How much interest will a $5,000 no-penalty CD earn now?

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The past few years have been a particularly unusual stretch for savers. After spending years settling for negligible returns on traditional savings accounts, higher interest rates have made it possible to earn meaningful income on the cash that's sitting in savings without taking on market risk. While deposit rates have eased from their recent peaks, they're still high enough on many certificate of deposit (CD) accounts to reward those willing to lock in competitive returns.

Opening a CD account doesn't necessarily mean committing your money for years on end, though. While many people hesitate to open a traditional certificate of deposit because they worry they'll need access to their cash before the term ends, meaning they'll have to pay an early withdrawal penalty, there are ways around that fee. Withdrawing funds from a standard CD before it matures still means paying a penalty, but no-penalty CDs are also an option.

No-penalty CDs offer many of the benefits of a traditional CD account while giving account holders the ability to withdraw their funds without paying an early withdrawal penalty. If that sounds like a smart option to consider, here's how much a $5,000 deposit into a no-penalty CD could earn at today's rates.

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Rates on no-penalty CDs vary by term, and each term produces a meaningfully different return on a $5,000 deposit. Here's what that deposit would earn at today's typical CD rates, assuming the funds stay untouched for the full term:

The pattern here is straightforward: Longer terms generally come with modestly higher rates, since the bank gets to hold onto the deposit longer. That said, the no-penalty feature generally matters most on the shorter end of this range. A saver who needs quick access to their $5,000 is more likely to choose the 6-month or 1-year option, both of which still deliver a fixed, guaranteed return with zero risk of forfeiting interest if plans change.

See how much you could earn by opening the right CD account today.

A traditional savings account, the kind still offered by many big banks as a default option, currently pays an average of around 0.38% APY nationally. On a $5,000 balance held for a full year, that translates to roughly $19 in interest — a fraction of what even the shortest no-penalty CD term would generate.

Run the comparison across the board, and the gap only widens. Where a 1-year no-penalty CD at 4.11%