Live deposit curve

CD ladder rates

Name: Pacific Structured Assets, Inc.
Address: 2626 Foothill Blvd, Ste 200, La Crescenta, CA, 91214, US
Telephone: (800) 928-7680

A CD ladder has a rate for every rung and a blended rate across all of them. Below is the published FDIC national CD curve from one month to five years, and what it blends to on five common ladder shapes — from 1.38% on the five-year ladder with half-yearly rungs up to 1.58% on the two-year ladder.

FDIC national deposit rates · July 2026 monthly release

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By term

Current FDIC national average CD rates

These are the eight maturities the FDIC publishes, from one month to five years, as of the July 2026 monthly release. The right-hand column turns each rate into the interest a single $10,000 deposit earns if it is held for the full term, which is usually easier to judge than a percentage.

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Term	FDIC national average APY	Interest on $10,000 held to maturity
1 month	0.23%	$1.91
3 months	1.15%	$28.63
6 months	1.38%	$68.76
12 months	1.68%	$168.00
2 years	1.56%	$314.43
3 years	1.34%	$407.41
4 years	1.26%	$513.61
5 years	1.36%	$698.75

Source: FDIC National Rates and Rate Caps, July 2026 monthly release

These are FDIC national averages (deposit-weighted) across every FDIC-insured institution, and the largest banks pay close to nothing on deposits while holding enormous balances, which drags the averages down. A well-shopped CD from a nationally available bank or credit union routinely pays materially more than the figure shown here. Read these as the middle of the market, not as a rate you have been offered. Compare them against real quotes on the FDIC National Rates and Rate Caps page, which is where these figures are published.

Blended

What those rates blend to in a ladder

A ladder earns a weighted mix of the curve, not the rate on its longest rung. Each shape below splits $50,000 evenly across its rungs, prices every rung at the published rate for that term, and reports the effective annual rate across the whole thing.

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Ladder shape	Rung terms	Blended APY	Avg. time committed	Interest on $50,000
One-year ladder	3, 6, 9, 12 months	1.52%	0.6 yrs	$475
Two-year ladder	6, 12, 18, 24 months	1.58%	1.3 yrs	$994
Three-year ladder	1, 2, 3 years	1.47%	2.0 yrs	$1,483
Five-year ladder	1, 2, 3, 4, 5 years	1.38%	3.0 yrs	$2,102
Five-year, half-yearly	6 months to 5 years, ten rungs	1.38%	2.8 yrs	$1,924

Rungs priced at the FDIC national average (deposit-weighted), July 2026 release

Off-tenor rungs are interpolated between published maturities. Blended APY is the internal rate of return across every rung and payment date. The interest column covers each ladder's own full term, so it is not comparable across rows — the blended APY and the average time committed are.

Read the last two columns together. The interest column always flatters the longer ladders, because they run for longer; the blended APY and the average time committed are what actually compare. The average time committed is the weighted average life of the ladder — how long your money is tied up on average, not just when the final rung matures — and it is the honest price of whatever the blended rate turns out to be.

Build any other shape, or type in the rate a bank has actually quoted you, in the ladder builder. It prices CD, Treasury and bond rungs off the same live feeds and lets you override any rung.

Read this before shopping

Why the best CD ladder rates beat these numbers

Every figure above is an FDIC national average, deposit-weighted across all FDIC-insured institutions, and it is not the rate you should expect to be offered. The largest banks hold enormous deposit balances at rates close to zero, and because the average is deposit-weighted, those balances pull the whole curve down. A well-shopped CD from a nationally available bank or credit union commonly pays materially more on exactly the same term.

So use this page for two things and not for a third. Use it for the shape of the market — which terms are being paid up for and which are not — and as a floor to judge a quote against. Do not use it as a rate to plan around. The one on this page is where the market averages out; the one you get is the one you go and find.

The practical version: shop each rung as its own product. Rates are set per term and no single institution leads at every maturity, so the bank with the best twelve-month rate is often not the bank with the best five-year rate. Check the term, the minimum deposit, the early-withdrawal penalty, and — for brokered CDs — whether the issuer can call it early. Then put the real quote into the ladder builder rung by rung and see what your ladder actually pays, rather than what the average one does.

The published source is worth going to directly. The FDIC updates its National Rates and Rate Caps table monthly, and the CFPB explains the deposit terms and disclosures a bank owes you before you open an account.

Curve shape

What the shape is telling you today

The gap between the short end and the long end decides whether stretching a ladder out is worth it. On the July 2026 release the twelve-month FDIC national average is 1.68% and the sixty-month is 1.36%, with the best-paid published term being 12 months at 1.68%.

That is an inverted deposit curve: the long end pays less than the short end. A five-year rung is asking you to commit for five years without being paid more for it, which is why the five-year ladder above blends to 1.38% against the one-year ladder’s 1.52% — less rate, for years longer. When the curve looks like this, the case for a long ladder is not the rate — it is that locking today's rate protects you if rates fall further.

The shape changes, and it changes on its own schedule. That is precisely the argument for laddering rather than timing: a ladder buys a piece of the curve every year, so you hold several vintages of the long rate instead of whichever one happened to exist on the day you funded the account. What the shape should change is the length of the ladder you build — and that decision is worth making deliberately, in the step-by-step build or against the background on what a CD ladder is.

A different structure

The rate you cannot see on this page

Every rate above is a rate for a term, and every term ends. The number a ladder investor would most like to know — what the five-year rate will be at the next maturity — is not on this page because it does not exist yet. That is reinvestment risk, and it is the one thing laddering spreads out without removing.

Pacific Structured Assets works at the other end of that trade. We place court-approved secondary-market payment streams: the right to receive a fixed, already scheduled set of payments, bought at a discount, so the estimated yield is set once at purchase for the whole life of the schedule. Estimated yields run roughly 4 to 7 percent effective, and nothing has to be rolled.

The differences are not cosmetic and they run against us as much as for us. A CD is a bank deposit insured by the FDIC to 250,000 dollars per depositor, per insured bank, per ownership category. A payment stream is not a deposit and not FDIC-insured, and it is not an annuity, an insurance product, or a registered security; it rests on a single insurer's obligation. Its liquidity is limited — no public market, no daily price, and while resale or reassignment may be possible with our assistance, neither the sale nor the price is guaranteed. If what you need is insured money available on a date, a CD ladder is the right instrument and this page is the honest starting point for building one. The side-by-side is on payment streams versus a bond ladder, and current estimated yields by category are on our rates page.

What these assets are, and what they are not

Guaranteed and life-contingent structured settlement payment rights, and lottery payment rights, represent the right to receive factored payments that Pacific Structured Assets purchases and assigns to investors through a court-approved process. They are purchased at a discount to their total scheduled payments.

These payment rights are NOT annuities, NOT insurance products, and NOT securities registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. They are not bank deposits, are not FDIC-insured, and are not protected by any state insurance guaranty association. The industry term “secondary market annuity” refers to these payment rights and does not mean you are purchasing an insurance annuity contract.

You acquire the right to receive the payments, not the underlying annuity. The annuity itself does not change hands. Unlike the original structured settlement annuity, which may be shielded from creditors under applicable law, the assigned payment rights you purchase generally do not carry that creditor or bankruptcy protection.

Assigned annuities, offered as a separate product line, are existing insurance annuity contracts reassigned to a new owner through a change of ownership or an irrevocable change of payee.

These are long-term holdings with limited liquidity, and may not be suitable for every investor. There is no public trading market and no daily price. Resale or reassignment of a payment stream to another buyer may be possible, and Pacific Structured Assets can assist, but a resale is not guaranteed and the price it would bring is not guaranteed. Because the payments are fixed, that resale value moves with prevailing interest rates: an investor could realize a gain if rates have fallen since purchase, or a loss if rates have risen. These holdings are best suited to capital an investor can commit for the long term. Nothing on this website is tax, legal, financial, or investment advice. Consult your own advisors before investing.

CD rate questions

What are CD ladder rates right now?

A CD ladder does not have one rate; it has a rate per rung and a blended rate across all of them. The rungs price off the CD curve for each term, and the blend is the effective annual return once you account for how much money sits in each rung and for how long. Both the per-term curve and the blended figures on this page come from the FDIC national deposit rates release and are dated on the page.

Are these the best CD ladder rates available?

No, and it would be dishonest to present them that way. These are FDIC national averages (deposit-weighted) across every FDIC-insured institution, including the largest banks, which pay close to nothing on deposits and hold enormous balances. Nationally available online banks and credit unions routinely pay materially more on the same terms. Use this curve to see the shape of the market and to sanity-check a quote, then shop each rung.

How is the blended CD ladder rate calculated?

It is an internal rate of return, not an average of the rung rates. Each rung is priced at the published rate for its term, its maturity value is worked out, and the blended figure is the single annual rate that connects the amount invested today to every dollar coming back on the exact date it arrives. Longer rungs therefore weigh more, because more of the money is committed for longer.

Why do longer CDs sometimes pay less than shorter ones?

Because the deposit curve reflects what banks want, not just how long you are lending. When banks expect rates to fall, or already hold plenty of long deposits, they stop paying up for five-year money and the curve flattens or inverts. When that happens, a long rung asks you to commit for years without extra compensation, which is a reason to shorten the ladder rather than stretch it.

How often do these CD rates change?

The FDIC publishes this release monthly, on the third Monday, reflecting rates as of the last business day of the prior month. This page shows which monthly release the figures come from and flags it if the numbers are not the current one. Individual bank rates move far more often than monthly, which is another reason to treat the published averages as context rather than as a quote.

Do CD ladder rates include compounding?

Yes. The published figures are annual percentage yields, which already account for compounding within the year, so a 12-month CD at a given APY returns that percentage over the year. The blended ladder figures on this page use the same basis: each rung grows at its APY over its term, and the blend is the effective annual rate across all of them.

Are CD rates guaranteed and insured?

The rate on a CD is fixed in writing for that CD's term, and the deposit itself is insured by the FDIC up to 250,000 dollars per depositor, per insured bank, per ownership category, backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government. What is not fixed is the rate you will get at the next maturity, which is the reinvestment question a ladder spreads out but cannot answer.

Pacific Structured Assets, Inc. does not provide tax, legal, financial or accounting advice. The material on this website has been prepared for informational purposes only and is not intended to provide, and should not be relied on for, tax, legal, financial or accounting advice. You should consult your own tax, legal, financial or accounting advisors before engaging in any transaction, including the acquisition of factored structured settlement payments. Pacific Structured Assets is not registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission and is not licensed to sell insurance in any state.

Pacific Structured Assets

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The ladder builder prices every rung off these live published rates and lets you type over any of them with the rate a bank has actually offered you.

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