Annual Percentage Yield Chart

This chart shows many common annual percentage yield (APY) rates offered by finanancial institutions, now or in the past*, on certificates of deposit (CD) and other savings accounts, organized by lowest to highest yields. Click or tap into any APY to evaluate its compounding power over a 1 to 5 year period.

*Note: The higher APY rates (column 3) have not been available for years to decades, as discussed below. In 2020 to 2021, CD APY mainly hovered in the column 1 and 2 range.

Rates are organized in the chart above by column: lowest APY rates are in the left column, low are in the middle column, with better (to best) in the right column. Rows further down in the table offer higher rates than those in earlier rows.

For example, in Row 1, 1% APY in the right column is a much better rate than .01% in the leftmost column (in fact, 100 times better!); in Row 5, 5% APY in the right column is a much higher rate (compared to 1%), and significantly better than .05% in the left column.

To better evaluate the strength of an APY rate, check how much interest it will earn for your money. Simply click or tap on any rate to see how the APY CD rate performs when compounded daily for 1 to 5 year terms on any starting principal amount.

Is a 10% APY Certificate of Deposit Possible

The highest APY rate in the chart is 10%, which appears in column 3 on the bottom row. A 10% APY is 1000 times greater than the lowest rate in the table, .01%, which means that you would earn 1000 times the interest!

To see what that means in terms of interest earning potential, let's assume a starting balance of $1000, and compounded interest annually. In 1 year, at 10%, that $1000 would earn $100 in interest. In 1 year, at .01% interest, it would earn $0.10 interest - just ten cents - 1000 times less than 10%!

Given the rock-bottom CD rates of 2020 and 2021, and generally low rates in the past decade and a half, is 10% simply a fantasy rate pulled from a hat? Is a 10% APY possible? It's happened before. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, due to extremely high inflation, U.S. certificates of deposit were yielding 10%, and it was not uncommon to see 15% APY, or more.

More recently, in the late 1990s, it was possible to get CDs in the 6% to 7% range.

Will CD Rates Go Up in 2022 and 2023 in the USA?

The short answer: more than likely, yes, due to the Federal Reserve ("the Fed") raising the overnight Fund Rate in an effort to curtail inflation. When the Fed Fund Rate increases, it generally corresponds to rising CD APY rates from many finanacial institutions.

In 2022, the Fed Rate increased a total of 7 times. The first increase was in March 2022, when it increased by 25 basis points (bps), followed by 50 bps increase in May 2022, the largeset increase in 2 decades. That was followed by 4 increases (June through November 2022), each at 75 bps, followed by one last increase in December, 2022 of 50 bps, ending 2022 with the Federal Funds Rate at between 4.25% and 4.5%

While 2022 had started off with very low CD rates, and as of January 2023, some banks are still offering some or many of their CDs with abysmally low rates, such as .04% APY for 9 month CD terms and .50% on 1 year CD terms, many other banks and credit unions did incremental rate increases following Fed Fund rate increases. For example, in January 2023, some banks are offering 4% (or more) on 1 year CDs, and even more on longer term CDs (e.g. 4.6% on 3 year CDs).

CD Comparison Calculator shows which CD earns more interst

Given that it is projected the Fed will raise the Fund Rate several more times in 2023, now is an extremely good time to keep a watch on CD rates. Shopping around is imperative to get the best rates for the various term lengths.

If you have older CDs, you are probably wondering if it worth while to break the old, lower paying CD with a newer CD paying higher rates. For instance, if you opened a CD from 2021 through early 2022 and its terms has not yet expired, you may be receiving an extremely low APY rate. Assuming your financial institution allows you to break the CD, and most do (it's in the fine print that should have accompanied the CD), there's typically a penalty for early closure, in the form of multiple months of interest. But if you had a CD paying .04% and that same term is now yielding 4% - which is 100 times the rate - it's likely a very good time to break it. First, the penalty, even if it's 6 to 9 months (as an example), will likely be small since the interest rate is so low. In turn, the amount of interest you could earn for the duration of that term on the new CD likely pays the penalty in the first month or two.

So if you are wondering should I break an old CD and incur the penalty for a new higher rate CD in 2023? Check out the Early CD Withdrawal Penalty Calculator which calculates what the penalty is for closing the old CD early, how much you've made on the old CD to date as well as if held to term, and also compares that to how much you'd make on the new higher rate CD.

As always, when you review any CD, you'll want to read the CD terms completely to understand, among other things, if early withdrawal is possible and what penalties would apply, and to make sure the financial institution is insured: by FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation) if it's a bank, and by NCUA (National Credit Union Administration) if it's a credit unition.