CD Rates Reshuffle;
12-Month Climbs to 2.847%

CD rates reshuffled over the two weeks since our July 6 report. Five of the eight tracked terms rose and three fell, and the pattern was clean: the short end sagged while the middle of the curve firmed. The benchmark 12-month climbed to 2.847%, extending its lead at the top, and the 24-month overtook the 6-month for third place, the first change in the curve’s ranking in this run. The 3-month and 6-month posted the largest moves on the board, both lower. With the Fed on hold since June 17 and meeting again at the end of this month, the level of the curve barely moved even as its shape shifted.

📊 Full 8-term CD data: 12,983 institution-term combinations tracked across all 50 states.

NATIONAL: CD rates nationally shifted shape in the two weeks since our July 6 report, with five of the eight tracked terms higher and three lower. 12-month CD rates, the benchmark, added 0.007 points to 2.847%, the highest reading of this run, while the 24-month posted the largest gain, up 0.029 points to 2.707%, enough to overtake the 6-month for third place on the curve. The short end went the other way: the 3-month and 6-month fell 0.065 and 0.050 points, the two biggest moves on the board. The cross-term average eased to 2.602% from 2.608%, as the short-end declines outweighed the gains everywhere else.

The benchmark stayed the story at the top. The 12-month’s 0.007-point gain since July 6 took it to 2.847%, stretching its lead over every other term, and the 60-month added 0.006 points to 2.735% to hold second. Because both ends of that pair rose by nearly the same amount, the gap between them held at 0.112 points, right at its widest of the summer. The curve stays inverted: the one-year still out-pays the five-year, and locking long still costs yield rather than earning a premium.

The short end did the falling. 3-month CD rates dropped 0.065 points to 1.928%, giving back their early-July gains and settling deeper below the 2% line, and 6-month CD rates fell 0.050 points to 2.674%, a slide that cost the term its long-held third place on the curve. Two-week windows run larger moves than single weeks as a rule, and these were the board’s largest, but the direction is what matters: the shortest terms softened while everything from eighteen months out firmed.

The middle of the curve took up the slack. The 24-month’s 0.029-point rise to 2.707% made it the biggest gainer since July 6 and lifted it into third, the first time in this run it has out-paid the 6-month. The 18-month added 0.015 points to 2.652%, edging past the 36-month, and the 48-month rose 0.017 points to 2.630%, narrowing its gap to the rest of the multiyear group. 36-month CD rates were the odd term out, easing 0.007 points to 2.645%, the only decline outside the short end and small enough to read as drift.

A quick word on what these numbers are. They are national averages, drawn from rates collected directly off institution websites, and the tracked universe keeps growing as coverage expands. What any one saver can actually get depends on where they bank and how far they are willing to shop. Someone comparing Georgia CD rates, for instance, can line up the strongest in-state and online offers against this national picture and see where the gap is worth chasing.

A curve that changes shape without changing level is telling you something about savers, not the Fed. The Federal Reserve has not moved: on June 17 the FOMC held the federal funds rate at 3.50% to 3.75% for a fourth straight meeting, a unanimous decision and the first under new Chair Kevin Warsh, and its updated projections dropped the expectation of cuts this year, with the median leaning toward a hike. That parked, hawkish backdrop has kept the overall CD average pinned near 2.60% all month. What moved over the past two weeks was the distribution along the curve: banks trimmed their shortest promotional terms while bidding up the eighteen-to-forty-eight-month range, pulling the belly closer to the one-year and letting the front sag. The next FOMC meeting comes at the end of this month, and until it delivers a surprise, shape rather than level is likely to remain the story.

For savers, the reshuffle carries a practical message. The one-year at 2.847% is still the single best rate on the board and its lead grew again, so the sweet spot has not moved. But the firming belly changes the math just behind it: the 24-month at 2.707% now out-pays the 6-month, which means committing two years no longer costs yield against the short end the way it did in early July. That is precisely the setup where laddering a certificate of deposit earns its keep, spreading a balance across the one-year and the firming middle terms rather than betting everything on a single maturity. Term-by-term history lives on the CD rate trends page.