Navy Federal Mobile Deposit Cut-Off: The 6 pm ET Rule and Why Only $275 Arrives First

Last verified against primary sources: October 16, 2026. Navy Federal’s mobile deposits page re-crawled this day; the official Mobile Check Deposit User Agreement for consumer accounts (NFCU 254 (5-25)) and for business accounts (NFCU 254A (6-25)) downloaded from navyfederal.org this day; Regulation CC, 12 CFR Part 229, read at ecfr.gov this day; Navy Federal’s wire-transfer page re-crawled this day.

Navy Federal’s mobile deposit cut-off is 6:00 pm ET, Monday through Friday. Clearing it does not make your check available — it only decides which business day the clock starts on. From there the money lands in two pieces: up to $275 on the next business day, and the remainder on the second business day after approval. Two further rules appear only in the written agreement, not on the public page: you must also receive a deposit approval email that same day, and the $275 is one credit per business day, not one per check — deposit five checks and still only $275 arrives early. Navy Federal’s own agreement then states that these deposits are not subject to Regulation CC, even though $275 and “second business day” are the exact figures Regulation CC uses.

The short answer

The 6:00 pm ET cut-off is two conditions, not one

The public FAQ presents the cut-off as a time of day. The written agreement presents it as a time of day plus an event. In the Deposit Limits section of NFCU 254 (5-25):

“You must submit a deposit by 6:00 pm ET, Monday through Friday, and receive a deposit approval email that same day for an item to be considered received that day. Deposits made on weekends or Federal Holidays are considered received on the next Business Day.”

That extra clause matters because Navy Federal separates transmission from approval. The agreement describes two different notifications: a Deposit Received Notification email that “does not mean that the transmission was error-free, complete, or will be considered a deposit and credited to your account,” and a separate Deposit Approval Notification sent “once we have reviewed and approved the transmitted item.” Submitting before 6:00 pm ET gets you into that day’s queue; it does not by itself make that day the day of receipt.

The same document states the test a second way, in the Determining When a Deposit Is Received section, and this version omits the email entirely: “If you make a mobile deposit before 6:00 pm ET, we will consider that day to be the day we received your deposit. However, if you make a deposit on a day that is not a Business Day, or make a deposit after the cutoff time of 6:00 pm ET, we will consider the deposit to have been received on the next Business Day.” We are reporting both clauses as written rather than picking one; Navy Federal does not reconcile them.

The $275 is one credit per business day — not one per check

Read alone, the public table’s “Up to $275 is available” column looks like it applies to each deposit. The agreement closes that reading off explicitly:

“You will only receive one (1) $275 credit per Business Day, even if you deposit more than one (1) check using the Service.”

So if you deposit three checks on Tuesday morning — say $400, $1,200 and $5,000 — you do not get $275 from each. You get a single $275 on Wednesday, and the remaining $6,325 on the second business day after approval. The consumer agreement allows up to ten deposits per business day, and business accounts have no count limit at all, which makes the cap easier to run into than it sounds.

Navy Federal’s own worked example on the FAQ page uses one check: “if you deposit a $2,500 check through mobile deposits before 6 pm ET on Monday, $275 of the deposit will be available on Tuesday. The remaining $2,225 will be available on Wednesday (2 Business Days after the approval).”

The published schedule

One small difference between the two official documents: the FAQ ties the remainder to the approval date (“Second Business Day after day of approval”), while the agreement’s table for the same row reads simply “Second Business Day.” Both use the same definition of Business Day — “every Monday through Friday, excluding Federal Holidays.” For what counts as a federal holiday on Navy Federal’s own calendar, and how Reserve Bank and FedACH closures differ, see our separate verification.

“Not subject to Regulation CC” — and yet the numbers are Regulation CC’s

This is the part no published comparison covers. Navy Federal’s agreement removes mobile deposits from the federal funds-availability rule, then immediately publishes a schedule that mirrors it:

“You agree that items transmitted using this Service are not subject to either the funds availability requirements of Federal Reserve Board Regulation CC or Navy Federal’s funds availability schedule contained in the Navy Federal Important Disclosures booklet. Below is our general funds availability schedule for this Service:”

Now the federal side. Under 12 CFR 229.10(c)(1)(vii), the amount a bank must make available on the next business day is “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.” Three details there line up with Navy Federal’s wording almost word for word:

• $275 is not a Navy Federal invention. It is the figure printed in Regulation CC.
• “Aggregate … on any one banking day to all accounts” is the same one-per-day structure as Navy Federal’s “only one (1) $275 credit per Business Day, even if you deposit more than one check.”
• Second business day is also the federal default: 12 CFR 229.12(b) requires funds from a local check to be available “not later than the second business day following the banking day on which funds are deposited,” and 12 CFR 229.10(c)(2) sets second-business-day availability for a qualifying check “not deposited in person to an employee of the depositary bank.” A check photographed on a phone is not deposited in person.

There is even a published reason the number moves. 12 CFR 229.11 indexes the dollar amounts in § 229.10(c)(1)(vii) to the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers, adjusting them “effective on July 1, 2020, on July 1, 2025, and on July 1 of every fifth year after 2025,” rounded “to the nearest multiple of $25.” So $275 is the figure in force from July 1, 2025, with the next scheduled revision on July 1, 2030. We are not asserting that Navy Federal tracks that cycle — neither Navy Federal nor the Federal Reserve states why the two figures match, and we did not find any official document that does.

How late is a cut-off allowed to be?

Regulation CC also sets a floor on how early a cut-off may be, which makes Navy Federal’s 6:00 pm ET easier to read. Under 12 CFR 229.19(a)(5)(ii), funds may be treated as deposited the next banking day when deposited “After a cut-off hour set by the depositary bank for the receipt of deposits of 2:00 p.m. or later, or, for the receipt of deposits at ATMs, contractual branches, or off-premise facilities, of 12:00 noon or later.” The official commentary restates the limit: “no cut-off hour for receipt of deposits for purposes of this subpart can be established earlier than 2 p.m.”

A 6:00 pm ET cut-off sits four hours past the earliest hour the rule allows, and it is set in Eastern time regardless of where the member is. That is a published choice, not a regulatory requirement, and it is the more generous direction — but it also means a member in Hawaii or Alaska is measured against a mainland clock. Navy Federal does not publish a separate cut-off for any time zone.

Regulation CC also says something about when during the day released funds must be usable: 12 CFR 229.19(b) requires availability by the later of “9:00 a.m. (local time of the depositary bank)” or “the time the depositary bank’s teller facilities (including ATMs) are available for customer account withdrawals.” Navy Federal publishes no time of day for mobile deposit releases — only the business day.

Consumer and business agreements are not the same document

Navy Federal links two separate agreements from the same page. They differ in four places that matter in practice:

Both agreements carry the same 6:00 pm ET rule, the same approval-email condition, the same one-$275-per-day cap, the same $50,000 ceiling, the same three-row availability table, and the same statement that Regulation CC does not apply. The consumer list of eight eligible accounts is worth checking before assuming a particular account can be deposited into: certificates, IRAs and education savings accounts do not appear on it.

Four more things the agreement says that the FAQ does not

1. An extra hold can run to five business days. Credit is “provisional and subject to verification and final approval.” Navy Federal “may place an additional hold on any item for a reasonable period” and must notify you if it does; in that case “funds will generally be available no later than five (5) Business Days after the day we are considered to have received your deposit.”
2. Third-party checks over $10,000 are ineligible. Item 1 on the agreement’s ineligible list is “Third-party checks exceeding $10,000.” That line does not appear in the ineligible-item list on the public FAQ page, which begins with altered checks. Both lists close with “Navy Federal reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to determine what items may be considered ‘Ineligible Items.’”
3. Authorized Users get no access at all. “If you have designated an Authorized User on your online banking, your Authorized User will not have access to the Mobile Deposit Service.” This is separate from the Trusted User arrangement the FAQ describes, where a deposit shows a “Depositor” (the primary holder) and a “Submitted by” (the Trusted User). Two official roles, two different outcomes.
4. Keep the paper for five days, then mark it void. “You agree to retain each item for no fewer than five (5) days after your deposit is considered to be received” and afterwards “mark the item(s) prominently as ‘VOID.’” This is a disposal instruction after a completed deposit, not a way to prove your account details to an employer — for that question, see what Navy Federal actually requires for a voided check.

Endorsement is mandatory in both places: “You agree to endorse all items with your signature and print ‘For Mobile Deposit Only at NFCU’ on all items.” The FAQ adds that this requirement is also what blocks re-deposit — “By doing so, checks deposited through mobile deposits cannot be deposited again at a Navy Federal branch or another financial institution” — alongside automatic duplicate detection “within 24 hours of submission.”

Three deadlines that are not the same thing

Navy Federal publishes several evening cut-offs and they belong to different services. 6:00 pm ET is mobile deposit. 6:30 pm ET is inbound wires — the wire page states “Same-day processing, if received prior to 6:30 pm ET.” 8:00 pm ET is the instant-payments threshold, after which received money may not be available for ACH debits and checks until the next business day. Mixing them up is the fastest way to mis-time a payment. Re-verified on the wire page today: Routing/ABA Number 256074974, address 820 Follin Lane SE, Vienna, VA 22180, SWIFT/BIC NFCUUS33XXX. None of those three values is used by mobile deposit — a photographed check needs no routing number typed in at all, because Navy Federal is the depositary bank and already holds the account.

What we could not verify

• No release time of day. Navy Federal publishes the business day, not the hour. Regulation CC has a 9:00 a.m. standard (12 CFR 229.19(b)); Navy Federal does not state one, and its agreement says Regulation CC does not apply, so we are not importing the federal time.
• No explanation for the matching $275. Neither Navy Federal nor the Federal Reserve states why the figure in the agreement equals the figure in § 229.10(c)(1)(vii). We report the match; we do not claim a legal link.
• Which of the two cut-off clauses governs. The agreement gives the test twice, with and without the approval-email condition. Navy Federal does not reconcile them.
• No per-account or rolling limits. The $50,000 and 10-deposit figures are stated per business day for the service; Navy Federal publishes no weekly or monthly mobile deposit ceiling, and reserves the right “to modify the limits.”
• Approval timing is not published. The agreement requires an approval email the same day for same-day receipt, but states no deadline by which Navy Federal must send it.
• Business eligibility is stated in general terms. NFCU 254A names no individual business accounts, so we cannot say which specific business products are included.

What to do with this

If a bill is due the day after you deposit a check, assume it will not be paid from that deposit — only $275 of it will be there, and only if two conditions are met. Deposit before 6:00 pm ET on a business day, watch for the approval email rather than the receipt email, and keep the paper check for five days before marking it void. For anything larger than $275 that has to clear on a fixed date, a branch, an ATM, or an incoming wire runs on different clocks — the wire clock is 6:30 pm ET, not 6:00 pm, and the routing number for that is 256074974.

Sources: Navy Federal Credit Union — Mobile Check Deposits; Mobile Deposits — Terms and Conditions (Consumer), NFCU 254 (5-25); Mobile Deposits — Terms and Conditions (Business), NFCU 254A (6-25); Wire Transfers. Federal Reserve / eCFR — 12 CFR Part 229 (Regulation CC), specifically § 229.10(c)(1)(vii) and (c)(2), § 229.11, § 229.12(b), and § 229.19(a)(5)(ii) and (b). All Navy Federal pages and PDFs retrieved October 16, 2026; eCFR current through the same date.