FS Form 5444: Unlocking a Locked TreasuryDirect Account by Mail

TreasuryDirect is built to be used from a laptop, which makes the paper forms feel like a detour into another century: ink, a witness, a stamp and an envelope. FS Form 5444, the TreasuryDirect Account Authorization, is one of those detours. It is short enough to read in five minutes, but what takes longer is understanding what it does and, just as important, what it does not tell you.

The short answer: FS Form 5444, revised March 2026, is the Account Authorization you sign in front of a certifying officer or a notary and mail to Treasury Retail Securities Services in Minneapolis. It asks for your TreasuryDirect account number and your Social Security number, and it contains a box labeled “Check to remove Hardlock.” The form does not explain what a hardlock is, and it says nothing about processing times, so if you are not sure your account has one, the answer is to ask Treasury before mailing anything.

What the form says it is

The text under the title is the only definition the form gives of itself: “I submit this account authorization pursuant to the provisions of 31 CFR Part 363. I understand that my TreasuryDirect account will be activated upon receipt and approval of this authorization. Under penalty of perjury, I certify the information provided is true, correct and complete.”

Three things follow from that sentence. The authorization is made under Part 363 of Title 31 of the Code of Federal Regulations, the rule set that governs TreasuryDirect. The account is activated “upon receipt and approval,” which means Treasury must both receive the form and approve it, and the form gives you no promise on timing. And you sign under penalty of perjury, which is the reason the signature has to be witnessed by someone qualified to do it. The header of the form adds the usual warning that making “any false, fictitious, or fraudulent claim or statement to the United States is a crime and may be prosecuted,” and it asks you to print in ink or type all information.

The fields, from top to bottom

Before the certification block, the form asks for a short list of items, each labeled on the page. The TreasuryDirect account number goes on one line. The Social Security number sits on another, and the form labels it “REQUIRED,” in capitals, so it cannot be left blank. Beneath that you print your name, then give a mailing address (number and street or rural route, city, state and ZIP code), a daytime telephone number and an email address.

The form has two checkboxes. One is the Entity Account box, labeled “Entity Account (living estate, trust, deceased estate, limited liability corporation, sole proprietorship).” If the account belongs to one of those kinds of owner rather than to an individual, that is the box that tells Treasury so. The other is the one this guide is named for.

The Hardlock box, and what we cannot tell you

The form has a checkbox that reads “Check to remove Hardlock.” That is the whole of the explanation on the form. FS Form 5444 does not define a hardlock, say how an account comes to have one, or list what a person can or cannot do while it is in place. We have not found that definition in the form’s text, and we are not going to supply one from memory.

What the form does tell you is how to use the box: if you are asking Treasury to remove a hardlock, check it. If you do not know whether your account has one, the form gives you no test. The sensible route is to contact Treasury Retail Securities Services, the office that receives this form, and ask what status your account is in and which form it wants. Forms 1522 and 4000 both list the toll-free number 844-284-2676 for that office, and FS Form 4000 also gives an email address, SavBonds@fiscal.treasury.gov. Those numbers are printed on the savings-bond forms rather than on FS Form 5444 itself, so confirm that the office handles your question before you rely on it.

TreasuryDirect’s FAQ on its new ID.me login adds one relevant line: an account locked “due to too many failed login attempts” is unlocked automatically by a successful sign-in through ID.me, the only online login after October 28, 2026. It does not say whether that also clears a Hardlock, so the advice above stands; the rest of the ID.me changeover is covered in TreasuryDirect without ID.me.

The line that matters most: password security

The form carries a note that is worth reading twice, because it is the single most useful sentence on the page for most readers: “We never will ask you for your password by phone, text, or e-mail.” Anyone who contacts you claiming to be TreasuryDirect and asks for your password has told you something about themselves. A locked account makes people anxious to get back in, and anxiety is what fraudsters rely on. The paper route in this form never requires you to reveal a password to anyone: you provide your account number, your Social Security number and your signature, in ink, to a witness who is physically in front of you.

Who can witness your signature

The first instruction on the form is “Sign in ink in the presence of a certifying officer or notary. Identification may be required.” The second adds: “Authorized certifying officers are available at financial institutions, including credit unions, in the United States.” The third gives the mailing address, which we cover below.

This is a more relaxed rule than the one on several of Treasury’s other account-based forms. The side-by-side comparison in our table of every TreasuryDirect form shows it clearly: the transfer request (FS Form 5511), the redemption and bank change request (FS Form 5512) and the offline transaction request (FS Form 5446) all say “Notary certification is not acceptable.” FS Form 5444 does not say that. Its list of acceptable seals and stamps starts with “The seal or stamp of a notary.”

The list continues with the same financial-institution stamps found on the other forms: “A financial institution’s official seal or stamp, including: Signature Guaranteed seal or stamp; Endorsement Guaranteed seal or stamp; Corporate seal or stamp (a corporate resolution isn’t required); or Issuing or paying agent seal or stamp (including name, location, and four-digit identification number or nine-digit routing number).” And it includes “The seal or stamp of Treasury-recognized Signature Guarantee Programs or other Treasury-approved Medallion Programs.” The sample on page 2 shows a bank’s certification reading “SIGNATURE GUARANTEED” with the bank and branch named, and a brokerage version reading “MEDALLION GUARANTEED” with the Securities Transfer Agents Medallion Program mark.

One sentence on that page deserves to be underlined: “A Bank Address Stamp is NOT an acceptable form of certification for this document.” An address stamp only identifies the branch; it is not on the list of acceptable seals. If a teller reaches for that stamp, politely ask for one of the listed ones, or go to a notary.

What the officer has to complete

The block addressed to the certifying officer is short, and the officer must complete all of it. It lists three requirements: “Name(s) of the person(s) who appeared and date of appearance MUST be completed,” “Original signature is required,” and “Person(s) must sign in your presence.” The certification then states that the person’s identity is “known or proven to me,” that the person appeared on a given day, month and year in a given city and state, and signed the form. The officer adds a signature and title, the name of the financial institution, its address and a telephone number.

The practical consequence is that you should not sign beforehand. Fill in the account number, Social Security number, name, address, phone and email, check whichever boxes apply, bring identification, and sign only when the witness is watching. A form signed at home cannot be certified after the fact.

Mailing it

The third instruction reads: “Mail the completed authorization form to: Treasury Retail Securities Services, PO Box 9150, Minneapolis, MN 55480-9150.” The privacy notice at the bottom warns you not to send the form to the Parkersburg, West Virginia address printed there for comments on the form itself, using the words “DO NOT SEND completed form to this address.” It is an easy mistake to make, since that is the only other address on the page.

The form estimates that it will take you “about 5 minutes to complete.” That is the time to fill it in, not the time to get the account working. Treasury does not state a processing time on the form. The Processing Times notice on the TreasuryDirect home page gives only a floor: “Requests to unlock your TreasuryDirect account or update your banking details may take two weeks or longer to complete.” Any plan that depends on the account being usable by a certain date is resting on a minimum, not a promise.

When 5444 is the wrong form

It helps to know what this form is not. FS Form 5444 authorizes the account and, through its checkbox, asks to remove a hardlock. It is not the form to move securities out of an account, which is the job of FS Form 5511, covered in our guide on moving Treasuries out of TreasuryDirect. It is not the form to cash paper bonds, which is FS Form 1522. Changing a name, correcting a Social Security number or fixing a date of birth belongs to FS Form 5446, which, like 5511, requires a certifying officer, so a notary will not help there. If you are still at the stage of deciding whether to open an account at all, the walkthrough on how to buy on TreasuryDirect comes first, and the savings hub places the account in a wider set of options. Name, Social Security number and entity-manager corrections go on FS Form 5446.

Sources

• FS Form 5444, TreasuryDirect Account Authorization (rev. March 2026): https://www.treasurydirect.gov/forms/acctauth.pdf
• FS Form 5511, TreasuryDirect Transfer Request (rev. March 2026): https://www.treasurydirect.gov/forms/pdf5511.pdf
• FS Form 5446, TreasuryDirect Offline Transaction Request (rev. April 2026): https://www.treasurydirect.gov/forms/sav5446.pdf
• FS Form 1522 (rev. April 2026): https://www.treasurydirect.gov/forms/sav1522.pdf
• FS Form 4000 (rev. April 2026): https://www.treasurydirect.gov/forms/sav4000.pdf
• TreasuryDirect home page, Processing Times notice (read November 11, 2026): https://www.treasurydirect.gov/