The paper check has been bounced from the federal government. But how much longer will we pay with checks at all?
As of Sept. 30, the Social Security Administration, IRS and other federal departments and agencies will no longer send or receive paper checks, with only a few rare exceptions. That means Social Security benefits, Veterans benefits and tax refunds will be sent to you as electronic payments. You also won’t be able to pay your taxes by mailing a check.
The shift comes after President Donald Trump issued an executive order in March to phase out the government’s use of checks in an effort to “modernize how the government handles money,” the White House said.
“Paper-based payments, such as checks and money orders, impose unnecessary costs, delays, and risks of fraud, lost payments, theft, and inefficiencies,” the White House said.
The use of checks has been declining for decades, and the president has no interest in giving paper payments a nostalgia-fueled comeback a la Alcatraz or the U.S. factory job. Experts say that’s a good thing, especially with check fraud on the rise.
“I think the government has been waiting for a point when the decline was significant enough that they could jump in and encourage the next level of decline,” says Mary Kay Bowman, executive vice president and general manager of payments and financial services at BILL, a financial operations platform serving businesses. “I think that’s where their interest is, in pushing the natural behavior shift away from checks.”
Banking industry groups support the move as encouraging a push toward safer payment options.
“Electronic payments are a much faster, cheaper and safer choice for consumers and the federal government,” says Rob Nichols, president and CEO of the American Bankers Association, in a statement applauding the executive order.
[See: Best Checking Accounts]
How This May Impact You
While the order directs the federal government to stop using checks for everything from transactions within agencies to vendor payments, it will affect average Americans mostly in two areas: Social Security benefits and tax refunds.
Most Social Security recipients already receive their payments electronically, either through direct deposit into a bank account or onto a rechargeable debit card. However, some still get checks, either because they don’t have a bank account or never switched over to electronic payments. In September, about 397,000 paper checks were sent out to Social Security recipients, making up less than 1% of all payments.
The White House says some exceptions will be made for those without access to banking.
Recipients who still receive paper Social Security checks will need to set up electronic payments. You can either link your bank account to start receiving direct deposits or you can request to receive payments on a prepaid debit card through the Direct Express program. To set up digital payments or learn more about your options, visit the U.S. Treasury Department’s Go Direct website.
Those who typically receive their tax refund via check won’t have that option next tax season. Filers will need to open a bank account for direct deposit. Some mobile payment apps and prepaid debit cards also allow you to receive your tax refunds.
Of the nearly 93.6 million tax refunds the IRS has sent out in 2025, about 6.6 million — roughly 7% — were sent as checks.
[SEE: Best Free Checking Accounts]
Check Use Is Down, but Check Fraud Is Up
Checks have been falling in popularity for several decades, as credit cards, digital wallets and other online payment methods offer greater speed and security.
The use of checks decreased nearly 75% from 2000 to 2021, according to a Federal Reserve study, with check use by consumers falling faster than that of businesses. People still wrote more than 11 billion checks in 2021.
Check fraud, however, is sharply on the rise.
Banks reported about 682,000 suspicious activity reports related to check fraud in 2024, nearly twice as many as just the previous year, according to data from the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. The U.S. Postal Service has also noticed an increase in mail theft complaints as criminals attempt to steal checks en route to their destination.
What led to the spike in check fraud? It was largely government checks, says Uri Rivner, CEO and co-founder of Refine Intelligence, which makes software that helps banks prevent check fraud, money laundering and other scams.
Rivner says the rise in check fraud started about five years ago, when the government was sending out pandemic relief payments to Americans, often in the form of checks. These checks were relatively easy to spot in the mail, and once fraudsters fine-tuned their operations, they expanded their efforts.
“It started with government checks, and then the criminals said, ‘Why don’t we steal every check?'” says Rivner. “Just take envelopes, see if there’s a check inside. If you ask banks these days, check fraud is their No. 1 problem.”
Rivner says check fraud accounts for about 40% of all fraud at midsize banks and 30% of fraud at major banks.
Most check fraud begins with a check being stolen in the mail, either at a mailbox or from inside a delivery vehicle. The criminal typically then scans the check and digitally alters the name of the payee, while leaving all other details on the check the same.
“Once the check is stolen, it’s super easy for them to digitally forge it,” Rivner says.
Who Still Uses Checks?
The percentage of purchases made by check continues to decrease, and a growing list of retailers including Target and Whole Foods no longer accept them.
Only 3% of payments in the U.S. are made by check, according to a 2024 survey from the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. That survey found that only 35% of consumers reported making any check payment in the past month, down from 40% from the previous year.
But checks remain a common payment method for certain types of transactions. For example, the majority of payments to building contractors are still made with a check, according to an Atlanta Fed survey. Monthly rent payments, charitable donations and tuition for schools and child care are other areas where consumers still use checks relatively frequently.
Another group that uses checks more than the average person? Americans. Rivner jokes that Americans write checks as if it’s our patriotic duty.
“It’s pretty weird,” says Rivner. “You don’t see checks used elsewhere. The U.S. is like the only place in the galaxy, I think, that still uses checks substantially. You don’t see that in the U.K., you don’t see that in Europe, you don’t see that in Asia. For some reason, checks are still very dominant when you talk about high amount transfers.”
So will the U.S. government’s move away from checks push the consumer in the same direction?
“It does incentivize people who have been wanting to become more electronic and to use more secure services to just finish the job,” says Bowman.
Rivner agrees that it may accelerate the decline of checks, but he expects checks to still live on for certain transactions for a while longer.
“At some point they will go away, we all know that,” he says. “The new move from the U.S. government is obviously a push in the right direction, but I don’t see checks disappearing overnight. They’re still going to be used by consumers over a certain age, small businesses, for things like rent, insurance claims. All sorts of things like that. We’ll still see those, and we’ll still see a lot of fraud happening on checks as well.”
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Is This the End of Paper Checks? originally appeared on usnews.com
Update 09/30/25: This story was previously published at an earlier date and has been updated with new information.
