What is the cheque clearing cycle and how long does it take?
When you pay a cheque into your account it has to be sent to the drawer's bank for payment; for that bank to decide if it will honour the cheque. It may not if, for example, the person who gave you the cheque hasn't enough money in their account. This process is known as the central cheque clearing cycle and normally takes three working days. We also need to allow extra days for an unpaid cheque to be returned.
The chart below will help you understand when cash and cheques paid into your account start to earn interest and become available for withdrawal although this does not necessarily mean the cheque has been paid by the bank on which it is drawn. The chart also shows when you can be certain that the funds will not be reclaimed from your account as a result of the cheque being returned unpaid. (See the reference to unpaid cheques below.)
| Day Paid in | Interest starts to be earned on savings accounts (except Regular Saver) | Interest starts to be earned on current accounts | Available to withdraw at a cash machine (after 1am) or any Barclays branch | Certainty of funds |
Cash paid in at any Barclays branch | Day 0(eg Monday) | Day 0 (eg Monday) | Day 0 (eg Monday) | Immediately | Immediately |
Cheque paid in at any Barclays branch | Day 0 (eg Monday) | Day 0 (eg Monday) | Day 2 (eg Wednesday) | Day 4 (eg Friday) | Close of day 6 (eg Tuesday)* |
* Funds will not be debited from your account as a result of the cheque being returned unpaid later than this day. As Barclays processes payments overnight, you will know at the start of business on Day 7 whether or not the cheque has been paid.
This chart applies to sterling cheques drawn and deposited in the UK.
Note: many branches have a cut-off time, after which cheques paid in are processed the following working day. Cut-off times are available in branches.
You don't have to wait for the cheque to clear before you use the money. If you are sure a cheque won't be returned unpaid, you can start drawing against it from the day it's paid into your account using our Instant Access service. This service is subject to limit and status.
The days refer to working days, which are Monday to Friday (excluding Bank Holidays). Please note that days which are only bank holidays in Scotland are treated as working days for cheque clearing purposes throughout the UK. However, for cheques deposited in Northern Ireland, days which are bank holidays in Northern Ireland are not treated as working days.
Unpaid cheques
If a cheque is returned unpaid, the value of it will be debited from your account even if you have withdrawn the money in the meantime. However, you can be certain that an unpaid cheque will not be debited from your account later than 6 working days after the day of deposit without your permission or unless there is a suspicion that a fraud has been committed. Therefore, from day 0 when you pay in a cheque, the bank on which it is drawn has the following 6 working days to be able to return it unpaid.
Building society cheques are treated like any other cheque and take the same amount of time to clear. They can also be returned unpaid for a variety of reasons.
If you pay in cash or cheques at another bank to your Barclays account (eg on a Monday), the timetable starts from the day that the credit is in your account. Ordinarily, and in this example, this will be on Wednesday. In these instances, we will pay interest on Wednesday too and the funds are available to withdraw on the following Monday. Funds will not be debited from your account as a result of a cheque being returned unpaid later than the following Thursday.
If you pay in cash or cheques at the Post Office to your Barclays account, it takes two working days longer to process them than if you paid them in at a Barclays branch; so it takes two days longer than shown in the chart.
If you need the cheque to clear faster, hand the cheque to a cashier at any branch of Barclays and ask to use the Direct Presentations service. We will send the cheque by Royal Mail Special Delivery (Next Day service) to the drawer's bank for payment. Usually it takes up to two additional working days for the drawer's bank to confirm whether the cheque is paid, and we will telephone you to inform you of the decision. For example, a cheque paid in on a Monday will normally be confirmed as paid (or not paid) by 5pm on Wednesday. This service costs £20 (free for Platinum Banking account holders).
