Best 1-Year CD Rates for June 2024 (2024)

With interest rates that are far more generous than just a few years ago, certificates of deposit are very much in the spotlight today. CDs are a great way to earmark money for upcoming expenses while letting you earn a return. They also help eliminate the temptation to spend that money before you need to use it.

While policymakers have hinted that today’s interest rates might not be around forever, top-yielding CDs give you a great opportunity to earn half a percentage point or more above what you are likely to earn keeping you cash in a high-yield savings account. CDs will allow you to lock in that rate for the length of the term, and include the protection of FDIC insurance.

A one-year CD is one of the most common maturity terms you can find. They’re heavily advertised, especially in today’s highly competitive market. Read on to find out what, when and where to use a 12-month CD.

Best 1-year CD rates for June

Today’s market for one-year CDs is very competitive, with many banks and credit unions offering even better rates than on their longer-term options. Here are some of the top one-year CDs you can find on rate aggregation sites DepositAccounts.com and CDValet.com.

• Kenowa Federal Credit Union: 5.75%
• Del Norte Credit Union (13-month term): 5.65%
• Kings Peak Credit Union: 5.65%
• Greater Pittsburgh Police Federal Credit Union: 5.63%
• SECU Credit Union (11-month term): 5.5%

Savers today can find attractive yields on one-year CDs, thanks to tight Federal Reserve policy and competition between banks for depositors’ dollars.

With inflation running higher than the Fed’s 2% target for longer than expected, policymakers and Wall Street alike seem to be adjusting their expectations. Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari suggested that an additional rate increase could be on the table if officials believe that their progress on lowering inflation has stalled, though other Fed officials have said that the likelihood of more rate increases is low.

The central bank’s benchmark federal-funds rate is expected to likely remain at its current range between 5.25% and 5.5% through the end of the year, with the highest probability of only a single quarter-percentage-point cut until 2025, according to CMEGroup’s FedWatch tool, which uses the futures market to predict Fed activity on rates.

For savers, this means that one-year CD yields remain high, with the top one-year CD rates in the range of 5.5% or higher. Even large banks, which typically aren’t known for having the best interest rates, have recently begun hiking the annual percentage yields, or APYs, they offer for some competitive CD maturity terms.

These CD rate picks reflect the best available one-year CD rates we found on DepositAccounts and CD Valet, com, which together track hundreds of thousands of rates at 275,000 rates at banks and credit unions all across the country.

Since one-year CDs are very popular, you can buy one at national banks (although they historically aren’t known for having the best rates), your local hometown bank, credit unions and online banks.

When to buy a 1-year CD

With one-year CD rates about as high as experts expect them to get, this is a good time to buy if you have money on the sidelines. There also are some specific scenarios where one-year CDs can be a good solution.

If you need the money in one year

If you’re trying to sock away cash for an anticipated expense, CDs are a great way to earn interest at a rate that beats what you could get from a high-yield savings account, while making you less likely to spend that money on something else. Experts say the early-withdrawal penalty for breaking the CD acts as a barrier that keeps savers from dipping into that pool of funds.

A one-year CD in particular is great for this type of financial situation because it’s an easy-to-remember maturity term that you could use to hold savings you know you’ll need for recurring annual obligations, such as property taxes or college tuition payments.

As part of a CD ladder

You can use a ladder structure to hold part of your cash savings, which lets you earn higher interest while maintaining a partial degree of liquidity. To build a CD ladder, open a series of CDs with staggered maturity dates at regular intervals, then keep rolling over each CD into a new instrument as it matures.

For instance, you could start out with three, six and nine-month maturities, add a one-year CD, and then roll over each balance from the shorter-term CDs into one-year CDs as they come due, ensuring that you would always have a portion of your cash available within a three-month window. If you find that your financial needs have changed by the time a CD term is up, you can just cash it out.

Ken Tumin, founder of rate tracking site DepositAccounts, points out that laddering sort of works like dollar-cost averaging, the strategy of buying stocks on a regular basis rather than trying to time the market. “In that kind of laddering situation, you don’t worry about whether to stay short or go long based on how you think interest rates will evolve, and that often turns out to be not only the simplest but also the most effective strategy,” he says.

You expect interest rates to fall

If you’re bearish on the economy, it makes sense to lock in a favorable rate now. Today’s interest-rate environment right is great for savers, but no one knows how long this will last, and if the U.S. economy can pull off the so-called “soft landing” policymakers have been seeking for months.

If there’s a portion of your cash you know you won’t need to access for the next 12 months, putting it into a CD will lock in your return even if interest rates fall. Conversely, if you had that money inside a savings or money-market account with a variable APY, your yield could drop if the bank lowers its interest rate.

While no one can say with absolute certainty if rates will continue to tick up, this is a good time to lock in returns if you think they’ll plunge rapidly. “Everybody always wants a little bit more return, but locking in around 5% at this point will be good for most people,” says Kathy Carey, director of private wealth research at wealth-management firm Baird. “Trying to time it to get a little bit extra might not be worth the effort.”

How we picked

To find the best one-year CD rates, we looked at CDs with minimum deposits of $1,000 or less available at member institutions of the FDIC or the National Credit Union Administration, the government agency that oversees and provides deposit coverage for member credit unions.

We focused on fixed-rate CDs because, while some variable-rate CDs had higher rates than ones featured here, the drawback is the possibility that the rate could drop before your CD matures, tying your money up for a lower return. Some of the rates featured here might require opening your CD in person, or be offered by a credit union that offers membership within a certain part of the country, so keep in mind that you might find a great one-year CD rate at a local community bank or credit union near you.

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