FS Form 1522: How to Cash Paper Savings Bonds by Mail (2026)

There is a particular kind of afternoon that ends with a shoebox. Someone clearing out a parent’s desk, or their own, finds a stack of paper savings bonds purchased decades ago and long forgotten. The bonds are still worth something, sometimes a good deal more than their face value, and the Treasury will still pay them. The path from the shoebox to your bank account runs through a single government form, FS Form 1522, and the form is more particular than it looks.

The short answer: FS Form 1522 is the request for payment you mail, together with the bonds, to Treasury Retail Securities Services in Minneapolis. It covers savings bonds, savings notes, Retirement Plan Bonds and Individual Retirement Bonds. Payment is by direct deposit into a bank account you name on the form. If the bonds’ current redemption value totals $1,000 or less, you sign without certification and enclose a copy of your driver’s license, passport, state ID or military ID. Above $1,000, you sign in front of a notary or a certifying officer.

What the form covers, and who may sign it

The form’s own description of its purpose is short: “Use this form to request payment of United States Savings Bonds, Savings Notes, Retirement Plan Bonds, and Individual Retirement Bonds.” If your shoebox holds Series EE, Series E or Series I paper bonds, this is the form.

The question of who may complete it is more detailed than most people expect. According to the instructions, the form “may be completed by the owner, coowner, surviving beneficiary, or legal representative of the estate of a deceased or incompetent owner, persons entitled to the estate of a deceased registrant, or such other persons who may be entitled to payment under the regulations governing United States Savings Bonds.” There are two rules on top of that. A minor may sign if, in the opinion of the notary or certifying officer, he or she is “of sufficient competency to understand the nature of the transaction,” and “An incompetent person may not sign this form.” If you are cashing bonds that belonged to someone who has died, the estate may call for a different form, and our guide on a deceased owner’s savings bonds without probate explains when FS Form 5336 enters the picture.

Item 1: describe the bonds the way they are printed

Item 1 opens with a statement that you are “the owner or person entitled to payment of the securities described below,” and then asks for the “name(s) of the person(s) currently registered/listed on the securities.” Those names should match the inscription on the bonds, not the names you would prefer to see there. Below that, the form has a grid of paired columns: issue date and serial number, repeated three times across, for as many rows as the page allows.

The form anticipates that a shoebox will not fit on one page: “If you need more space, attach either a list or FS Form 3500 [see www.treasurydirect.gov].” A typed list with each bond’s issue date and serial number does the job, and the instructions tell you to “Describe the bonds by issue date and serial number.” Copy these from the bonds themselves, character by character, since the serial number is the thing that lets Treasury find the record.

Item 2: payment is by direct deposit

Here is the point that surprises people used to a paper check coming back in the mail. The form’s payment section is titled “Instructions for Direct Deposit Payment,” and it is the only payment section the form contains. There is no box for a mailed check. If you do not have a bank account to receive the money, you will need to sort that out before you file, because the form leaves no alternative.

What Item 2 asks for is specific. The “payee must provide a Social Security Number OR Employer Identification Number.” The instructions explain that the payee’s Taxpayer Identification Number is required, with the Social Security Number for an individual and an Employer Identification Number if “an estate, trust, or other entity is involved and IRS has assigned” one. Then you furnish “the name(s) on the account, the account number, the type of account, and the financial institution’s name, the routing/transit number which identifies the institution, and the institution’s phone number.” The form calls for a bank routing number of nine digits that “begins with 0, 1, 2, or 3,” and a checkbox for checking or savings.

Two small instructions deserve attention because they prevent delays. The form notes that “You may need to contact the financial institution to obtain the routing number,” so call the bank if you have any doubt about which number applies to the account. And it adds, “Please verify account information for accuracy and legibility to avoid a delay in deposit.” Write the digits slowly, in ink, or type them.

Item 3: signature, name changes and backup withholding

Item 3 is where the form turns into a legal document. The text above your signature reads, “Under penalties of perjury, I certify that” the number shown is your correct Taxpayer Identification Number (or you are waiting for one), that you are not subject to backup withholding for one of three listed reasons, and that you are a U.S. person, including a U.S. resident alien. The same item contains a conditional instruction: “You must cross out item 2 above if you have been notified by the IRS that you are currently subject to backup withholding because you have failed to report all interest and dividends on your tax return.” If that describes you, cross out that numbered statement before you sign. If not, leave it alone.

The person requesting payment “must sign the form in ink, print his or her name, and provide his or her address, daytime telephone number, and if applicable, e-mail address.” The form provides two signature blocks, so joint owners each have a place.

The name-change rule is the one that quietly trips people up. If your name has changed “by marriage or in any other legal manner from the name in the inscription of the bonds, the signature to the request for payment must show both names and the manner in which the change was made; for example, ‘Miss Mary T. Jones now by marriage Mrs. Mary T. Smith.’” In other words, you do not simply sign your current name. You sign the old name, the new name and the reason for the change, in one signature.

The $1,000 line and what it means

Certification is where FS Form 1522 differs from the Treasury’s account-based forms. The form splits the world at $1,000 of current redemption value. In the form’s words: “If the current redemption value (see Instructions) of your bonds totals $1,000 or less, your signature need not be certified; you may simply sign the form and enclose a current copy of your driver’s license, passport, state ID, or military ID. If the current redemption value of your bonds totals more than $1,000, sign this form in the presence of a notary or certifying officer.”

Two details matter. First, the test uses the total across all the bonds on the form, not each bond individually. A handful of bonds that are each worth a few hundred dollars can add up to more than $1,000, at which point the whole request needs certification. Second, the test uses current redemption value, which is not the face value printed on the bond. The form tells you to use the Savings Bond Calculator at TreasuryDirect.gov for Series EE, Series E or Series I bonds, or for savings notes. If the calculator says your bonds are worth $850, you are under the line and can enclose an ID copy; if it says $1,001, you are over it.

When certification is required, the person signs in front of the notary or officer, who completes the block on the form, adding the names of those who appeared, the date and the place, and “must affix the seal or stamp which is used when certifying requests for payment.” The acceptable examples include a notary seal, a financial institution’s Signature Guaranteed, Endorsement Guaranteed, Corporate or issuing-agent stamp, and the stamp of a Treasury-recognized Signature Guarantee or Medallion program. The form adds that if a Medallion stamp is used, an original signature is required, and that “Authorized certifying officers are available at financial institutions, including credit unions, in the United States.” Our side-by-side table of every TreasuryDirect form shows how this notary-friendly rule compares with the stricter forms that refuse notaries.

Mailing it, and what you will not get back

The “Where To Send” section is blunt: “Unless otherwise instructed, send this form and the bonds, as well as any other appropriate forms, evidence, or identification records, to the address below.” The address is Treasury Retail Securities Services, P.O. Box 9150, Minneapolis, MN 55480-9150, and the form lists a toll-free phone number of 844-284-2676. The same section carries a warning to take seriously: “Legal evidence or documentation you submit cannot be returned.” Send photocopies of ID, never originals you cannot replace, and keep a copy of the completed form and your list of serial numbers.

Notice the instruction to send the bonds themselves with the form. That is not a formality. The paper bond is the security, and the form is the request to pay it. The form states no processing time at all, so plan around that uncertainty and do not count on the money by a fixed date.

Before you cash: should you?

Everything above assumes you have already decided to cash the bonds. Whether to cash now is a separate question from how, and it has its own logic. If your shoebox contains Series I bonds, read our guide on the best time to redeem an I bond to avoid the 3-month penalty before you mail anything, and our overview of how I bonds work if the product is unfamiliar. For the comparison between the two main bond families, see Series I versus Series EE. If you would rather reissue the bonds in your own name than cash them, the form for that is a different one: FS Form 4000, which the Treasury says to use for reissue, while FS Form 1522 is the one for payment. If you want to keep the bonds but change the name on them, the form is FS Form 4000, and the reissued bonds come back electronic. And if the certificates themselves have gone missing, the starting point is FS Form 1048.

The pattern across all of this is that Treasury’s paper forms reward precision. Match the inscription, copy the serial numbers, check the routing number, count the redemption value, and sign the way the form tells you to sign. The mistakes are almost never conceptual; they are small, and they cost weeks. More background on the savings landscape lives in the savings hub.

Sources

• FS Form 1522, Special Form of Request for Payment of United States Savings and Retirement Securities (rev. April 2026): https://www.treasurydirect.gov/forms/sav1522.pdf
• FS Form 4000, Request To Reissue United States Savings Bonds (rev. April 2026): https://www.treasurydirect.gov/forms/sav4000.pdf