CD vs High-Yield Savings vs Money Market Account

Three names get used as if they were three interest rates. They are three access rules, and one of the names is also used for a product that is not a deposit at all. This page uses the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's definitions. It does not rank banks, and it does not paste a table of rates from institutions we have not reviewed.

The CFPB says its pages are general consumer information, not legal advice or regulatory guidance. We opened the CD page and the money market page on November 13, 2026. Both were last modified August 31, 2026.

A CD is a term

The CFPB says a certificate of deposit, or CD, is a type of savings account offered by banks and credit unions. You generally agree to keep your money in the CD without taking a withdrawal for a specified length of time. The page's tip says to pick the maturity date from when you expect to need the money. If you plan to spend the money in five years, look at five-year CDs.

When you shop, the CFPB says to compare the term, the interest rate, and the amount of the penalty for withdrawing early. We are not filling in a typical penalty, because the CFPB does not publish one number for every institution. A penalty of "several months of interest" at one bank and a different formula at another are both possible. The disclosure you sign is the one that counts.

The same page says CDs offered by banks are insured up to $250,000 by the FDIC, and CDs offered by credit unions are insured up to $250,000 by the NCUA. That is the published figure on the page we opened, with the usual per-owner, per-institution, per-category conditions described on the FDIC and NCUA sites. A CD is not more insured than a savings account because it is a CD. It is the same insurance, if the institution is insured, inside the same category rules.

High-yield savings is still a savings account

"High yield" is not a term the CFPB uses as a separate account type in the pages we fetched. It is a marketing label for a savings account whose current APY is higher than another account the bank wants you to notice. The legal product is a savings account. The APY is variable unless the bank's disclosure says otherwise. A rate you saw last month is not a contract.

Access is the practical difference from a CD. You can usually move money without an early-withdrawal penalty. You still have to read that bank's withdrawal rules. Some banks limit certain kinds of withdrawals and say they may close the account if you exceed the limit often. That is a bank policy. We are not restating a retired federal six-withdrawal rule as if it were still the law. The pages we used for this guide did not describe a current federal six-per-month cap, so we are not adding one.

If you want dated APYs from banks this site has already opened, use Ally vs Marcus by Goldman Sachs. Those numbers live on that page, with the date, and they are not repeated here as a ranking. The high-yield savers hub is the account list. This guide is not a second copy of it.

A money market account is a deposit

The CFPB says a money market account is a type of account offered by banks and credit unions. Like other deposit accounts, money market accounts are insured by the FDIC or NCUA, up to $250,000 held by the same owner, in the way the page states that limit. The page says money market accounts tend to pay higher interest than other savings accounts, and that they usually limit the number of transactions you can make by check, debit card, or similar transfer. "Tend to" and "usually" are the CFPB's words. They are not a promise that today's money market account pays more than today's savings account at the same bank.

If you have several accounts at one institution, the CFPB says to talk to the bank or credit union to confirm coverage. It points to the FDIC's Electronic Deposit Insurance Estimator and to an NCUA web tool for credit unions. Use those. The FDIC's category page says single accounts of the same person at the same bank are added together up to $250,000, and joint accounts are a separate category. A money market account in your name alone shares the individual category with your other individual deposits at that bank. It does not get its own $250,000 just because the product name is different.

The charter difference, bank or credit union, is in credit union vs bank. Not every credit union is federally insured. Confirm that before you rely on the NCUA figure.

A money market mutual fund is not that account

This is the mix-up that costs people. The CFPB's heading is the difference between a money market account and a money market mutual fund. A money market mutual fund is an investment. It is not a savings or checking account, even though some money market funds let you write checks. Mutual funds are offered by investment companies, not as deposits. The CFPB points to the Securities Investor Protection Corporation for that side of the question. SIPC is not FDIC insurance. FDIC insurance does not apply to the fund.

If a brokerage screen and a bank screen both say "money market," read the next line. One will name a bank or credit union and deposit insurance. The other will name a fund. The fund can lose value. The deposit account can be insured if the institution fails, and the rate can still change. Those are different risks.

Investing through a child's app is the same split. Greenlight's own page says investments are not FDIC-insured. That comparison is in Greenlight vs Acorns Early vs BusyKid, and it is not a savings ranking.

How to choose without a fake ranking

Use the CFPB's CD shopping list if the money has a date on it: term, rate, and early-withdrawal penalty, copied from the disclosure. Use a savings account if you may need the money and you have read that bank's withdrawal rule. Use a money market deposit account only after you have confirmed it is the deposit product, not the fund, and you have read its transaction limit.

Do not pick a product because the label says high yield. Open the current APY, the date, the minimum, and the fee. If this site has reviewed the bank, the review should match the provider's page as of its review date. If the date is old, the provider's page wins.

How to read an offer without mixing the products

Start with the term. If the disclosure names a maturity date and an early-withdrawal penalty, you are looking at a CD, whatever the headline calls it. Write down the term, the APY, and the penalty formula from that disclosure. The CFPB tells you to compare those three. It does not tell you that a longer term is always better. A five-year CD matches a five-year plan only if you can leave the money there. If the date is wrong, the penalty is the cost of being wrong, and the cost is in the disclosure, not in a national average.

If there is no maturity date, you are not in a CD. You are in a savings account or a money market deposit account, and the rate can change. "High yield" on the banner does not freeze the APY. Ask whether the rate is variable, whether a minimum balance changes it, and whether a transaction limit can get the account closed. Ally's own savings page, cited in the Ally vs Marcus comparison, is an example of a bank stating its own withdrawal count. That count is Ally's rule. It is not a rule this guide is applying to every savings account, and it is not Regulation D. We did not fetch a page that restates a federal six-withdrawal cap as current law, so this guide does not treat that old cap as current.

Then check the fund question, every time the words "money market" appear. A deposit account names a bank or a credit union and an insurer. A mutual fund names a fund and an investment company. Check-writing on a fund does not turn the fund into the CFPB's money market account. SIPC protection, if it applies, is not FDIC insurance and not NCUA share insurance. If you cannot tell which sentence you are in, do not move the money until the institution answers in writing.

Insurance is the last check, not the first. Confirm the institution is FDIC-insured or, for a credit union, federally insured by the NCUA. Then confirm the ownership category. A CD, a savings account, and a money market deposit account in the same name at the same bank share the individual limit. They do not each get $250,000 because you used three product names. The FDIC's category page is the source for that addition. The credit union vs bank guide is the source for why the NCUA sentence is not automatic at every credit union.

How we update this page

Definitions come from the CFPB pages linked below, accessed November 13, 2026. Insurance figures come from those pages and from the FDIC and NCUA pages, with the conditions those pages attach. We are not adding example APYs on this page. The methodology is the site's update rule.