Almost everyone has one. A savings account opened for a long-forgotten goal, a checking account at a bank you left when you moved, a small balance from a first job that you stopped thinking about years ago. The money doesn’t vanish when you forget about it. It goes through a slow, rule-bound process that ends with your state government holding it for you.
That process is called escheatment, and it’s more common than most people realize. More than $70 billion in unclaimed property is sitting with state governments right now, according to figures cited by Motley Fool. In many states, about 1 in 7 people has unclaimed money waiting for them, per unclaimed.org, the site run by the National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators (NAUPA).
An account moves from active to “inactive” to “dormant” to the state’s books in a predictable order, and getting the money back is easier than most people expect.
Step one: the account goes quiet
Banks track what they call customer-initiated activity. Deposits, withdrawals, ATM use, and transfers all count. Interest does not, because you didn’t do anything to make it happen. A savings account can earn interest for years and still be treated as untouched.
After roughly 12 months with no transactions, a bank will typically flag the account as inactive, according to SoFi’s guide to dormant accounts. Nothing dramatic happens at this point. The account is still yours and still open.
The one thing that can change is fees. Some banks start charging an inactivity fee once an account is flagged. Others never charge one, but at the ones that do, the fee can run anywhere from $5 to $25 a month. On a small forgotten balance, that can eat a meaningful chunk of the money before the state ever gets involved.
Step two: inactive becomes dormant
The next threshold is set by state law, not by your bank. Each state has a “dormancy period,” the length of time an account can sit untouched before the bank has to treat it as abandoned property.
For checking and savings accounts, that period is typically three to five years, based on NAUPA data summarized by Fidelity’s explainer on escheatment. The exact number depends on where you live. California, Connecticut, and Illinois use about three years, for example, while Delaware, Georgia, and Wisconsin use five.
Other types of property have their own clocks. Securities like stocks and mutual funds generally fall in a three to seven year range, with most states between three and five. Unpaid wages move much faster: most states set that period at one year.
Step three: the bank tries to find you
Before a bank turns anything over, it has to make an attempt to contact you. This is usually a letter to the last address on file, and that’s exactly where the system tends to break down. If you’ve moved two or three times and never updated your address with a bank you stopped using, the notice goes to someone else’s mailbox and you never see it.
If you don’t respond within the window your state allows, the bank closes the account and sends the balance to the state. Depending on the state, that’s usually the comptroller, the treasurer, or a dedicated unclaimed property division.
What the state does with your money
The state doesn’t spend your money and call it theirs. It holds the claim for you indefinitely, and you (or your heirs) can come back for it.
Cash comes back in full. State programs return 100% of what you’re owed, with no percentage withheld. Investments are a different story. Securities may be sold before or shortly after they’re transferred to the state, and a rightful owner who claims them later is generally entitled only to the cash value at the time of the transfer. If the stock you forgot about doubled after the state sold it, you don’t get the doubled value. That’s the real cost of letting a brokerage account go dormant, and it’s why old investment accounts deserve more attention than a forgotten $40 checking balance.
How much actually gets returned
States do give a lot of money back. State programs returned more than $4.25 billion to owners in fiscal year 2025, according to NAUPA figures. That followed about $4.49 billion in FY2024 and $5.4 billion in FY2023.
Those are large numbers, but compare them to the $70 billion still waiting. Most unclaimed property simply sits, because the owners have no idea it exists.
How to check for your own unclaimed money
Searching is free and takes a couple of minutes. MissingMoney.com is NAUPA’s multistate database, and it covers most states in one search. You can also go straight to your state’s unclaimed property site through unclaimed.org.
Search your current name, any previous names, and every state you’ve lived or worked in. Businesses can be searched too. If you find a match, you’ll file a claim, usually online, and provide documents proving ownership, such as ID and something that ties you to the old address. Time limits and paperwork requirements vary by state.
One warning that’s worth taking seriously: you never have to pay anyone to find or claim your money. Some websites and “finders” charge a fee or a percentage, and some even ask for a small trial payment. The official state databases are free, and so is the claim.
Keeping your accounts from going dormant
Prevention is easy once you know the rule. Any customer-initiated transaction resets the clock, and interest doesn’t count. If you keep a savings account you rarely touch, such as an emergency fund at an online bank, make a small transfer in or out a couple of times a year. A $5 automatic transfer from checking does the job and makes it hard to forget.
It also helps to keep your contact information current everywhere you have money, including banks, brokerages, old 401(k) plans, and insurance companies. When you move, update your address with financial institutions the same week you forward your mail.
And if you have accounts you no longer need, close them deliberately. Consolidating a scattered collection of old checking and savings accounts into one or two you actually use is less to keep track of, and it means your money keeps earning for you instead of drifting toward a state database.
