Best CD rates in New Jersey of August 2024
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BLUEPRINT
Updated 4:53 a.m. UTC Aug. 1, 2024
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Digging up the best certificates of deposit (CD) in the Garden State can be a headache, with more than 180 active banks and credit unions to choose from. So we did the work for you. We found the CDs with the juiciest yields, the lowest minimum deposits and the best customer reviews.
Account details and annual percentage yields (APYs) are accurate as of June 20, 2024.
Best CD rates in New Jersey
- USAlliance Federal Credit Union.
- Bread Savings Certificates of Deposit.
- Popular Direct.
- Limelight Bank.
- My eBanc Online Time Deposit.
Why trust our banking experts
Our expert team analyzes thousands of data points on hundreds of banking products to help you find the best solution for your situation. We use a data-driven methodology to determine each rating. Advertisers do not influence our editorial content. You can read more about our methodology below.
- 350+ CDs at 136 financial institutions reviewed.
- 50+ data points per CD analyzed.
- 4 levels of fact checking.
USAlliance Federal Credit Union certificate accounts
Popular Direct certificates of deposit
Limelight certificates of deposit
Compare the best New Jersey CDs
| NAME | STAR RATING | MIN. DEPOSIT | ONE-YEAR APY | FIVE-YEAR APY |
|---|---|---|---|---|
USAlliance Federal Credit Union
| 4.99 | $500
| 5.20%
| 4.00%
|
Bread Financial
| 4.91 | $1,500
| 5.15%
| 4.05%
|
Popular Direct
| 4.95 | $10,000
| 5.10%
| 4.30%
|
Limelight Bank
| 4.85 | $1,000
| 5.15%
| N/A
|
My eBanc
| 4.85 | $5,000
| 4.90%
| N/A
|
Methodology
We looked at scores of CDs and found the best rates, so you don’t have to. To be specific, we evaluated more than 350 CDs offered by 136 financial institutions — a mix of traditional brick-and-mortar banks, online banks and credit unions — and weighed them on the following factors to create a score out of 100.
- APY: 52%. The main point of having a CD is to earn guaranteed interest on it, so we weighed APY most heavily.
- Customer experience: 10%. While earning a high yield is vital, having a good experience with the bank or credit union that’s potentially managing thousands of your hard-earned dollars can help put your mind at ease. We considered ratings from the Better Business Bureau, Trustpilot and J.D. Power.
- Available terms: 10%. Options are always nice. Plus, having CD accounts spread out at multiple financial institutions can be hard to track. For savers who want to keep their CDs under one roof, we rewarded institutions that have more term options with a slightly higher score.
- Availability: 10%. The more widely available a CD is across the state and the nation, the better. Institutions also earned more points here if they had branch availability.
- Customer experience: 10%. We looked at customer reviews and ratings from the Better Business Bureau (BBB), J.D. Power and Trustpilot, plus we considered whether live chat support was available.
- Compound interest schedule: 8%. The more often your CD compounds, the more interest it earns. While the difference between a daily and a monthly compounding interest schedule is small for low amounts over short periods, it can grow exponentially.
- Digital experience: 5%. Many, if not most people buying CDs do so online. We took the ratings and reviews of the iOs and Android mobile apps into account.
- Minimum deposit: 5%. We believe in democratizing finance, which is to say, there’s little point in learning about savings products if they’re unaffordable. The lower the minimum required deposit, the better an institution scored here.
Based on the score, we formed a star rating for each institution. For instance, a bank with a score of 100 would earn five stars; one with a score of 80 earned four stars and so on. Institutions with high scores rose to the top.
Why some banks didn’t make the cut
You’ll notice that some of the largest banks in the nation are conspicuous by their absence on our list.
The largest banks, such as Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo, rarely offer competitive CD rates. As they’re already banking powerhouses and top-of-mind for many Americans, they don’t need to offer great yields to attract deposits.
Smaller institutions, on the other hand, tend to offer competitive yields to draw in customers and money.
How to find the best CD deals in New Jersey
A certificate of deposit (CD) is an interest-bearing savings vehicle that’s issued by banks and credit unions. In exchange for setting aside funds for a specified time period, you can earn a higher interest rate than what’s typically available on traditional savings accounts. And the interest is guaranteed, unlike in the stock market.
A caveat is that if you need to access your funds before the term is up, you’ll likely pay an early withdrawal penalty — which would curb the CD’s earning power.
That’s why it’s a good idea to start your search by first determining how long you want the CD term to be. You can often find CD maturity dates ranging from three months all the way to up to 10 years.
And the CD term length you want may be influenced by how much you’re going to put into it. For example, you may be happy to deposit $10,000 for 18 months, but doing so for five years would be untenable.
Establishing how much you want to deposit for how long gives you a foundation so you’re less likely to be swayed by higher yields on CDs that may not best suit your needs. But, of course, pick out the highest-yielding CDs that fall within your requirements for term length and deposit size.
Once you’ve got some contenders, check that the financial institutions are covered by the FDIC or by the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA), which offers the same level of deposit insurance at credit unions. And, just in case, see what the early withdrawal penalties look like so you won’t be surprised if something pops up and you need to cash out.
What are jumbo CDs?
Certificates of deposit not only differ in term length, they differ in monetary size, too.
In your search, you may find jumbo CDs, which offer higher rates of return in exchange for what’s normally a significantly higher minimum deposit. You typically need around $100,000 to open one.
Jumbo CD terms are as variable as traditional CDs and they’re covered by the same deposit insurance. That said, you don’t have increased insurance on them just because they’re bigger.
The FDIC and NCUA insure deposits up to $250,000 per depositor, per insured institution, per account ownership type (think joint versus individual). So if your total deposits at a bank start to flirt with that limit, it could be wise to diversify and put some funds at another institution.
Short vs long-term CDs
While the delineation between short- and long-term CDs isn’t set in stone, there is a line in the sand: Short-term CDs tend to last 12 months or fewer and long-term CDs last 24-months or more.
A short-term CD can be perfect when you think CD rates will climb even higher than they currently are — because, once it matures in a few months, you can reinvest it into a new CD with a higher yield. They’re also good if you’re unsure exactly when you’ll need your funds and you want more flexibility so you can avoid an early withdrawal penalty. Three- and six-month CDs are rather common.
If you have a specific savings goal, such as building up a fund for holiday gifts or tallying up a down payment, you can time a CD to that purpose, whether it’s short term or long.
Long-term CDs can be just the ticket when you think rates have peaked and want to lock in the high yield for years to come. You can find three-, five- and even 10-year CDs.
Of course, you could get both. CD laddering is an investment strategy that uses CDs of multiple terms so that you have more flexible access to your funds and lock in great rates over longer periods.
Imagine you have $50,000 to deposit, and you split it equally into five CDs with maturities of one, two, three, four and five years. As the term of each CD ends, you then reinvest the funds into a five-year CD.
This way you’re guaranteed predictable earnings, have regular fee-free access to parts of your savings and, if something happens and you need to make an early withdrawal, you likely won’t have to close all of your CD accounts.
Whatever type of CD you get, however, you shouldn’t count on it to act like your emergency savings fund. By their nature, emergency events can happen at any time, so it’s best to keep that cash in a high-yield savings account.
Frequently asked questions (FAQs)
The list above can walk you through some of the best CD deals in the Garden State. Currently, the highest CD rate in New Jersey is a 4.90% APY for a 12-month certificate offered by My eBanc Online Time Deposit.
A CD ladder is a collection of deposits with increasing term lengths. For instance, one may consist of three CDs: a three month, a six month and a 12-month CD. Each CD is a rung in the ladder. Your ladder can be as long or as short as you want with as many rungs as you want.
The point of one is to provide a predictable income flow without putting your funds at any great risk.
Yes, if your CD is at an FDIC-insured bank or an NCUA-insured credit union — it’s automatically insured, along with the rest of your deposits, up to $250,000. You don’t need to take any special steps to get insurance, like buying a policy.
The insurance also covers interest earned. For example, if your CD account holds a principal balance of $97,000 and $3,000 in accrued interest, all $100,000 is protected in case the bank fails. If your total deposit amount at one institution goes over $250,000 however, it may not be protected.
You can also check the FDIC’s BankFind tool and the NCUA locator tool to check if your institution is insured.
Rates are up in New Jersey and elsewhere due to a continued high-interest economy policy from the U.S. Federal Reserve, which is keeping rates high to tamp down high inflation.
Currently, USAlliance Financial offers a high 5.20% APY on its one-year CD term.
Blueprint is an independent publisher and comparison service, not an investment advisor. The information provided is for educational purposes only and we encourage you to seek personalized advice from qualified professionals regarding specific financial decisions. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
Blueprint has an advertiser disclosure policy. The opinions, analyses, reviews or recommendations expressed in this article are those of the Blueprint editorial staff alone. Blueprint adheres to strict editorial integrity standards. The information is accurate as of the publish date, but always check the provider’s website for the most current information.
