Series E bond value: the final amount of every bond from 1941 to 1980

Final value of a $100 Series E bond, by issue year

Each row is a $100 E bond bought for $75. The value is final: it is what a bank or the Treasury pays today and what it will pay in ten years. The multiple column divides that value by the price, which is the easiest way to see what the bond returned over its life. The last column is the month interest stopped. For a bond of another denomination, scale the figure: a $50 bond is worth half, a $1,000 bond ten times.

Forty years or thirty: the November 1965 line

The single biggest break in the table is between 1965 and 1966, and it comes first from the length of the earning period rather than from the rates. E bonds issued from May 1941 through November 1965 were extended until they had earned for 40 years; bonds issued from December 1965 on stopped at 30 years (TreasuryDirect). A November 1965 bond therefore compounded for a decade longer than its neighbor of December, and ended at $736.12 against $512.48.

That rule also explains why the oldest bonds are not the most valuable. A bond from January 1942 stopped in January 1982 at $377.40, while a bond from 1965 kept compounding until January 2005, through a later and different run of rates. The peak of the table, $936.44 for January 1965, sits right at the end of the forty-year group.

Why the value no longer changes

Interest on a savings bond stops at final maturity, and every Series E bond passed that point by June 2010. The Treasury kept printing the amounts in its monthly redemption tables until May 2023, the last table it published (Fiscal Data); those amounts are the ones the calculator uses, so the figure you see is the redemption value, interest included, to the cent. Holding a Series E bond longer earns nothing. It does not lose value either, and no deadline forces it to be cashed.

The denominations ran from $25 to $100,000 over the life of the series, and every one of them follows the same 75 % price, so a $25 bond cost $18.75 and is worth a quarter of the figure in the table. The value depends only on the issue month and the face value; the serial number, the owner's name and the place of purchase change nothing.

A stack of small bonds is added up one by one, because each month has its own figure. Twelve $25 bonds bought one a month through 1960 cost $225.00 in all and are worth $2,323.19 together, with single bonds ranging from $188.50 to $197.18. The Treasury's own Savings Bond Calculator prices Series E bonds and savings notes as well, one bond at a time (TreasuryDirect); the calculator on this page takes the same inputs and returns the same final amounts.

Cashing an E bond, and the tax that comes with it

A Series E bond can be cashed at any financial institution that offers the service, with identification, or by mail to the Treasury with FS Form 1522 (the form). The bank or the Treasury issues a 1099-INT for the year the bond is cashed, showing the difference between the value and the price as interest. The interest is subject to federal income tax and exempt from state and local income tax.

The IRS describes two ways of reporting savings bond interest in Publication 550 (IRS). Most owners use the first, which postpones the interest to the year the bond is cashed, disposed of or reaches final maturity, whichever comes first. For an E bond, final maturity came decades ago, so an owner who never reported the interest faces a year that has already passed. The savings bond tax page sets out how the 1099-INT and the return fit together, and inherited savings bonds covers the common case where the E bond came from a parent or grandparent.

Savings notes, the 1967 to 1970 cousin

Savings notes, sold as Freedom Shares from May 1967 to October 1970, were bought alongside E bonds and earned for 30 years. They cost 81 % of face value, so a $100 note cost $81.00. Every one of them stopped earning by October 2000. A note from January 1968 is worth $625.16, one from October 1970 $554.80, and they are cashed the same way as E bonds.

For EE bonds, which replaced the E series in 1980, see EE bond value; for every series that has stopped earning, including the HH bonds, matured savings bonds; and for reading the face of an old bond, paper savings bonds.