You would think that in 2025, your bank you send a request to the writer’s bank along with a digitized copy of the check. Clearing a check can be run as an overnight batch so 24 or maybe 48 hours. The fact that you receive credit to your funds in two business days seems to confirm that. Well, you’d be wrong. Just to show how out of date the system is, it wasn’t until new banking laws in 2004 that it wasn’t a requirement to have checks physically transferred between banks. That’s why check fraudsters deposited checks on one coast and “their bank” was located on the other coast.
Today the check goes through one of many clearinghouses run by the Federal Reserve. Here is the process:
You write a check from your US Bank account for $100 to Annie
Annie deposits the check into BofA. BofA credits her account $100
BofA sends your physical check to its district’s Federal Reserve along with all of the other checks deposited that day.
The Federal Reserve credits BofA $100 when it processes it.
That district’s Federal Reserve sorts all of the checks in the clearinghouse (remember we are in Annie’s district) and sends your check to your district’s Federal Reserve. Or keeps it if your and Annie’s banks are in the same district.
Your district’s Federal Reserve debits US Bank $100. It then sends either the physical check or a digital copy to your bank. Notice it doesn’t get digitized until the end so despite the changes in 2004, they are still moving the physical check around most of the way. Would it be quicker if the check were digitized at the beginning? Sure. But like I said, it is an antiquated system.
US Bank debits your account $100. This is the point that the check has cleared. IF you cannot cover the check, it has not cleared and that is a whole other post.
And if I’m not mistaken, the clearinghouse only works business days and excludes federal holidays.
To answer the OP, there is no clear cut answer but I have heard 2 weeks or 3 to be sure.