Medicare Open Enrollment for 2027 coverage opened on October 15, 2026, and closes on December 7, 2026, the window the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced on September 28, 2026, alongside a projection that the weighted average Medicare Advantage premium will fall from $14.37 a month in 2026 to $12.00 in 2027. The premium is the small number; the large one is the plan's maximum out-of-pocket amount, or MOOP, and CMS has capped it for 2027 at $9,850 for in-network care and $14,800 for in-network and out-of-network care combined. A plan with drug coverage adds a separate Part D limit of $2,400, so the $9,850 figure now circulating as the 2027 Medicare Advantage limit is one of three ceilings, and for a PPO member who sees out-of-network doctors it is not the one that ends the year's spending. Both MOOP figures are maximums, not the amount on a given plan. Plans pick a number at or below them in one of three tiers, set by a CMS memo dated April 22, 2026, u...
A $7,000 cashier's check crosses the counter twice on the same Monday. The first time it goes into a checking account opened three weeks earlier by a customer new to the bank; the second time into a joint account two other customers have held for three years. Both tellers hand back a hold notice, and both notices split the deposit at the same figure: $6,725 on schedule, $275 waiting.
The figure matches. The reason does not, the two holds end on different days, and only one of them is the large-deposit exception that gets named at the window. Regulation CC assigns a single indexed amount to three separate paragraphs of its exceptions section, and the amount faces a different direction in each. In one it caps what moves fast. In the next it protects what moves fast. In the third it is not a deposit figure at all.
One Indexed Amount Feeds Three Paragraphs
The indexing section makes the collision visible, because it lists every address the amounts occupy. From eCFR, 12 CFR 229.11 (Adjustment of dollar amounts):
“The dollar amounts specified in §§ 229.10(c)(1)(vii), 229.12(d), 229.13(a), 229.13(b), 229.13(d), and 229.21(a) shall be adjusted effective on July 1, 2020, on July 1, 2025, and on July 1 of every fifth year after 2025, in accordance with the procedure set forth in paragraph (b) of this section using the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W), as published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.”
Six addresses. The table of amounts that follows gives four entries, not six, and the third entry explains the shortfall:
“For purposes of §§ 229.13(a), (b), and (d), the dollar amount in effect during a particular period is the amount stated in this paragraph (c)(3) for that period. (i) Prior to July 1, 2020, the amount is $5,000. (ii) From July 1, 2020, through June 30, 2025, the amount is $5,525. (iii) Effective July 1, 2025, the amount is $6,725.”
One row of the indexing table serves three paragraphs, so a customer who has read one of them has read a third of what that number does. The two rows that do not collide move on the same clock: the next-day amount in § 229.10(c)(1)(vii), and the cash-withdrawal amount in § 229.12(d), which ran at $400, then $450, then $550. Every adjustment rounds to the nearest multiple of $25 and uses the CPI-W value for July.
The indexing section itself arrived with the 2019 final rule published as GovInfo, 84 FR 31687 (Availability of Funds and Collection of Checks (Regulation CC)), issued jointly by the Federal Reserve Board and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Availability of Funds and Collection of Checks (Regulation CC) final rule. The source line printed under § 229.11 records a later amendment at 89 FR 43738, dated 2024.
The Ceiling in the New-Account Paragraph
The new-account branch opens the exceptions section. From eCFR, 12 CFR 229.13 (Exceptions):
“Is subject to the requirements of § 229.10(c)(1)(i) through (v) and § 229.10(c)(2) only with respect to the first $6,725 of funds deposited on any one banking day; but the amount of the deposit in excess of $6,725 shall be available for withdrawal not later than the ninth business day following the banking day on which funds are deposited; and”
The amount here is a lid on the fast lane. Only the first $6,725 keeps its 12 CFR 229.10 treatment, next business day under (c)(1) and second business day under (c)(2), and what sits above the lid gets a hard outer date, the ninth business day. The qualifying list is narrow: Treasury checks, postal money orders, Federal Reserve and Federal Home Loan Bank checks, state and local government checks, and cashier's, certified or teller's checks. Paragraph (a) adds a sentence of its own on that last group: “For purposes of this paragraph, checks subject to § 229.10(c)(1)(v) include traveler's checks.”
The branch immediately after it decides the payroll-check case, and it withdraws rather than limits:
“Is not subject to the availability requirements of §§ 229.10(c)(1)(vi) and (vii) and 229.12.”
An ordinary payroll check is none of the five qualifying kinds, so the $6,725 ceiling does not engage for it. The on-us branch, the $275 branch and the whole availability schedule are expressly withdrawn for the first 30 days. Paragraph (a)(2) sets what that window is worth: “An account is considered a new account during the first 30 calendar days after the account is established. An account is not considered a new account if each customer on the account has had, within 30 calendar days before the account is established, another account at the depositary bank for at least 30 calendar days.” A customer who already banked there for 30 days opens no new account at all.
The Floor in the Large-Deposit Paragraph
One paragraph later the same amount turns around:
“Sections 229.10(c) and 229.12 do not apply to the aggregate amount of deposits by one or more checks to the extent that the aggregate amount is in excess of $6,725 on any one banking. day. For customers that have multiple accounts at a depositary bank, the bank may apply this exception to the aggregate deposits to all accounts held by the customer, even if the customer is not the sole holder of the accounts and not all of the holders of the accounts are the same.”
The stray period after banking is in the published text, not a transcription slip. The operative words are to the extent that. This exception does not switch off the schedule for the deposit; it switches it off for the slice above $6,725. On the $7,000 check that slice is $275, and the first $6,725 stays on whatever schedule it already had. The identical split on the two hold notices therefore comes from opposite mechanics: in the new account the bank is granting $6,725 of fast treatment, and in the established account it is reaching past $6,725 to delay the rest.
The second sentence widens the base. Aggregation runs across every account the customer holds at that bank, including accounts shared with other people whose names differ from account to account, so the floor can be crossed without any single deposit slip approaching it.
The Same Figure as an Overdraft Size
The third address does not measure a deposit. The repeated-overdraft branch suspends the schedule for the account and offers the bank two triggers. The first counts days: a negative balance, actual or hypothetical, on six or more banking days in the preceding six months. The second counts dollars:
“On two or more banking days within the preceding six months, the account balance is negative, or the account balance would have become negative, in the amount of $6,725 or more, if checks or other charges to the account had been paid.”
Same digits, opposite side of the ledger. Here $6,725 is a debit, and the consequence is not a split deposit but a suspension: “If any account or combination of accounts of a depositary bank's customer has been repeatedly overdrawn, then for a period of six months after the last such overdraft, §§ 229.10(c) and 229.12 do not apply to any of the accounts.” A shortfall of that size on two days in six months can cost a customer the schedule on any of the accounts in that combination.
Counting the Six Exception Branches
Three of the six branches carry no dollar figure, which is why a reader who meets only the large-deposit branch assumes the number governs holds generally.
| Branch | Heading | Does $6,725 appear |
|---|---|---|
| (a) | New accounts | Yes, as a ceiling on next-day treatment |
| (b) | Large deposits | Yes, as a floor the exception cannot reach below |
| (c) | Redeposited checks | No |
| (d) | Repeated overdrafts | Yes, as the size of a negative balance |
| (e) | Reasonable cause to doubt collectibility | No |
| (f) | Emergency conditions | No |
Two further paragraphs are machinery rather than exceptions, and the notice paragraph names branches (b) through (e): “Subject to paragraphs (g)(2) and (g)(3) of this section, when a depositary bank extends the time when funds will be available for withdrawal based on the application of an exception contained in paragraphs (b) through (e) of this section, it must provide the depositor with a written notice.” Its content list runs to the delayed amount and the reason invoked, which is the document that tells a customer which reading they are living under.
How Long the Hold Runs
The lengths differ, and this is where the two identical splits part company. The new-account ceiling carries its own outer date in the text, the ninth business day. The large-deposit floor carries none; it borrows one:
“For the purposes of this section, a "reasonable period" is an extension of up to one business day for checks described in § 229.10(c)(1)(vi), five business days for checks described in § 229.12(b) (1) through (4), and six business days for checks described in § 229.12(c) (1) and (2) or § 229.12(f). A longer extension may be reasonable, but the bank has the burden of so establishing.”
The baseline the extension attaches to comes one paragraph earlier: a bank invoking branches (b) through (e) against a check described in § 229.10(c)(1)(i) through (v) or § 229.10(c)(2) “shall make the funds available for withdrawal not later than a reasonable period after the day the funds would have been required to be made available had the check been subject to 229.12.” The schedule in eCFR, 12 CFR 229.12 (Availability schedule) supplies that day for a local check, the second business day following the banking day of deposit. So the $275 in the established account comes due a reasonable period after its 229.12 day, against a flat ninth business day for the $275 in the new account.
Each of those counts runs in business days, the same trap that sits inside the error-resolution clock traced in TheWalletCompass, Provisional Credit Under Regulation E Runs on Business Days, and the term comes from the regulation's own definitions rather than ordinary use, as in TheWalletCompass, Regulation Z Defines Business Day Twice.
The $275 That Stacks and the $275 That Disappears
The companion amount behaves the same way. In eCFR, 12 CFR 229.10 (Next-day availability) it is the last item on the next-day list:
“The lesser of— (A) $275, or (B) The aggregate amount deposited on any one banking day to all accounts of the customer by check or checks not subject to next-day availability under paragraphs (c)(1) (i) through (vi) of this section.”
It is a per-banking-day figure aggregated across all the customer's accounts, not a per-check figure, and it applies to the leftovers, the checks that did not already qualify. In the cash-withdrawal paragraph of 12 CFR 229.12 the same figure becomes an addend: “A depositary bank shall, however, make $550 of these funds available for withdrawal by cash or similar means not later than 5:00 p.m. on the business day on which the funds are available under paragraphs (b), (c), or (f) of this section. This $550 is in addition to the $275 available under § 229.10(c)(1)(vii).” In a new account the same figure is gone, because branch (a)(1)(iii) names § 229.10(c)(1)(vii) directly.
Its history sits in the same indexing table: “(i) Prior to July 21, 2011, the amount is $100. (ii) From July 21, 2011, through June 30, 2020, by operation of section 603(a)(2)(D) of the EFA Act (12 U.S.C. 4002(a)(2)(D)) the amount is $200. (iii) From July 1, 2020, through June 30, 2025, the amount is $225. (iv) Effective July 1, 2025, the amount is $275.”
Numbers to Re-check
One. Check the account's age before the deposit amount. Thirty calendar days from establishment, with the carve-out for a customer who already held another account there for 30 calendar days. That one fact decides which of the three readings applies.
Two. Check whether the check is on the five-kind list. The ceiling reaches only checks described in § 229.10(c)(1)(i) through (v) and § 229.10(c)(2). A payroll or personal check is outside it, and so is the $275 branch, by the express withdrawal in (a)(1)(iii).
Three. Check whether the figure is a ceiling, a floor or a debit. In branch (a) it caps the fast portion. In branch (b) it is the line the exception reaches above. In branch (d)(2) it is the size of a negative balance on two banking days in six months.
Four. Check the aggregation base, not the deposit slip. Branch (b) aggregates across every account the customer holds at the bank, shared accounts included. The $275 item aggregates per banking day across those accounts as well.
Five. Check the vintage of the figure. The exceptions row ran at $5,000, then $5,525 from July 1, 2020, then $6,725 from July 1, 2025. Adjustments round to the nearest multiple of $25, and the percentage change uses the CPI-W value for July, generally released in August.
Six. Read the notice for the branch, then count business days. Branch (a) names the ninth business day in the text. Branch (b) borrows a baseline from 12 CFR 229.12 and adds a reasonable period on top.
Where This Doesn't Apply
Several things move the answer, and the arithmetic will not show any of them. An account that is not new has no ceiling, so a large deposit there runs on branch (b) alone. A check returned unpaid and redeposited falls under branch (c), where no dollar figure appears, and a bank with reasonable cause to doubt collectibility under branch (e) needs no threshold at all. Branch (f) covers interruptions of communications or computer or other equipment facilities, a suspension of payments by another bank, a war, and an emergency condition beyond the bank's control if the bank exercises the diligence the circumstances require, and it runs on a different clock under 12 CFR 229.13(h)(3).
The length of that reasonable period is a classification question, not a given. Branch (h)(4) sets its extensions by reference to the paragraph that describes the check, and 12 CFR 229.12(b)(4) reaches a cashier's check only if it is a local check not governed by the availability requirements of § 229.10(c). The check in the opening is governed by § 229.10(c), so no five-business-day item plainly describes it, and this piece did not resolve from the text alone which paragraph does.
Scope left unverified, stated so a reader can close it. Appendix E to Part 229, the Commentary, was not read, so no comment number is cited here and the Commentary may narrow any reading above. Paragraph (e)(2) and paragraphs (g)(2) through (g)(4) of 12 CFR 229.13 were not retrieved, which covers the one-time notice route for nonconsumer accounts and the emergency notice. Paragraphs (a), (c), (e) and (f) of 12 CFR 229.12, Appendix B-2 and § 229.10(c)(3) were not retrieved either. The civil-liability amounts were read only through the indexing table in § 229.11(c)(4). The disclosure duties in §§ 229.15 through 229.19, which fill the space the new-account withdrawal opens, were not read. The 2024 amendment at 89 FR 43738 was confirmed only from that source line, and roughly 14,000 characters at the end of the 2019 final rule went unread. The underlying statute was taken only from the fragment of section 603(a)(2)(D) that § 229.11(c)(1)(ii) quotes.
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