The top nationally available certificate of deposit is paying 5.00% APY this week, but the list of banks trimming their rates keeps getting longer.
That split — one outlier holding the line while most of the market slips — is the story right now for anyone parking cash.
According to the latest roundup of nationally available CDs, the best one-year rate sits at 5.00% APY, with several credit unions and online banks clustered between 4.50% and 4.85%.
By contrast, the average one-year CD nationwide is hovering near 1.80%, which means the gap between the best and the typical offer is worth hundreds of dollars on a $10,000 deposit.
Put $10,000 into a 5.00% one-year CD and you earn roughly $500 before taxes.
The same money in a typical big-bank CD at 1.80% earns about $180.
That $320 difference is the entire reason to spend twenty minutes comparison shopping instead of accepting whatever your current bank posts on its website.
The direction of travel, though, is down.
Several online banks that led the pack last year have already shaved 10 to 25 basis points off their top tiers, and more are expected to follow if the Federal Reserve moves ahead with additional rate cuts this year.
CD rates track the fed funds rate with a lag, so the offers you see advertised today may not survive until next month.
Locking in a multi-year CD right now means committing to a rate that looks great compared to where savings accounts may be in 2026, but it also means giving up flexibility if rates unexpectedly climb again.
A common middle path is a CD ladder — splitting money across one-, two-, and three-year terms so you're not betting everything on one direction.
Two fine-print items trip people up constantly.
First, early withdrawal penalties can eat six months of interest or more, so don't lock money you might need for an emergency.
Second, some of the highest advertised rates come from institutions with minimum deposit requirements of $10,000 or more, or require you to open a checking account alongside the CD.
Also worth checking: whether the bank is federally insured.
Anything covered by the FDIC or NCUA is protected up to $250,000 per depositor, per institution.
If a rate looks dramatically higher than everyone else's, that's usually a signal to slow down, not speed up.
For anyone with cash sitting in a regular savings account earning 0.40% or less, the move is straightforward.
Even a mid-tier CD at 4.50% beats that by a wide margin, and the paperwork takes minutes online.
Waiting for a better rate has a cost too — every month spent deciding is a month of forgone interest. **Our take:** The window on 5% CDs is narrowing, and the banks still offering them are doing so partly to stand out, not because the market supports it.
If you have money you won't touch for a year, comparing three or four offers today is a better use of an hour than refreshing rate tables next quarter.
Final Thoughts
Just don't lock up your emergency fund chasing an extra quarter point.