in the year 2004.

(For more about deferred interest and other tax information, see Tax information for HH savings bonds.)

May I authorize someone else to cash my bonds?

You may authorize an attorney-in-fact to cash your bonds. See our instructions for an attorney-in-fact.

What if I'm not sure if the HH bond has already been cashed or replaced?

If you are not sure because you got the bonds when someone died, see Death of a savings bond owner.

Otherwise, if you are the owner or co-owner of the bond, write to us.

  • Include the serial number(s) of the bond(s). Do NOT send the actual bonds.
  • Sign the letter.
  • Mail the letter to

    Treasury Retail Securities Services P.O. Box 9150 Minneapolis, MN 55480-9150

Tax information for HH savings bonds

Note: The tax situation is different for EE and I savings bonds.

Tax information for EE and I savings bonds

Is that interest taxable?

Federal income tax: Yes

State and local income tax: No

Who owes the tax? Who gets the 1099-INT?

The 1099-INT is the form that tells you how much interest we paid on your bonds in the previous year. (INT stands for "interest.") The IRS also gets this information.

Situation Who owes the tax. Who gets the 1099-INT
You are the only owner of the bond You owe the tax. You get the 1099-INT.
You and your spouse live in a community property state. The HH bond is community property. You file separate tax returns. You and your spouse must each report half the interest.

We send only one 1099-INT. We send it to the person whose name is first in the bond's registration.

You used bonds you owned to get HH bonds in an exchange. The HH bonds are in your name with a co-owner. You owe the tax. You get the 1099-INT.
You used bonds that you and another person bought together to acquire HH bonds in an exchange. You and the other person each gave part of the money to buy the original bonds. The HH bonds are in both your names as owners. You and the other person must each report the interest in proportion to how much you each paid for the original bonds that you exchanged for the HH bonds.

When must I report the interest?

The interest your HH bond earns in a given year must go on your federal income tax return for that year.

Where do I list the interest on the tax return?

Interest from your bonds goes on your federal income tax return on the same line with other interest income.

What about "deferred interest"?

Certain HH bonds weren’t available for cash only. To buy those HH bonds, you had to trade in another security you had bought earlier.

In making the exchange, you may have used interest the original security had earned to help pay for the HH bond.

If you used an old bond to buy more than one HH bond, the interest you used to buy the bonds was divided proportionately among the HH bonds.

You had a choice then for the tax on that interest:

  • pay it then, or
  • wait and pay it later (defer it)

Interest that you decided to pay later is "deferred interest."

How do I know if my HH bond has deferred interest?

If your HH bond has deferred interest, you see the amount identified on the front of the bond.

Note: All HH savings bonds have reached final maturity and are no longer earning interest. If you have any bonds dated 2004, the deferred interest, if any, will be reportable for 2024 even if you do not redeem the securities.

When do I pay tax on the deferred interest?

You don't have to report deferred interest on your federal income tax return until you are filing your return for the year in which the first of these events occurs:

  • You cash the HH bond.
  • The HH bond stops earning interest. (This happens 20 years after issue.)
  • The HH bond is reissued to show a change in ownership that is a taxable event. Reissuing or replacing a savings bond

We show the deferred interest on a 1099-INT for that year.

Deferred interest is not money we owe you in addition to the face value of an HH bond. It is part of the face value of the HH bond.

Changing information about HH savings bonds (reissuing)

Note: For these special situations, you want a different page.

Some changes in information result in our reissuing the savings bond. Some do not.

This page tells you whether we need to know about a change and, if we do, how you can tell us.

All Series HH savings bonds have reached final maturity. If you have any bonds with an issue date of 2004, the deferred interest, if any, will be reportable at the end of calendar year 2024, even if you do not redeem your bond.

We also do not reissue old bonds that have stopped earning interest. You may want to cash them in. See Cashing in savings bonds that no longer earn interest

What changes do NOT require reissuing HH bonds?

Note: All Series HH savings bonds have reached final maturity and can no longer be reissued. If you have bonds dated 2004, they have ceased to earn interest and the deferred interest, if any, will be reportable to the IRS at the end of calendar year 2024, even if you have not redeemed them.

We do not reissue bonds in these situations. This table tells what to do instead.

The situation What you should do
You got married or divorced and changed your name When you cash in a paper HH bond, sign both your name that is on the bond and your current name with the reason for the name change.

Examples:

Mary Smith, Mary Jones (name changed due to marriage)

Mary Jones, Mary Smith (name changed due to divorce)

Your name has a minor typo When you cash in a paper HH bond, sign your correct name.
You moved and have a new address The address does not affect ownership of the bond. However, we need the new address as we mail you an IRS Form 1099-INT every year.

Note: You will only need to submit an address change to our office if you have bonds dated 2004. All other bonds reached final maturity in a previous tax year. Please send your change of address ASAP so we can adjust your account before the end of the year, and you will receive your 1099 in a timely manner.

To update your address, submit a signed request.

You can send us a letter or FS Form 1980 or FS Form 5257. You can mail your request to:

Treasury Retail Securities Services
P.O. Box 9150
Minneapolis, MN 55480-9150

The bond has the wrong Social Security Number (SSN) If the SSN on the bond shows as ***** and then the last 4 numbers, that is NOT a problem. We do that to protect your privacy.

If the SSN is really wrong –

We don't reissue the bond to correct an SSN. However, please let us know. If we ever need to search our database for your bond, we search by SSN. So it's good to have the bond listed in our database with the correct SSN.

To correct the SSN on a paper savings bond, do not send the bonds. Send the following.

  1. A letter with this information:
    • The incorrect SSN
    • The correct SSN
    • For each bond that has the wrong SSN:
      • Serial number of the bond
      • Issue date
      • Denomination (Is it a $50 bond, a $100 bond, or a different dollar amount?)
      • Registration (Who owns the bond: owner, co-owner [if there is one], and beneficiary [if there is one])
  2. Either FS Form 1980 or IRS Form W-9
  3. Mail everything to

Will I have to pay taxes when you reissue my HH savings bonds?

Note: All HH bonds dated 2004 have reached final maturity and the “deferred interest”, if any, will be reportable to the IRS at the end of calendar year 2024, whether or not you redeem the bond(s).

If you still own the reissued bond, you will continue to receive the interest for it; and thus, you will continue to owe federal tax on that interest.

If the reissue made someone else the primary owner of the HH savings bond, you do not owe tax on interest the bond earns for the new owner.

If you are the new owner, you will owe federal tax (but not state or local income tax) on the interest you earn from the bond.

See Tax information for HH savings bonds

Getting the IRS form about the interest your bonds earned

Each year, we tell you and the IRS about the interest you must report on your federal tax return. (IRS Form 1099-INT)

We mail your 1099-INT for paper HH bonds after the end of the calendar year in which we reissued the bond.

Putting this into practice

Check the issue date and whether the bond carries deferred interest before preparing tax records. Retaining the paper after final maturity does not create new earnings. If ownership has changed, follow the applicable reissue or estate procedure rather than assuming the name can be corrected at redemption.

Sources and further reading

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