By David Enna, Tipswatch.com
TreasuryDirect gets a lot of bad press, mostly deserved, for presenting a clunky website with a bureaucratic mess of rules and usually lousy customer service.
I’ve been using TreasuryDirect services for at least 32 years, even before the website launched in 2002. Overall, the system has worked for me, but obviously I am a very experienced user.
The Wall Street Journal last week presented an “exclusive” on one of the major faults of TreasuryDirect: You cannot sell traditional Treasury purchases on the site. The securities have to be transferred to a brokerage (a tedious process), and then sold. And TreasuryDirect, shockingly, says the process can take up to 12 months.
That leads to my one key rule for using TreasuryDirect: Never purchase anything that you may have the slightest need to sell before maturity. There are two exceptions to that rule:
- U.S. Savings Bonds, which after a year can be redeemed at TreasuryDirect and then have money sent to your bank or brokerage within a couple days. TreasuryDirect is the only place you can buy electronic versions of Series I and EE Savings Bonds, and is the only place you can redeem them. This process works well.
- Short-term T-bills, which will mature in 4 to 52 weeks. Buyers can wait out the maturity period. And smart investors can stagger their purchases to always have access to some money within a month. I am a fan of using TreasuryDirect to purchase T-bills, because the rollover process is flawless. A T-bill matures and a new one is purchased on the same day. At some brokerages, the rollover process can lead to a one-week delay.
It makes no sense to buy traditional Treasurys (TIPS, notes or bonds) at TreasuryDirect if you think you would need to sell them before maturity. The Wall Street Journal article says this about transfers:
TreasuryDirect tries to complete most of them within six weeks, but can take 12 months, depending on capacity. A notice on the TreasuryDirect website says some customer-service requests “may require 12 months or more to process.” The notice had said the longest delays were about six months until the end of July.
A spokesperson for the Treasury’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service said the program has “significant processing delays due to resource and technology constraints.” The Treasury Department is looking to modernize its program “to ensure better, more modern experiences.”
In a followup article on CNBC, the Treasury tried to spin a more positive outlook:
When asked about wait times, the spokesperson said that it “depends more on complexity than capacity” and that processing times are “well under one year right now and declining daily.”
“The website’s processing timeframes are meant to give the longest potential times for the complex, difficult cases — these processing times are often much shorter and continue to decrease as we dedicate more resources,” they said.
OK. But imagine if your brokerage told you it might need a year to complete your sales order. That brokerage would be out of business in weeks. Transferring securities is not a core goal of TreasuryDirect, clearly.
The WSJ article includes an anecdote about an investor who purchased a 20-year Treasury bond in January to lock in 4.75% returns. And then:
(The investor) was prepared to hold on to the bond through a mandatory 45-day waiting period before he could transfer it to his brokerage account.
Over the summer, he called TreasuryDirect’s customer-service line to check on the status of his transfer and was told processing could take up to a year. “I never in a million years would have put away $10,000 that I couldn’t get for a year if I needed it,” he said.
What is interesting in this anecdote is that the investor purchased the 20-year bond with the intention of moving it quickly to his brokerage account. When I read that, I screamed out loud at the breakfast table, “You have a brokerage account! Why didn’t you buy the Treasury bond in that brokerage account?”
But the story continues:
Even before learning about the delay, (the investor) had to print a transfer request form and get a medallion signature, a notary-style stamp to verify security transfers, before mailing it to the Treasury Department. The delay prompted him to file several complaints with the site and write a letter to his congressional representative hoping to expedite the process.
Again, all of this could have been avoided by simply purchasing any longer-term Treasury investment in a brokerage account, not TreasuryDirect. But the Wall Street Journal reports: “About two-thirds of the purchases on TreasuryDirect so far this year have been marketable securities instead of savings bonds.” I suspect a lot of those were T-bills, which are fine.
Treasurys of all types can be purchased in a brokerage account, usually with zero commission. Want to participate in a Treasury auction? You can do that at a brokerage, too, almost always with zero commission. You will get exactly the same yield and price as any auction buyer on TreasuryDirect.
Treasurys are liquid investments. Any Treasury you hold at a brokerage usually can be sold within days, but will incur a small commission and possible bid/ask spread. The sole advantage of TreasuryDirect for Treasury auctions is its minimum purchase of $100, much lower than the typical brokerage minimum of $1,000.
And one final point: You cannot open a tax-deferred account at TreasuryDirect. So if you want to purchase Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities in a retirement account, you must do that at a brokerage. This is the preferred way to purchase TIPS.
My experiences
I started using TreasuryDirect in its “legacy” form in the 1990s and transferred all securities to the current TreasuryDirect in 2002. Over the years, I have purchased many Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities there and all but six have matured. Those six will mature in years 2025 to 2029, plus 2041.
Back in 2018, our hourly-fee financial adviser (the noted author Allan Roth) suggested that we move all our TIPS holdings out of TreasuryDirect to a brokerage and then sell them, because TIPS don’t belong in a taxable account. That is the correct advice, but I didn’t do it. I wasn’t going to sell my TIPS holdings before maturity.
When I purchased these TIPS, I was absolutely certain I would hold them to maturity. So TreasuryDirect’s clunky transfer policies were not a concern. And I have never felt TIPS absolutely should be limited to a tax-deferred account. When these TreasuryDirect TIPS mature, I get the proceeds with nearly zero taxes owed (it’s all been prepaid).
One strange “advantage” of holding TIPS at TreasuryDirect is that the website will never show you — or calculate — market value. The only value it presents is somewhat recent par value x inflation index, which is what you will receive at maturity. Because TIPS can’t be traded at TreasuryDirect, the value it shows does not fluctuate with market jumps. I find this calming. Others would disagree.
But since 2018, I have never purchased another TIPS at TreasuryDirect. The reason: I have moved all these transactions to a traditional IRA at Vanguard, where money can be redistributed without any tax concerns.
The key takeaway from all this is that TreasuryDirect is exclusively great for one thing: purchasing, holding and redeeming savings bonds. It is also useful for purchasing and reinvesting T-bills. Beyond that, I’d recommend using a brokerage account for Treasury purchases.
* * *
Follow Tipswatch on X (Twitter) for updates on daily Treasury auctions and real yield trends (when I am not traveling).
Feel free to post comments or questions below. If it is your first-ever comment, it will have to wait for moderation. After that, your comments will automatically appear. Please stay on topic and avoid political tirades. NOTE: Comment threads can only be three responses deep. If you see that you cannot respond, create a new comment and reference the topic.
David Enna is a financial journalist, not a financial adviser. He is not selling or profiting from any investment discussed. I Bonds and TIPS are not “get rich” investments; they are best used for capital preservation and inflation protection. They can be purchased through the Treasury or other providers without fees, commissions or carrying charges. Please do your own research before investing.
Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities 
T Bills are very much not fine if the owner of the account dies, even if there is a clear secondary owner with a different treasury direct account and transact rights. You DO NOT want someone to die with T-Bills in their TD account. If that happens you need to transfer those bills out as soon as possible into a different TD account assuming there are transact rights.
Otherwise it’s Form FS 5512 for you! 6+ months in the C of I penalty box.
Yes! This has happened to me. Six months plus wait time. What is the C of I penalty box?
I received an email from TD today saying that I have “undelivered” bonds in my gift box. That is true, but they were issue in 1/1/24 and the recipient has already maxed out their purchases for the year. I thought I would not be able to deliver them until 1/1/25. When I go to the TD gift box section, there is a button to “deliver” which I’m hesitant to hit. My questions:
I received the same email. Maybe I should follow their direction and delilver all 3 undelivered gifts for my wife and me. Just following their direction 🙂
“Dear TreasuryDirect Customer, We noticed that you still have undelivered gift bonds in your gift box. Please deliver those gifts to the recipient’s account as soon as possible.”
There is also a thread in progress about this on the Bogleheads forum:
https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=441235
Since gift I Bonds count against the annual purchase limit of the RECIPIENT in the calendar year during which they are delivered; and since you therefore cannot deliver more than $10,000 to that account in a single year; and since trust accounts can neither buy nor received gift bonds, the Treasury purchase limits themSELVES are the main obstacle to delivering a great wad of gift box bonds all at the same time.
Therefore, treat that e-mail as a boilerplate reminder that the gift box bonds exist. Deliver them when you wish, and when the respective recipients’ annual purchase limits allow, which need not be–and in such purchase limit situations isn’t even allowed to be–“as soon as possible.”
I agree this is the only way to view what that email means.
I sent e-mail to Treasury Direct. Said “you sent me an e-mail telling me to deliver the bonds in my gift box to the recipient. Why? I am not able to do it now since the recipient has 10,000 purchases for the year, can deliver in January 2025.
Treasury Direct responded:
“We want to remind customers they have gift bonds and provided instructions on how to deliver if needed. You may hold the bond until January 2025”
Chris, again this is very poor, unspecific communication from TreasuryDirect. Since they said you “may” hold the I Bonds until Jan 2025, they seem to be opening the door to immediate delivery.
I too have been using Treasury Direct, and the preceding Legacy account, and paper treasury securities that had to be purchased with a cashier’s check at the Federal Reserve. As I recall, Treasury once had a service for selling securities. I don’t see why it couldn’t do so again if every brokerage service can do it.
When I read that WSJ article that you referenced, I had the same reaction to that guy who bought the treasury to immediately transfer it. I actually wasn’t aware you could transfer holdings out of TreasuryDirect, so I’ve only used it for I-bonds or short-term bills.
Another good article Dave, thanks for sharing your knowledge with us
My question involves the payout of I-Bonds at maturity. My wife and I each have a Treasury Direct conversion account with I-Bonds maturing between November 2028 and May 2031.
When we opened our TD accounts, we each designated a checking account and each of our accounts received a $0.00 ACH transfer, which I assume was to confirm the account. My question is whether there anything else we need to do to be sure that the redemption proceeds are paid into our respective checking accounts and do not end up in a zero percent certificate of Indebtedness?
When you go to redeem in TreasuryDirect, you should see on the final page before submission where the funds are to be directed. It should be pre-filled with your default account. If it isn’t, you need to make sure that choice is made before submitting.
One thing I got out of all of this is it seams you do not want to have a Treasury Direct account when you die. It appears that it is a major hassle for any beneficiary, whether by will or a POD beneficiary. it may even be a hassle for the surviving spouse when using the “With” Title, although maybe I’m wrong about that.
Is there a quick answer to why TIPS should only be held in a tax deferred account?
The basic reason is that TIPS pay out an annual coupon rate (taxable in the current year), but also add inflation accruals to your principal balance without paying it out. That money is also taxable in the current year, but you can’t access it until you sell the TIPS or it reaches maturity. That’s called a “phantom tax,” but it really isn’t different than the tax treatment of a bond fund held in a taxable account where interest is reinvested. In general, the consensus opinion is that bonds are best held in a traditional tax-deferred account.
I have been reading your helpful column about 18 months. The reason I never invested through Treasury Direct was the necessity of obtaining a “medallion signature guarantee”.
I last had to do that in 2007 when transferring funds from my credit union to T. Rowe Price. Now, I cannot find any CU or local bank (Charlotte area) that still offers that service. Not sure why but it is certainly an impediment if the Treasury still requires that type of signature. Any ideas as to which financial institutions still offer Signature Medallion Guarantees?
In the Charlotte area, I have an account with Truliant Federal Credit Union, and they will do the medallion signature guarantee. But they have told me they consider these a high liability risk, so they want lots of evidence you are who you say you are. I think TreasuryDirect has stopped requiring the medallion guarantee in most cases. Its TreasuryDirect Account Authorization form now says “Sign in ink in the presence of a certifying officer or notary.” This is the form: https://treasurydirect.gov/forms/acctauth.pdf
Not necessarily true if you live in a high income tax state. I hold my TIPS in a regular brokerage account because my state tax rate is about 9% and I don’t want to lose the “state tax free” benefit by holding them in an IRA. I agree that the phantom income aspect is a consideration.
This is a good point.
“I never in a million years would have put away $10,000 that I couldn’t get for a year if I needed it,”. —Investor
So not a candidate for I bonds, at least not the annual maximum and someone who will never use the gift box purchase.
Very informative article. My mantra has been “only use TD for I-bonds”. Of course, if you are buying or redeeming I-bonds, you have no other choice. Otherwise, use a brokerage; Vanguard, Schwab, or Fidelity. My beneficiary on my I-bonds is my living trust, which I can easily amend if I change my mind about who I want to get my money when I pass.
One note about buying T-bills at Schwab. Do not use auto-roll option. I always buy at auction and hold to maturity. Schwab has about a one week lag before they reinvest, which means Schwab is only paying you .45% interest during this time. You can manually time your reinvestment so that the day an old T-bill matures is the settlement date of your purchase of a new T-bill, thus you lose no interest. 3 month and 6 month T-bills always settle and mature on the same day of the week, Thursday. 1 month and 2 month T-bills settle and mature on Tuesdays.
Patrick, Could you expand on your comment “My beneficiary on my I-bonds is my living trust”. I have 2 individual TD accounts and 1 Trust TD account set up in my “Living Trust” name. I was under the impression that the Trust TD account could not be the beneficiary of my individual accounts. How did you name the 1st Person (YOU) on the I-Bond as the owner and your Trust account as the beneficiary? Thank you.
Doug, use Form 1851, Request to Reissue United States Savings Bonds to a Personal Trust. I should have been clearer. The bonds are not in my name, but in the name of my living trust. As long as I am alive, I can do what I want with them since I am the grantor. So “I own them”. My social security number is used by TD because I am the living trust grantor (owner). You could say I am the sole trustee of the living trust while I am alive.
When I pass they become owned by the living trust and are distributed according to my instructions in the living trust. To create a living trust, you have to supply a fiduciary, and a back-up, to act as trustee after I pass. You should probably have a lawyer set it up, costs maybe one or two thousand dollars.
Living trusts are kind of cool, you don’t really need a will. All my other assets have my living trust as the beneficiary.
Patrick, thanks for the reply. I already have the living trust account and have filed Form 5511 to transfer the I-Bonds from my personal account to my trust account. Now, I just have to wait (it’s been 3 months so far). The Form 1851 is for paper bonds only.
NOTE: If you have ELECTRONIC bonds registered in your name and want to put them into a trust, you must open an entity trust account in Treasury Direct and submit FS Form 5511 to transfer the bonds to the account.
One other small advantage I can think of for TD, is that you can set it up to withhold taxes on your dividends (up to 50%), something that Vanguard doesn’t do.
That is useful to know. But treasury does not hold stocks so you probably meant “interest” not dividends.
Yes, I meant “interest”, thank you!
David: Loved your article.
Much maligned as it is there are things Treasury Direct does better. You mentioned some (in no particular order).
1 You can schedule and unschedule reinvestments at will (just do it at least 8 days before maturity) you can change your mind as many times as you wish In a brokerage once you unschedule a redemption you can not change your mind.
2 You can buy and sell t bills in multiples of $100
3 You can get your money directly (no need to transfer) for sales of interests sent separately to your savings or checking account (even assign these to two different banks)
4 The other thing i have found comes to liquidity. You can participate in an auction even if you do not have the cash available at the moment of auction. It only pulls the money from your account the day of settling. Unlike brokerage account that require the money to be on your core positionthe day of the auction. This iss pecially bad with Vanguard with requires insanely long hold times for the cash to be available for purchase).
To summarize: I like Treasury direct. The only things I consider asinine are:
a) the left arrow conundrum and
b) that you cannot purchase CMB’s via treasury direct. At least the 6 week CMB which is a commodity offered every week at auction.
In general, I believe Treasury Direct caters better to those who do not have a lot of spare cash . (Moi!)
You wrote “You can buy and sell t bills in multiples of $100″. Are you sure that is accurate?
I am unaware of any way to sell” T-Bills on TD. David even agreed with me earlier that you need to wait until maturity to redeem T-Bills on TD.
I misspoke. I meant to say “redeem“. Sorry!
Very well stated. I use TD for some of the same reasons, I just don’t think about them..
One other thing: Even if you can negotiate TD, can your heirs? It’s bad enough being dead without without leaving your to T-Bonds to Uncle Sam.
Leaving TD assets to heirs after my passing is a concern. The recent article in WSJ concerns me that this would be a huge hassle for my heirs. I have the correct titles on the accounts but have no confidence in TD’s capability for timely execution of instructions. I went through successful conversion of paper bonds to electronic several years ago. It took longer than it should but not as bad as today per the article. It is also difficult to get the signature guarantee required for the transactions. Banks will not cash bonds and seem fearful of signature guarantees. Bank officers have dollar limits on their ability to execute which can limit your ability to transact larger amounts. As most of my Ibonds will be maturing in 2030-2033, I will be cashing them out over the next few years. This will also simplify my investments which is another goal.
Yes, this happened to me. My dad had some I bonds when he passed away last year. I took a long time to get the paperwork (death certificate, uncertainty of who the beneficiary was (me or my mom, still don’t know)), cover letter to indicate the situation. I sent it in late March and am still waiting for the bonds to be transferred into either my or my mom’s account.
Too bad TD does not allow joint ownership of accounts….every other financial asset account does
Agree that true joint ownership at the account level would be desirable, at least from the vantage point of the individual customer. On the other hand, in securities carrying annual dollar purchase limitations, e.g., I Bonds, I’m wondering how TreasuryDirect would manage the limitations. If a single account had two joint owners, or three, would the account’s allowable annual purchases correspondingly double, or triple? I doubt that TreasuryDirect would want to see single accounts with multiple owners being used to circumvent the limits (which I say even though I dislike the limits themselves).
Anyway, as a “part-way there” measure under current TreasuryDirect procedures, Person 1, as the owner of a single account, can register individual TreasuryDirect purchases of I Bonds within that account as “Person 1 with Person 2,” which creates joint ownership at the individual security level. Or “Person 1 POD [pay on death] Person 2,” which creates an automatic beneficiary.
My wife and I have done both of these things in various I Bond purchase situations at TreasuryDirect. Since I Bonds are the only securities we’ve ever bought there, I’m not in a position to say whether the same options exist for other things sold by TreasuryDirect.
My wife had a separate TD account to facilitate purchases of I-Bonds up to her separate $10K limit, and those bonds were registered in her account as “with” me. She unexpectedly passed away, and it took filing a completed FS Form 5511 with “certified” signature and a state certified death certificate with TD in order to request a transfer of her TD account I-Bonds in her TD account to my TD account. Because I was already on the I-Bonds as “with” my late spouse, this should have been quick and straight-forward. It did turn out to be straight-forward, but took over 6 months to “process.” Thankfully, I did not need the funds from the I-Bonds to cover my share of final medical expenses or other final expenses, so the very long wait was just an annoyance. But — over 6 months? Beware of this, especially if there is a chance you will need cash for any reason after a spousal death.
like everywhere else they should allow joint ownership accounts
I already agreed with Greg Fritz, who has now written twice that true joint ownership at the account level would be desirable.
Thinking of the situation described by texas22step, my wife and I have also used another semi-workaround: To expand the amount of I Bonds we can buy in years when we have the funds and inclination to do so, each of us has an individual TreasuryDirect account; each of us has an individual TD trust account (created with simple trust software and used for nothing except I Bond purchases); and, for general estate planning purposes, we have a joint trust account. So that’s five accounts, each with its own potential $10,000 annual purchase of I Bonds.
So in any year in which we buy I Bonds in any of the individual, or individual trust, accounts, we immediately file the TreasuryDirect paperwork to have those bonds transferred to the joint trust account, in which both of us are grantors and both of us are trustees, and either of us can unilaterally take account actions, such as online redemptions of existing bond holdings.
It’s still not as convenient as joint ownership of individual acccounts, but it’s another partial solution until the day comes (if ever, which I doubt) when TreasuryDirect allows true and thorough–and simple!–joint ownership.
just thinking out loud……….
say a spouse passed away and immediately the surviving spouse logged into the TD account and cashed out all the investments ASAP would this be possible ?
Unfortunate that i bonds can’t be purchased in a Roth IRA. All that’s needed is a broker dealer link to the issuer (U.S. Treasury). In these “modern” times, what’s so hard?
I agree that not having the option is unfortunate but I Bonds are a modest return investment so it’s not too much of a loss. Roth’s are better for more aggressive return investments since the withdrawals are tax free. What those investments are is another question.
My wife and I wanted to transfer electronic I Bonds in “personal” TreasuryDirect accounts to a newly created joint trust account, i.e., I Bonds that were already electronic but to be moved to a different electronic account. We wanted to do the same for all the paper I Bonds we’d accumulated, some of which were from the latter days of substantial direct purchases but many more from all the years we took federal tax refunds as paper I Bonds, i.e., wanted to convert all that paper to electronic form and place it in our joint trust account.
TreasuryDirect acknowledged receipt of our two sets of paperwork for these transactions in early October 2023. The account actions themselves were not completed until mid-summer 2024. This didn’t really bother us, because we weren’t trying to redeem any of them, i.e., didn’t need access to the money.
But I did call TreasuryDirect a couple times along the way just to make sure the months of “silence” didn’t indicate a problem. (My experience is that it’s pretty quick to get someone on the phone at TreasuryDirect IF you have a “case number” for a pending transaction or issue.)
I was reassured each time that things were OK but there was a tremendous backlog, some of it due to garden-variety federal job understaffing but a substantial amount due to the many tens of thousands of new accounts (somehow the number 60,000 sticks in my mind but may not be correct) opened by members of the public suddenly wanting to take advantage of high inflation rates on I Bonds in 2022-2023, i.e., temporary advantage because those people had no long-term commitment to holding I Bonds. In other words, my phone reps said there had been a vast increase in TreasuryDirect’s customer base, but without a matching increase in TreasuryDirect staffing. And, of course, all those people moving in and out of I Bonds for a perceived-short term rate advantage over other types of fixed income securities didn’t encourage the hiring of more permanent staff to deal with a temporary expansion of business.
Excellent information. Thanks.
As I mentioned, that’s the explanation of the situation, as given by line-level people who handle customer service calls. I don’t know if Treasury management would have a different “take” on the situation.
I even asked my phone reps, “Do you supposed it would do any good if a whole lot of TreasuryDirect customers wrote to the Secretary of the Treasury to say, ‘These people need more help.’?” The phone reps said that was a very kind idea but “They [management] are already aware of the problem.”
Treasury should not offer the services for anything beyond Savings Bonds and T-Bills. Let the brokerages handle. Stay to what you do well and let the private sector handle the rest. But I do like what they do well.
Thanks for getting the word out! This is all spot on, in my somewhat limited experience. I purchased a TIPS in my TD account last year. The reason had to do with the availability of funds in my bank account at the time. I plan to hold it to maturity. However, the TD system for issuing 1099’s is annoying, so to simplify I decided to transfer it to my brokerage last March. The advertised time to process was 20 weeks “or more”. After jumping through all the hoops and submitting the paperwork, I got confirmation that my request was received. When nothing had happened after 20 weeks, I called TD and was told that my request was in process and could take up to a year! This is not rocket science! A cheap lesson for me, as the only real consequence is the time invested in all the paperwork, and having to deal with the TD 1099 for another year (at least…).
Every year, at the end of January, I write a guide on finding and deciphering the TD 1099s. Every year, when we go to do our taxes, we still are baffled a bit. Why can TreasuryDirect simply summarize the categories like any broker would do? (But I’ve never owned a TIPS in a taxable brokerage account, so I can’t say what those 1099-OID forms look like.)
I was going to mention the 1099 as another reason to avoid TD as well.
One benefit is it might be more secure from hacking.
David, if you’ll permit me an off-topic question: today I received interest in my Fidel account for 91282CKL4 (4/15/29), but the amount was removed as well. It says “CORP INT ADJUSTMENT”. I thought I’d see if anyone could explain this rather than call them.
Thanks.
Could it just have been swept to your cash account?
The entries I asked about are gone now. I guess they got it sorted out.
TIPS finally transferred to my Fidelity account on October 25. It took 6.5 months. Only I-bonds in my Treasury account from now on!
Another important rule: when you do use TreasuryDirect for savings bonds and T-bills, never click the back button in your web browser. Always navigate through the website menu and you will have no problems.
… And at least once a year, I hit the “back button” and get logged out.
Treasury Direct has this limitation to block a hacking technique called URL injection.
I wonder if just getting a pop out that says “The back button won’t work” Use your menu”. would not serve the purpose rather than login off the account. Seems to me like overkill
I 100% agree with you on every aspect. So good to see my thoughts in print.
David,
I’m confused by your comment “Never purchase anything that you may have the slightest need to sell before maturity.”
You then list T-Bills as 1 of the 2 exceptions to that rule.
What you described regarding T-Bills was not selling them before their maturity. You even wrote “Buyers can wait out the maturity period.”
Can you clarify?
My point was that with a T-bill, maturity should not be an issue. You can structure your purchases to overlap and reduce any need to sell before maturity. No … you should not attempt to buy a 13-week or 26-week T-bill with the intention of selling it before maturity. It would mature before the transfer process is complete.