What is Regulation D?

Regulation D (12 CFR Part 204) is a Federal Reserve Board regulation that implements the reserve requirements of the Federal Reserve Act. For decades, Regulation D served two primary functions: it required depository institutions to hold reserves against certain deposit liabilities, and it limited the number of convenient transfers and withdrawals from savings deposit accounts to six per month. The six-transfer restriction applied to preauthorized or automatic transfers, telephone transfers, and transfers by check, debit card, or similar order to third parties.

Effective April 24, 2020, the Federal Reserve Board issued an interim final rule amending Regulation D to delete the six-per-month transfer limit on savings deposits. The Board subsequently made this change permanent, recognizing that the transfer limit no longer served its original monetary policy purpose and was impeding consumers' access to their funds, particularly during the economic disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The reserve requirement component of Regulation D was also fundamentally altered. Effective March 26, 2020, the Board reduced reserve requirement ratios to zero percent across all deposit tranches, meaning depository institutions are no longer required to hold reserves against most deposit liabilities. While the Board retains the legal authority to impose reserve requirements in the future, both the reserve and the transfer-limit functions of Regulation D have been effectively dismantled. Institutions may still impose their own withdrawal limits as a matter of account policy, but these are contractual restrictions, not federal regulatory requirements.