How to Find Your Missing and Unclaimed Money for Free

You can find unclaimed money for free. As more old data is put online, our resources for finding unclaimed money grow.
I found my missing money, submitted my claim for the money and got a check in the mail.
While claiming unclaimed money free was a $100 success for us, this man recently got $763,000 in unclaimed money! Can you imagine?
Find Unclaimed Money for Free
There are billions of dollars in unclaimed money. However, you do not need to pay an unclaimed money finder. You can do the searches for free yourself using many of the databases listed below.

How to Find Money Owed to Me For Free
How can you find unclaimed money owed to you? There are multiple places to search for unclaimed money by person name for free. Some of the sites also use search based on social security numbers.
Depending on the type of money missing, there are various “who owes me money” free search databases. However, if you don’t know the money is missing, you probably don’t know what type it is! You might as well search all the categories.
Where to Look for Your Missing Money
How can you find unclaimed money owed to you? To find your missing money there are multiple agencies to search at.
You’ll need to look in all the states you previously lived in. In addition, you need to search on any maiden names or prior names you may have used. In addition to searching for yourself, you may also want to search for deceased relatives.
Unclaimed Property and Bank Accounts
- Missing Money.com. Missing Money.com is a National Database of Unclaimed Property and links to States. This was the website I used to find my missing money. After searching for unclaimed money by person name, I found my account and submitted the claim via my state’s department of revenue. There were some rumors that Missing Money.com was a scam when I filed my claim. I’m here to tell you that I got my money. It took awhile, but I did get my money.
- Failed Banks with the FDIC. You can search for money lost due to failed banks. The FDIC will pay based on the insured deposits up to the FDIC insurance limits.
- NCUA Liquidated Credit Unions. You can search for money lost when a credit union was liquidated. For 18 months the amount will be paid at the fully insured rate. After 18 months you may get a partial distribution.
Unclaimed Retirement Benefits
- Lost Pension Plans from PBGC. You can search for unclaimed pension plans. If you assumed you wouldn’t get a pension because your prior company went bankrupt, you may want to search the database and read What Happens to Your Pension When the Company Goes Bankrupt?
- National Registry of Unclaimed Retirement Benefits. This database was built by PenChecks, a retirement distribution processing company, as a public service effort.
- Veterans Unclaimed Funds. You can search for insurance policies from some veterans insurance benefits.
Unclaimed Tax Refunds
- Unclaimed IRS Federal Tax Refunds. You can use the Where’s My Refund? tool to search for tax refunds.
- Unclaimed State Tax Refunds. Run by the National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators, you can search by state for prior year state tax refunds.
Unclaimed Savings Bonds
- Lost Savings Bonds from Treasury Department. The Treasury department discontinued the Treasury Hunt search by social security number for lost savings bonds. However, they still offer a form to fill out to submit a claim for lost, stolen or destroyed US Savings Bonds.
New Unclaimed Money Search from Credit Karma
Credit Karma, the same company that provides free credit scores recently added an Unclaimed Money search product. It currently works for California, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas and Wisconsin.
Tips on Finding Missing Money
Search various states and names. Don’t forget to search for your maiden name and other variations in your name due to misspellings. Also, search previous states that you lived in. I found my unclaimed bank account in my maiden name from an old address.
Avoid the Pay Sites. Because there are so many places to look for unclaimed money in your name for free, there really isn’t a need to pay for the service. One site that readers ask me about is unclaimedmoney.com. I looked into their search and they charge between $11 and $129 depending on the length of the membership.
Routinely Search. This might be one of those exercises that you put in your calendar for every 5 years. As you can see, even though I claimed all my missing money before, some more turned up!
Free Money
If your search for claiming unclaimed money free doesn’t turn up anything, you can always explore our updated list of free money offers.
Action Plan to Find Your Missing Money
Do you have any “lost” money? Try the free unclaimed money search and see what happens! Then submit a claim for your missing unclaimed money.
Did you find any missing money owed to you?
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Awesome! I went to missing money.com and didn’t find anything for myself, but I did find a place that had a couple of my brother’s old paychecks. (he was job hopping for awhile).
Unfortunately? I’ve kept really good track of my money over the years…none missing yet. Still, good to remember as time goes by.
The funny thing is that I didn’t know it was “missing”… I thought it was still in the bank!
How much? 🙂
Mike
I found about $50 from an old employer back in North Carolina. What baffles me is why they didn’t send it to my new address. They sent other mail, but not that last little check.
@ FP: It didn’t say how much, but I opened the account originally with $100. So probably a few bucks interest too.
@ Ron: Funny how that worked… nice to find $50 though!
I love this post! It only takes a few minutes to look, and when you “find” the money, well, that’s a little more that you have.
Finding unclaimed money is always fun. While looking for unclaimed money I also check to see if there are unclaimed funds due to a friend or relative. They’re always excited to hear you found some of their money – lol. 🙂
Yep, my boyfriend recently found a couple grand in stocks that were purchased in his name when he born. He accidentally found the unclaimed funds listing at the state treasury when he googled his name 🙂
@ Tammara: Your friends and family are lucky to have you looking for them!
@ Amanda: A couple grand? What an incredible find!
hi I bought 20,000 shares of penny stocks in a production company around 1989. then the stocks split so I had 40,000 shares. I do not remember the name of the company. Is there a way I can find these stocks with my name.
Good day I wonder if you could help me more or less than a year back somebody called me and said that I have unclaimed pension benefits they said they will fax me a claimform but I havent received it at all and never took a name or telephone number
does calif state law mandate that any one who is working in the state of calif is intitled to make minuem wage