Savings Rates Split;
High-Yield Nears 2.00% Again

Savings rates diverged over the two weeks since our July 6 report. High-yield savings reversed its early-July slide, climbing 0.012 points back to 1.996%, a whisker from the 2.00% line, and credit union savings firmed too. The middle of the board went the other way: business savings fell 0.100 points, jumbo savings dropped 0.080, and the broad standard tier eased to 0.832%. The result is the widest gap of the summer between the top of the market and everything else, and a stronger case than ever for shopping the account rather than waiting on the market.

📊 Full 5-tier savings data: 2,519 institutions tracked across all 50 states.

NATIONAL: National savings APYs pulled in opposite directions over the two weeks ending July 20, 2026, with the top of the market firming while the middle sagged. High-yield savings accounts rose 0.012 points to 1.996% APY, reversing their early-July slide and returning to the doorstep of the 2.00% line. Below the top, jumbo savings fell 0.080 points to 1.277%, business savings dropped 0.100 points to 0.501%, the largest move on the board, and standard savings eased 0.036 points to 0.832%. Credit union savings firmed 0.010 points to 0.277%.

High-yield savings found its footing. After slipping in each of our early-July readings, the leading tier added 0.012 points over the past two weeks to reach 1.996%, its best level since late June and close enough to 2.00% to round there. The tier remains far clear of everything below it, and with the standard tier easing at the same time, the gap between high-yield and standard widened to 1.164 points from 1.116, the widest spread of the summer. A saver with $25,000 in a standard account is now leaving roughly $291 a year on the table against a competitive high-yield product.

The middle of the board did the falling. Business savings dropped 0.100 points to 0.501%, the largest two-week move of any tier, and jumbo savings fell 0.080 points to 1.277%, giving back its early-July rebound and then some. The broad standard tier, flat through early July, eased 0.036 points to 0.832%. Two-week windows run bigger moves than single weeks as a rule, and the tracked savings universe also expanded over this stretch, so these declines blend genuine repricing with a broader pool of institutions; either way, the direction across the middle tiers was uniformly lower. Credit union savings was the quiet exception, firming 0.010 points to 0.277%, though it remains the lowest tier on the board.

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

A market that splits like this is not responding to the Federal Reserve, because the Fed has given it nothing to respond to. 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 projections dropped the expectation of cuts this year, with the median leaning toward a hike. Against that unchanged backdrop, the divergence since early July reads as competition, not policy: the online and competitive banks that populate the high-yield tier bid up to hold deposits, while the broader market, which never competed hard on rate, drifted lower. The next FOMC meeting comes at the end of this month; unless it surprises, the gap between the two savings markets, the one that competes and the one that does not, is likelier to widen than to close.

For savers, the widening spread sharpens both of the choices in front of them. The first is which account: with the high-yield tier at 1.996% and the broad market at 0.832%, moving a balance matters more than anything the Fed will do this year, and a checklist for opening a savings account covers what to verify before switching. The second is liquid versus locked: the one-year CD pays 2.847% as of this report, 0.851 points above high-yield savings, so a lock-in still captures meaningfully more today, while liquid savings keeps the upside if the Fed’s next move is the hike its projections hint at. Running the CD-vs-savings math on an actual balance settles it faster than any rule of thumb, and the broader trajectory lives on the savings rate trends page.