The Best-Paying Nationwide CDs Offer up to 5.75% for 3 to 15 Months

For anyone looking to lock in the very highest CD rate possible, the national leader in our daily ranking of the best nationwide CDs is paying 5.75% APY. But an additional 12 CDs are paying rates between 5.51% and 5.75%, giving you more than a dozen stellar-rate options to choose from.

Note that these top-paying CDs have terms at the shorter end of the spectrum, ranging from 3 months up to 15 months. Information is provided later in this article for those wanting to lock in a rate for a longer term.

All of the CDs below are offered to customers nationwide by federally insured institutions—covered by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) for banks or the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) for credit unions. That means even in the very unlikely case that the institution fails, your deposits of up to $250,000 are protected.

13 Nationally Available CDs That Pay More than 5.50% APY

Click the link for the term you're shopping for full details on all of these CDs.

Term Length	Rate (APY)	Term	Minimum Deposit
3-Month CDs
TotalDirectBank	5.66%	3 months	$25,000
Signature Federal Credit Union	5.55%	3 months	$500
6-Month CDs (5 Months to 9 Months)
Citizens State Bank	5.75%	7 months	$10,000
NASA Federal Credit Union	5.70%	9 months	$10,000
Genisys Credit Union	5.51%	7 months	$500
1-Year CDs (10 Months to 14 Months)
Financial Resources Federal Credit Union	5.64%	13 months	$500
Lafayette Federal Credit Union	5.56%	12 months	$500
Northpointe Bank	5.55%	11 months	$25,000
Colorado Federal Savings Bank	5.55%	12 months	$5,000
NexBank	5.55%	12 months	$25,000
CIBC Agility	5.51%	12 months	$1,000
18-Month CDs (15 Months to 20 Months)
Hyperion Bank	5.65%	15 months	$2,500
Expedition Credit Union	5.51%	15 months	$2,500

Almost 30 Runners-Up Are Paying 5.50% APY

If none of the elite-rate CDs above suit your needs, you have plenty of excellent options at a just barely lower rate of 5.50%. With 29 in this tier, they are too numerous to list here. But you can find details on all of them by clicking the term articles linked in the table below.

Term	Number of Runner-Up CDs Paying 5.50% APY
6-Month CDs	18
1-Year CDs	10
18-Month CDs	1

Locking in a Longer Term is Also Smart

With it appearing likely the Federal Reserve will start lowering the benchmark federal funds rate sometime in 2024, it's also a smart time to lock in one of today's historically high CD rates for a term of 2 years or longer. Though maturities of 18 months or shorter pay the highest APYs, opening a CD with a longer term guarantees you'll earn today's rates much further down the road.

This could prove especially beneficial if the Fed lowers interest rates for a number of years, as financial markets currently predict. The first rate cut is forecasted to occur in 2024, but additional cuts in 2025 and 2026 could also come. That might mean today's interest rates are lowered by 2%-3%, or possibly even more, in the next two years. A longer-term CD would therefore pay less now, while rates are still high, but its multi-year guaranteed return could deliver quite a substantial upside if future rates are much lower than today.

Why Today’s CDs Are Paying So Much

In March 2022, the Federal Reserve embarked on an aggressive rate-hike campaign in a fight against decades-high inflation. With 11 increases to the fed funds rate, the central bank raised its benchmark rate by a cumulative 5.25%. That's the highest level for the fed funds rate since 2001.

As a result, CD rates surged in 2023, as you can see below. Take 1-year certificates as an example. The top nationwide rate before the Fed's rate-hike campaign began was 0.80% APY. But at its recent peak, it climbed to a remarkable 6.00% APY. Today, the top 1-year rate has edged down to 5.64% APY, but that's still historically high.

Will CD Rates Go Higher?

Inflation has cooled considerably in recent months, allowing the Fed to take its foot off the gas on rate hikes. After its latest rate-setting meeting, which concluded on December 13, the Fed announced it was maintaining the federal funds rate at its current level. That's the third meeting in a row it has implemented a rate hold.

Further, it released its quarterly "dot plot" report, which shows that, at the time of the December meeting, the median prediction among Fed committee members was for three rate cuts in 2024, of 0.25% each. The dot plot also shows forecasts of further rate decreases in 2025 and 2026.

That said, economic data that's been released since the Fed's December meeting may make it harder for the Fed to pull the trigger on the first rate cut. Last week's jobs report came in surprisingly robust, and yesterday's inflation report showed an unwelcome acceleration in December. The Fed has long maintained that until it feels assured that inflation will not only decline but stay sustainably low, another rate hike is still within the realm of possibility this year.

CD rates are directly impacted by movement in the federal funds rate, so it's expected that CD rates will fall this year, and likely over the next two years. But when the first Fed rate cut will occur is still a big guess, and rate forecasts months and years down the road should always be treated cautiously.

How We Find the Best Savings and CD Rates

Every business day, Investopedia tracks the rate data of more than 200 banks and credit unions that offer money market, savings accounts, and CDs to customers nationwide, and determines daily rankings of the top-paying accounts. To qualify for our lists, the institution must be federally insured (FDIC for banks, NCUA for credit unions), and the account's minimum initial deposit must not exceed $25,000.

Banks must be available in at least 40 states. And while some credit unions require you to donate to a specific charity or association to become a member if you don't meet other eligibility criteria (e.g., you don't live in a certain area or work in a certain kind of job), we exclude credit unions whose donation requirement is $40 or more. For more about how we choose the best rates, read our full methodology.