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Treasury holds the ICE immigration bond interest rate at 3 percent, but for the second year the October window runs four months instead of three

3 min read

Original editorial artwork from the Hugin archive; symbolic illustration, not a depiction of the subject.

The Treasury Department set the interest rate on cash deposited with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to secure an immigration bond at 3 percent a year, unchanged, for October 1, 2026, through January 31, 2027. That is the second year running the October notice has covered four months instead of the three-month calendar quarter used in every October notice from 2015 through 2024. The notice does not say why, and does not say how or when a depositor collects the interest.

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The Treasury Department has set the interest rate on cash deposited to secure a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement bond at 3 percent a year for October 1, 2026 through January 31, 2027. The rate is unchanged from the period before it. The window it covers is not a calendar quarter — the second year in a row that has been true.

What it covers

The notice covers interest on cash deposited to secure an immigration bond. Its title and text speak only of cash deposits: they do not use the word surety and say nothing about bonds posted through a bonding company. The notice says Treasury also posts the current quarterly rate in a table it calls "Interest Rates for Specific Legislation" (Table 2b) on the Treasury Direct website, and that inquiries may be mailed to the Funds Management Branch in Parkersburg, West Virginia.

How the rate is set

The notice quotes the statute, 8 U.S.C. 1363(a), under which interest is paid "at a rate determined by the Secretary of the Treasury, except that in no case shall the interest rate exceed 3 per centum per annum." It quotes the regulation, 8 CFR 293.2, which repeats that ceiling and adds that the rate will not "be less than zero." And it states Treasury's own method: interest will vary quarterly and accrue during each calendar quarter "at a rate equal to the lesser of the average of the bond equivalent rates on 91-day Treasury bills auctioned during the preceding calendar quarter, or 3 per centum per annum." The notice does not say which of those two figures produced this period's rate, and gives no bill average.

A window that isn't a quarter

That calendar-quarter method sits oddly beside the dates just announced. Every October notice in the series from 2015 through 2024 — ten of them, by this desk's count — ran October 1 to December 31. The notice covering October 1, 2025, to January 31, 2026, was the first to run four months, and this one repeats that span. The January, April and July notices have stayed three-month quarters throughout, including the previous one, which ran July 1 to September 30, 2026. Neither notice says why the October window changed. The 2025 notice also appeared on November 18, 2025, later in the year than the 2023 and 2024 October notices, which published on October 6 and October 7; late publication is not new to the series, as the notice for the quarter beginning January 1, 2019 published on February 21, 2019.

What the notice does not say

It does not say how or when deposited cash and its interest are returned once a bond ends, or what a depositor must do to collect. It does not address bonds posted through a bonding company, and it does not explain why the October window departs from the calendar-quarter method it describes.

The dates

The notice is scheduled to be published in the Federal Register on Monday, October 5, 2026, and was filed for public inspection on October 2. Its DATES paragraph reads: "Rates are applicable October 1, 2026, to January 31, 2027." The period began four days before the scheduled publication date, by this desk's count. The notice does not use the word retroactive or address the gap.

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