FS Form 5512: cash TreasuryDirect savings bonds by mail, no login

For most of TreasuryDirect’s history, nobody needed FS Form 5512. Cashing an I bond held in the account took a few clicks online, and the paper version sat in the forms library for the rare case of an entity account or a broken login. That changed on October 28, 2026, when ID.me became the only way to sign in. TreasuryDirect’s FAQ said in October that account holders without an ID.me Wallet “will still be able to manage your account by submitting paper forms,” a sentence missing from the version we read on November 2, though this form remains published, and for anyone who wants their savings bonds out of the account without going through ID.me, this is the form.

The short answer: FS Form 5512, revised April 2026, is the TreasuryDirect Redemption and/or Bank Change Request. It redeems EE and I savings bonds held in a TreasuryDirect account, redeems a Certificate of Indebtedness, and adds bank accounts, all by mail to Treasury Retail Securities Services in Minneapolis. You must sign it in front of a bank certifying officer; the form says a notary is not acceptable. Proceeds go only by direct deposit. And the bank-change part has a limit worth knowing before you mail it: adding a bank on paper does not move your existing interest and maturity payments to it.

What the form covers, and what it does not

The form describes itself in one sentence: “Use this form to redeem savings bonds and/or add (or edit) bank information in your TreasuryDirect account.” It has four parts: account information, redemption of EE or I bonds and the Certificate of Indebtedness, adding or editing bank information, and signatures with the certifying officer’s certification. A checkbox at the top marks it as an entity account request, covering a living estate, trust, deceased estate, LLC, corporation, sole proprietorship or partnership.

What it does not cover matters just as much. FS Form 5512 does not touch Treasury bills, notes, bonds, TIPS or floating-rate notes, which cannot be redeemed early at all; those leave TreasuryDirect only by transfer to a broker or bank on FS Form 5511, as explained in selling a T-bill before maturity. It does not cash paper savings bonds either; those go on FS Form 1522. And name, Social Security number or registration changes belong on FS Form 5446.

Part 2: three boxes, and the one that needs numbers you may not have

The redemption section asks you to check exactly one of three boxes, and the difference between them is bigger than it looks:

Box	What it redeems
Redeem ALL my savings bonds listed in the requested TreasuryDirect account	Every bond in the primary account and “in any conversion, minor, or custom linked accounts”
Redeem ALL my savings bonds listed in only TreasuryDirect account number ___	Every bond in that one account; “This doesn’t include bonds in linked accounts”
Redeem ONLY the savings bonds in account number ___ listed by confirmation number	Specific bonds, each identified by its confirmation number

The first box is the one to read twice. A parent who manages a child’s minor account as a linked account and checks it would be redeeming the child’s bonds along with their own. The second box limits the request to one account number.

The third box is where the ID.me change bites. A partial redemption, for example cashing the bonds bought in 2022 while keeping a higher fixed rate from 2023 or 2024, requires the confirmation number of each bond, which is the identifier TreasuryDirect assigns to each purchase and shows in the account. Someone who has not set up ID.me and kept no record of those numbers has no online way to look them up, which leaves the two “redeem all” boxes or a call to Customer Support at 844-284-2676. If you have a list of numbers longer than the eight blanks on the form, it says to attach a list or FS Form 3500.

The same section handles a Certificate of Indebtedness, the zero-interest holding balance some TreasuryDirect users keep as a cash buffer: one box redeems it “to the extent of $___,” the other redeems it in full.

Before redeeming I bonds, the usual rules still apply on paper. A bond cannot be cashed in its first 12 months, and one cashed before five years loses the last three months of interest, which makes the timing of the redemption worth a look; the November 2026 rate reset, covered in the I bond rate tracker, changes what the most recent months are worth. Cashing bonds also means a Form 1099-INT for the year; here is how to get that 1099 without an ID.me login.

Getting paid: direct deposit only

The instructions leave no room for a check: “All payments must be made by direct deposit to a designated bank account.” The form asks for the payee’s name and Social Security number (or, for an estate or trust with its own number, an Employer Identification Number), then the name on the receiving bank account, the nine-digit routing number “beginning with 0, 1, 2, or 3,” the account number, whether it is checking or savings, and the bank’s name and phone number.

There is one rule for deposits into someone else’s account: “If payment is to be deposited to a bank account in the name of a different person, then that person or his or her representative, who can authorize such a deposit, must also sign in Part 4.” That second signature also needs a certifying officer, so plan a bank visit for both people.

Part 3: adding a bank, and what it does not change

Section 3 adds a bank account to one or more TreasuryDirect accounts, as either the primary bank, the default in every drop-down, of which there can be only one, or a secondary bank, of which there can be several. The account must be at a U.S. depository institution that accepts ACH debits and credits. There is no separate “edit” path: to correct a routing or account number, the form says to fill in the section “as if you were adding a new bank account,” and Treasury adds it as a new one.

The last page of the form, which it tells you to keep for reference, spells out the limit: adding a bank account “does not delete any previously entered bank accounts nor does it change the source of funds for pending purchases or the destination for interest and/or maturity payments.” Each of those changes is described as something you do by accessing your TreasuryDirect account: deleting the old bank, picking a new one from a drop-down, or using the “Edit Payment Destination” button on each security. In other words, a paper bank change on its own does not redirect the maturity payment of a Treasury bill that is still pointed at an old account. For anyone who has closed that old account and does not want to set up ID.me, that is a question for Customer Support before the next payment date, not after.

The same page notes a Closed Book Period that starts four business days before an interest or maturity payment on marketable securities, during which TreasuryDirect blocks changes to the payment destination, registration, transfers and reinvestments.

Part 4: who can certify your signature

FS Form 5512 is one of the TreasuryDirect forms that move money out of an online account and refuse a notary. The text is explicit: “Sign in ink in the presence of a certifying officer and provide the requested information. Notary certification is not acceptable.” The officer must be “authorized to bind his or her institution by his or her acts and guarantee signatures to assignments of securities or certify assignments of securities.”

The form lists the stamps it accepts: a financial institution’s Signature Guaranteed, Endorsement Guaranteed or corporate seal or stamp (a corporate resolution is not required for the stamp), an issuing or paying agent stamp showing a name, location and four-digit identification number or nine-digit routing number, or the stamp of a Treasury-recognized signature guarantee or Medallion program. Its sample certifications include a bank’s “SIGNATURE GUARANTEED” stamp and a brokerage’s Medallion stamp. The officer fills in the names of the people who appeared, the date and place, and signs. How this compares with the other TreasuryDirect forms is laid out in the notary-versus-certifying-officer table.

A few rules sit in the “Important notices” box and are easy to miss: only original signatures are accepted, not stamped ones; the form “will not be accepted with alterations or corrections,” so a crossed-out digit means starting over; a corporation must attach a resolution or FS Form 1010; and anyone signing in a fiduciary capacity should include legal evidence of that authority to avoid delays. A parent signing for a minor account owner certifies that the request is made on the minor’s behalf and for the minor’s benefit.

Mailing it, and what happens to the taxes

The completed form goes to Treasury Retail Securities Services, PO Box 9150, Minneapolis, MN 55480-9150, with any supporting documents, which the instructions warn cannot be returned. The form estimates 10 minutes to complete and says nothing about processing time, so do not plan a purchase or a bill payment around a specific date.

For most owners, who defer the interest rather than report it every year, redeeming I or EE bonds makes the accumulated interest taxable for federal income tax in the year of redemption, though savings bond interest is exempt from state and local income tax, and TreasuryDirect reports it on Form 1099-INT. Without ID.me you cannot download that form; TreasuryDirect says it can be requested by mail through Customer Support after the forms become available in January. The wider picture of what still works without the new login is in TreasuryDirect without ID.me.

Sources

• FS Form 5512, TreasuryDirect Redemption and/or Bank Change Request, revised April 2026, Bureau of the Fiscal Service: purpose, redemption boxes, direct deposit rule, bank-change limits, Closed Book Period, certification requirements, acceptable stamps and mailing address.
• TreasuryDirect — FAQs about ID.me, read October 24, 2026: paper-form management without an ID.me Wallet, Customer Support number and mailed Form 1099.
• TreasuryDirect — I bonds: 12-month minimum holding period and three-month interest penalty before five years.