Believe it or not, people still write personal checks. But, their use has declined over time. Personal checks are specially designed papers for paying bills and purchasing funds from your checking account. Very useful, but quite outdated.
If you have your personal check with you and are shopping at Walmart, you might ask, can Walmart cash personal checks? If you are like Twitter user @christamoores, tweet no more. We have the answer you need and more.
Can Walmart Cash Personal Checks in 2023?
The answer is no if this question was asked a few years ago. However, Walmart has declared that starting in January 2022, its Money Center locations would start cashing personal checks. So, yes, Walmart locations will pay your personal check.
Walmart offers a $5,000 per person checking limit. For checks under $1,000, there is a $4 fee, and for checks between $1,000 and $5,000, there is an $8 fee. The process is easy and can be done in as little as 10 minutes, so if you need cash quickly, stop by a Walmart store near you.
What Is A Personal Check?
Checks written in your own name used to pay bills and buy things with money from your checking account are called personal checks. A personal check includes:
- A number that tells which bank or credit union you have an account with
- The number of your account
- A number that is unique to the check
On the check, you write and number the date, the name of the person being paid, and the amount. The last step is to sign the check.
The person who gets the money can cash the check or put it into their bank account. So, the money goes from your checking account to the person you want to pay.
What Is A Personal Check’s Usage In The US?
After World War II, more and more Americans opened checking accounts. Between 1939 and 1952, the number of these accounts in the US doubled to 47 million. In 1952, about eight billion checks were written.
During this time, processing checks were done by hand and was a lot of work, so bankers looked for ways to make the process easier.
In 1955, the first MICR (magnetic ink character recognition code) came out. This made it easier for computers to process checks, and people continued to write checks. In 1979, people wrote almost 33 billion checks which were about 86 percent of all non-cash payments.
In 1955, when nearly 50 billion checks were written, this payment method was at its peak.
The Federal Reserve of Atlanta says that by 2017 and 2018, about 7% of financial transactions were done with checks. Most people today only write three checks a month, on average. From 2015 to 2018, the number of people who said checks were the preferred way to pay bills dropped by 23%.
How Do You Cash A Personal Check At Walmart?
The steps are pretty easy to follow if you want to cash a check at Walmart. Read along and list if you must:
- Bring the proper ID to the store with you. Checks can’t be cashed there without an ID
- Give the check to a Walmart employee at the Money Center, which is almost always near the store’s entrance
- Wait for the money to be taken out of your account and put into Walmart’s system
- Once the transaction is done, you can get your cash from the worker.
If it is your first time trying to cash a check at Walmart, you might be asked to give your social security number to prove who you are. But you will only have to give your SSN once. After that, you won’t have to give it again.
There is only one place in Walmart where you can cash your personal check – the Money Center. Just go to any Walmart Money Center cashier with your cleared check and picture ID. The cashier will then verify your ID and sign off on your check.
It is also essential to know that the only states where Walmart can’t cash personal checks are New Jersey and New York.
What Is Walmart Money Center?
A Walmart Money Center is a part of a Walmart store that offers financial services such as:
- Money orders
- Wire transfers
- Coinstar machines
- Reloading Netspend Visa debit cards
- Walmart Pay
- Prepaid debit cards
- Check printing
- PayPal
- International money transfers
- Tax preparation services
- Selling Walmart gift cards
- Bill payments.
The Walmart Money Center is a convenient place to do your banking because it has so many financial services under one roof. You can do more than just cash in your personal checks there. You can also get cash back when you use your Walmart Money Card to buy things at Walmart.
The Walmart Money Center is open from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m., Monday through Saturday, and from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., Sunday.
How Much Does Walmart Charge to Cash a Personal Check?
If you want to cash a personal check at Walmart, you must pay a service fee. Most checks worth less than $1,000 can be cashed at Walmart for $4. Checks worth more than $1,000 cost $8. The store can also take the fee out of the check’s total amount, or you can pay it immediately.
What Types of Checks Does Walmart Cash?
You can cash different kinds of checks at Walmart, such as:
- Payroll
- Pre-Printed
- Government
- Stimulus check
- Cashiers
- Tax
- 401k and retirement disbursements
- MoneyGram money order
- Insurance settlement checks
Walmart charges $4 for each check up to $1,000 and $8 for checks over $1,000. You can choose to get the money from your check in cash or put it on a Walmart MoneyCard. In this case, the MoneyCard reload fee is not charged.
What Types of Checks Won’t Walmart Cash?
Walmart won’t cash checks from third parties, personal checks, or MoneyGram money orders that weren’t bought at one of its stores. Besides these, Walmart won’t cash the following types of checks:
- Handwritten checks
- Checks with multiple payees
- Checks dated more than 180 days prior
- Post-dated checks
- Non-MoneyGram money orders
- MoneyGram money orders not issued at Walmart
What Are Walmart’s Limits When It Comes To Personal Checks They Cash?
Walmart can only cash checks for a certain amount of money.
As a rule, People can only cash checks up to $5,000 at Walmart from May to December. Every year, between January and April, the limit goes up to $7,500. For checks worth $1,001 or less, the fee to cash them is $4. For checks worth $5,000 or more, the fee goes up to $8.
A two-party check for $200 or less can be cashed for a fee of up to $6. Walmart says that Two-Party Check Cashing is possible in most places but not in New Jersey. Checks can only be cashed three times per person per day at Walmart.
Does Walmart Cash Two-Party Checks?
As of 2022, all Walmart’s stores with a Money Center can cash two-party checks. Just bring the two-party check, the second payee if needed, and a photo ID from the government, like a passport. Also, for two-party checks, Walmart has a maximum fee of $6 and a limit of $200.
Walmart can determine how to cash the check by looking at its name. If the names are separated by a “or,” only one of the payees needs to be present to deposit the check into their own bank account. When two names are linked by “and,” both people must be there.
Also, the people who need to sign the check will need to bring a valid photo ID like a passport or driver’s license. Once you give the teller at the Walmart Money Center all this information, she will be able to process your two-party check.
How Does Walmart Guarantee My Check Is Good?
Before Walmart can cash a personal check, they have to ensure enough funds are in your account. To do this, Telecheck and Certegy are used to check the routing number.
Telecheck is a service that helps businesses reduce the risk they take when they accept checks as payment. The information on the check is checked against a list of bad checks to ensure it is not a fake.
Certegy is another company that Walmart uses to check checks. The system also checks the information on the check and your credit history to see if you have enough money to cover the amount of the check.
Can Someone Other Than Me Cash My Check At Walmart?
No, Walmart won’t let another person cash your check for you. Walmart needs to see the proper ID from the person cashing the check to ensure that the money is being sent to the right person and that no fraud is going on.
You can always sign a check over to someone else. But if you write someone else’s name on the check, it becomes a third-party check, which Walmart will not cash.
Conclusion
Customers can cash checks, including personal checks, at Walmart, cheaper than banks and even cheaper than small check-cashing shops. But, it is good to remember that there are limits on what kinds of checks can be written and how much can be written on each check.
The checks should ideally be put into a checking account. People who have trouble getting approved for a traditional checking account might want to try an online checking account or a second-chance checking account.