U.S. Savings Bonds: Federal Income Tax (2025 IRS Guide)

This guide covers “U.S. Savings Bonds” within federal income tax. The following material presents the IRS treatment of this topic, including the qualifications, exceptions, and examples in the source section. Read the rules alongside the facts of your own situation before deciding what to report, deduct, or document.

Adapted from Publication 17 (2025), Your Federal Income Tax, published by the Internal Revenue Service. This guide retains the source edition’s years, amounts, deadlines, and examples. It is guidance for that edition, not a statement that the same figures apply to every tax year.

U.S. Savings Bonds

This section provides tax information on U.S. savings bonds. It explains how to report the interest income on these bonds and how to treat transfers of these bonds.

U.S. savings bonds currently offered to individuals include Series EE bonds and Series I bonds.

.For information about U.S. savings bonds, go to TreasuryDirect.gov/savings-bonds/..

.If you prefer, write to:
.

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

Accrual method taxpayers.

If you use an accrual method of accounting, you must report interest on U.S. savings bonds each year as it accrues. You can’t postpone reporting interest until you receive it or until the bonds mature. Accrual methods of accounting are explained in chapter 1 under Accounting Methods.

Cash method taxpayers.

If you use the cash method of accounting, as most individual taxpayers do, you generally report the interest on U.S. savings bonds when you receive it. The cash method of accounting is explained in chapter 1 under Accounting Methods. But see Reporting options for cash method taxpayers, later.

Series H and HH bonds.

The U.S. Treasury sold HH savings bonds from 1980 through August 2004. HH savings bonds earn interest for up to 20 years. So the last HH bonds will stop earning interest in 2024. (See TreasuryDirect.gov/savings-bonds/hh-bonds/.)

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.” If your HH bond has deferred interest, you see the amount identified on the front of the bond. 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; the HH bond is reissued to show a change in ownership that is a taxable event. (See TreasuryDirect.gov/savings-bonds/hh-bonds/hh-bonds-tax-information.)

Series H bonds were issued before 1980. All Series H bonds have matured and are no longer earning interest.

In addition to the twice-a-year interest payments, most H/HH bonds have a deferred interest component. The reporting of this as income is addressed later in this chapter.

Series EE and Series I bonds.

Interest on these bonds is payable when you redeem the bonds. The difference between the purchase price and the redemption value is taxable interest.

Series E and EE bonds.

Series E bonds were issued before July 1980. All Series E bonds have matured and are no longer earning interest. Series EE bonds were first offered in January 1980 and have a maturity period of 30 years; they were offered in paper (definitive) form until 2012. Paper Series EE and Series E bonds were issued at a discount and increase in value as they earn interest. Electronic (book-entry) Series EE bonds were first offered in 2003; they are issued at face value and increase in value as they earn interest. For all Series E and Series EE bonds, the purchase price plus all accrued interest is payable to you at redemption.

Series I bonds.

Series I bonds were first offered in 1998. These are inflation-indexed bonds issued at face value with a maturity period of 30 years. Series I bonds increase in value as they earn interest. The face value plus all accrued interest is payable to you at redemption.

Reporting options for cash method taxpayers.

If you use the cash method of reporting income, you can report the interest on Series EE and Series I bonds in either of the following ways.

1. Method 1. Postpone reporting the interest until the earlier of the year you cash or dispose of the bonds or the year they mature.

2. Method 2. Choose to report the increase in redemption value as interest each year.

You must use the same method for all Series EE and Series I bonds you own.

.If you plan to cash your bonds in the same year you will pay for higher education expenses, you may want to use method 1 because you may be able to exclude the interest from your income. To learn how, see Education Savings Bond Program, later..

Change from method 1.

If you want to change your method of reporting the interest from method 1 to method 2, you can do so without permission from the IRS. In the year of change, you must report all interest accrued to date and not previously reported for all your bonds.

Once you choose to report the interest each year, you must continue to do so for all Series EE and Series I bonds you own and for any you get later, unless you request permission to change, as explained next.

Change from method 2.

To change from method 2 to method 1, see Revenue Procedure 2025-23, section 17.

Co-owners.

If a U.S. savings bond is issued in the names of co-owners, such as you and your child or you and your spouse, interest on the bond is generally taxable to the co-owner who bought the bond.

One co-owner’s funds used.

If you used your funds to buy the bond, you must pay the tax on the interest. This is true even if you let the other co-owner redeem the bond and keep all the proceeds. Under these circumstances, the co-owner who redeemed the bond will receive a Form 1099-INT at the time of redemption and must provide you with another Form 1099-INT showing the amount of interest from the bond taxable to you. The co-owner who redeemed the bond is a “nominee.” See Nominee distributions under How To Report Interest Income in chapter 1 of Pub. 550 for more information about how a person who is a nominee reports interest income belonging to another person.

Both co-owners’ funds used.

If you and the other co-owner each contribute part of the bond’s purchase price, the interest is generally taxable to each of you, in proportion to the amount each of you paid.

Community property.

If you and your spouse live in a community property state and hold bonds as community property, one-half of the interest is considered received by each of you. If you file separate returns, each of you must generally report one-half of the bond interest. For more information about community property, see Pub. 555.

Table 6-1.

These rules are also shown in Table 6-1.

Ownership transferred.

If you bought Series EE or Series I bonds entirely with your own funds and had them reissued in your co-owner’s name or beneficiary’s name alone, you must include in your gross income for the year of reissue all interest that you earned on these bonds and have not previously reported. But, if the bonds were reissued in your name alone, you don’t have to report the interest accrued at that time.

This same rule applies when bonds (other than bonds held as community property) are transferred between spouses or incident to divorce.

Purchased jointly.

If you and a co-owner each contributed funds to buy Series EE or Series I bonds jointly and later have the bonds reissued in the co-owner’s name alone, you must include in your gross income for the year of reissue your share of all the interest earned on the bonds that you have not previously reported. The former co-owner doesn’t have to include in gross income at the time of reissue his or her share of the interest earned that was not reported before the transfer. This interest, however, as well as all interest earned after the reissue, is income to the former co-owner.

This income-reporting rule also applies when a new co-owner purchases your share of the bond and the bonds are reissued in the name of your former co-owner and a new co-owner. But the new co-owner will report only his or her share of the interest earned after the transfer.

If bonds that you and a co-owner bought jointly are reissued to each of you separately in the same proportion as your contribution to the purchase price, neither you nor your co-owner has to report at that time the interest earned before the bonds were reissued.

Table 6-1. Who Pays the Tax on U.S. Savings Bond Interest

Example 1.

You and your spouse each spent an equal amount to buy a $1,000 Series EE savings bond. The bond was issued to you and your spouse as co-owners. You both postpone reporting interest on the bond. You later have the bond reissued as two $500 bonds, one in your name and one in your spouse’s name. At that time, neither you nor your spouse has to report the interest earned to the date of reissue.

Example 2.

You bought a $1,000 Series EE savings bond entirely with your own funds. The bond was issued to you and your spouse as co-owners. You both postpone reporting interest on the bond. You later have the bond reissued as two $500 bonds, one in your name and one in your spouse’s name. You must report half the interest earned to the date of reissue.

Transfer to a trust.

If you own Series EE or Series I bonds and transfer them to a trust, giving up all rights of ownership, you must include in your income for that year the interest earned to the date of transfer if you have not already reported it. However, if you are considered the owner of the trust and if the increase in value both before and after the transfer continues to be taxable to you, you can continue to defer reporting the interest earned each year. You must include the total interest in your income in the year you cash or dispose of the bonds or the year the bonds finally mature, whichever is earlier.

The same rules apply to previously unreported interest on Series EE or Series E bonds if the transfer to a trust consisted of Series HH bonds you acquired in a trade for the Series EE or Series E bonds.

Decedents.

The manner of reporting interest income on Series EE or Series I bonds after the death of the owner (decedent) depends on the accounting and income-reporting methods previously used by the decedent. This is explained in chapter 1 of Pub. 550.

Form 1099-INT for U.S. savings bonds interest.

When you cash a bond, the bank or other payer that redeems it may give you a Form 1099-INT. Form 1099-INT, box 3 should show the interest as the difference between the amount you received and the amount paid for the bond. However, your Form 1099-INT may show more interest than you have to include on your income tax return. For example, this may happen if any of the following are true.

• You chose to report the increase in the redemption value of the bond each year. The interest shown on your Form 1099-INT won’t be reduced by amounts previously included in income.

• You received the bond from a decedent. The interest shown on your Form 1099-INT won’t be reduced by any interest reported by the decedent before death or on the decedent’s final return or by the estate on the estate’s income tax return.

• Ownership of the bond was transferred. The interest shown on your Form 1099-INT won’t be reduced by interest that accrued before the transfer.

  Note: This is true for paper bonds, but the Treasury reporting process for electronic bonds is more refined—if Treasury is aware that the transfer of an electronic savings bond is a reportable event, then the transferor will receive a Form 1099-INT for the year of the transfer for the interest accrued up to the time of the transfer; when the transferee later disposes of the bond (redemption, maturity, or further transfer), the transferee will receive a Form 1099-INT reduced by the amount reported to the transferor at the time of the original transfer.

• You were named as a co-owner, and the other co-owner contributed funds to buy the bond. The interest shown on your Form 1099-INT won’t be reduced by the amount you received as nominee for the other co-owner. (See Co-owners, earlier in this chapter, for more information about the reporting requirements.)

• You received the bond in a taxable distribution from a retirement or profit-sharing plan. The interest shown on your Form 1099-INT won’t be reduced by the interest portion of the amount taxable as a distribution from the plan and not taxable as interest. (This amount is generally shown on Form 1099-R for the year of distribution.)

For more information on including the correct amount of interest on your return, see How To Report Interest Income, later.

.Interest on U.S. savings bonds is exempt from state and local taxes..

Using the guidance

Keep the documents that establish the dates, amounts, and circumstances described above. References to other chapters, forms, worksheets, or earlier and later sections refer to the linked IRS publication. Check the full publication and its updates before relying on a rule for a different tax year or a situation not addressed here.

Sources and further reading

• Publication 17 (2025), Your Federal Income Tax: Interest Income — Taxable Interest—General — U.S. Savings Bonds — Internal Revenue Service; 2025 edition.

The cited U.S. government text is in the public domain. Source accessed October 28, 2026. Fynoptic has organized this material for educational use and is independent of, and not endorsed by, the IRS.