Our top picks for the best free checking accounts
Your checking account should offer all the features and benefits needed to manage your daily finances — without costing you money. Our team evaluated today's checking accounts belonging to member-FDIC or NCUA-insured financial institutions that don't charge monthly fees. We examined key metrics, including APY, overdraft fees, ATM reimbursements, rewards, bonuses, and more, to identify the 10 best accounts available today. (See the full methodology here.)
How do I choose the best free checking account?
There are several factors to consider when choosing a checking account to hold your everyday funds.
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Account fees: Many banks and credit unions charge monthly fees for account maintenance. Often, these fees can be waived if you meet certain daily balance requirements. However, if you don't meet these requirements, fees can eat into your account balance each month. This is why it's important to read your account terms and conditions carefully to avoid surprise fees and ensure you meet the requirements to get fees waived.
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ATM access and reimbursements: If you frequently pay for goods and services in cash, easy ATM access is a key feature to look for in a checking account. A fee-free network ensures you avoid extra fees each time you make a withdrawal — bonus points if your bank allows you to avoid ATM fees by reimbursing charges from out-of-network ATMs.
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Access to physical branches/customer service representatives: Being able to speak with a customer service representative can make all the difference if you prefer to resolve banking issues or have your questions answered by a human in a timely manner. Otherwise, you may need to rely on a chatbot or automated calling. This isn't always a drawback if you typically don't require much help with your checking account. But if it's a must-have, check each bank or credit union's customer service options, hours, and branch locations near you.
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Minimum balance to earn interest: If the checking account you're considering is an interest-bearing account, check your account disclosure to determine if there is a minimum balance needed to earn the advertised rate. You may decide that an account with a high minimum balance requirement isn't a good fit.
How to open a free checking account
Opening a checking account is fairly simple and can often be done online. The exact process may vary depending on the financial institution, but in general, you can expect to follow these steps:
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Choose a bank or credit union: Most traditional banks, credit unions, and online banks offer checking accounts. However, the account fees, interest rates, and other perks will vary. Before selecting an account, read the terms and conditions of the accounts you're considering to determine whether they meet your needs.
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Gather necessary documents: When you open a bank account, you'll be required to submit documentation. This may include your Social Security number, driver's license, or other government-issued identification, and a copy of a recent bill to verify your identity and address.
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Fill out an application: The application for a checking account will ask you for personal information such as your name, address, date of birth, annual income, and more. This is also the point at which you may be asked to provide copies of documents that show your personally identifiable information.
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Fund your checking account: Once your account is opened, the final step is to fund it. While many financial institutions do not require a minimum deposit to open, some of them do have rules in place that require you to fund your account within a certain amount of time to avoid an account closure.
Best free checking accounts methodology
Our grading system, collected and carefully reviewed by our personal finance experts, comprised nearly 300 data points for over 20 FDIC- and NCUA-insured checking accounts to develop our list of the top 10 free checking accounts. We define "free" as accounts that are free to open; they do not require a minimum opening deposit to get started. These accounts may still impose other types of fees.
We evaluated these accounts according to several key metrics, including monthly fees, ATM network size and fee reimbursement options, overdraft fees and overdraft protection services, APY, rewards or cashback, early direct deposit, account bonuses, mobile app rating, and customer service contact methods.
The checking accounts on our list could earn a maximum of 30 points across all metrics. Here's a closer look at the categories we considered:
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Monthly fees: Many checking accounts come with monthly service fees that can eat into your account balance. We rewarded accounts that had zero monthly maintenance fees with the maximum number of points for that category.
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ATM network, size, and fee reimbursement: Checking accounts that offered expansive and free ATM networks and/or ATM reimbursement for the use of out-of-network ATMs ranked favorably.
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Overdraft fees and protections: Overdrafts can happen if you're not closely monitoring your account balance. Luckily, many financial institutions don't charge fees for overdrafts or offer a safety net in the form of overdraft protection. Checking accounts with zero or lower overdraft fees and overdraft protection services earned more points than checking accounts that don't.
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APY and minimum balance to earn interest: We rewarded interest-bearing checking accounts with extra points, as well as those that earn interest and have a lower or zero minimum balance requirement to earn interest.
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Rewards, cashback, and bonuses: The checking accounts on our list earn extra points for offering any type of rewards (such as cash back on debit card purchases) or promotional bonuses for new accounts. Promotional bonuses are subject to change, but we awarded points for active bonuses at the time of publication.
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Early direct deposit: Early direct deposit gives bank or credit union customers the ability to access their paychecks earlier than their scheduled payday. We rewarded checking accounts that come with this perk.
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Zelle integration: Financial institutions that allow customers to send and receive money for free using Zelle were scored favorably in our ranking.
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Mobile app rating: Checking accounts with a more favorable average mobile app rating on the Apple and Google storefronts scored more points than those that did not.
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Customer service contact methods: We rewarded checking accounts belonging to financial institutions with various customer service contact methods, such as phone, email, and chat.
