Before putting any money into U.S. government securities on TreasuryDirect, it helps to know exactly how much you’re allowed to buy — and what the floor is. The rules vary depending on what you’re buying.
The annual cap is $10,000 per person for EE bonds and another $10,000 for I bonds. These two limits are completely separate, so maxing out one doesn’t affect the other. Buying Treasury bills or notes won’t touch your savings bond limits either.
The minimum purchase is $25, and you can go up from there in penny increments up to the $10,000 yearly ceiling.
If you’re transferring bonds, sending them as gifts, or de-linking them to another person’s TreasuryDirect account, there’s one thing worth knowing: the bond value counts toward the recipient’s annual limit in whatever year it lands in their account, not yours. If they’re already close to their cap, it’s worth a conversation before you send anything over. Also worth noting — gift delivery and de-linking are only available on individual accounts, not entity accounts.
For bills, notes, bonds, TIPS, and FRNs, noncompetitive bids through TreasuryDirect are capped at $10 million per security per auction. That ceiling covers your total across all channels — if you’re submitting noncompetitive bids in the same auction through more than one avenue, the combined amount still has to come in under $10 million for that security type.
Purchases start at $100 and must go up in $100 increments from there.
The one carve-out: reinvestments don’t count against the $10 million limit. Rolling a maturing security into a new one of the same type sits entirely outside the purchase cap.