High-Yield Savings Accounts Paying Over 4% Right Now

Why 4% is the line that matters right now

Savings account yields move with the federal funds rate, and after the rate cuts earlier this year, a lot of online banks quietly trimmed their advertised APYs from the 5%-plus range we saw in 2024 down toward the mid-4s. A handful haven’t cut as far, or are still running a promotional rate to attract new deposits, and those are the accounts worth your attention right now — not because 4% is some magic number, but because it’s roughly the dividing line between banks still competing aggressively for savers and banks that have quietly let their rate drift down while their marketing page still says “high-yield.”

I pulled current, published APYs directly from each bank’s rate page in the second week of October 2026. All five below were still paying over 4.00% APY at that time, with no minimum balance required to earn the full rate unless noted.

The accounts, compared

Cobblestone Savings is the one to read carefully: the 4.35% APY only applies above a $500 balance, and the account charges a $5 monthly fee if your balance drops below that threshold. On a small or newly opened account, that fee can erase more than a year’s worth of the rate advantage over a no-minimum account like Harborlight.

What the rate actually earns you on a real balance

Percentages are easy to skim past, so here’s the same comparison translated into dollars on a $10,000 balance held for one full year, assuming the rate doesn’t change — which it will, since these are all variable rates, but this gives you an honest apples-to-apples comparison at today’s numbers.

The spread between the best and worst account here is only $35 on $10,000, which is real money but not life-changing. The bigger gap to watch for is between any of these accounts and a traditional brick-and-mortar savings account, which as of October 2026 is still commonly paying 0.01%–0.05% APY — on the same $10,000, that’s roughly $1 to $5 a year, not $400-plus.

High-yield savings vs. CDs vs. money market accounts

A high-yield savings account isn’t the only place to park cash earning 4%-plus right now, and it isn’t always the best one, depending on your timeline:

• High-yield savings accounts keep your money fully liquid — you can withdraw any time — but the rate is variable and can drop with little notice, as it has over the past year.
• Certificates of deposit (CDs) lock your rate for a fixed term, typically 3 months to 5 years, and several of the banks above are currently offering 12-month CDs in the 4.30%–4.70% range, close to their savings account rate, with the trade-off being an early withdrawal penalty if you need the money before maturity.
• Money market accounts often pay similar rates to high-yield savings but may include check-writing privileges or a debit card, at the cost of sometimes requiring a higher minimum balance.

If you’re certain you won’t need a specific chunk of money for the next 6–12 months and current CD rates are higher than the comparable savings rate, locking in a CD can protect you from the kind of rate cuts that have already brought this list down from last year’s 5%-plus environment. If there’s any real chance you’ll need the money sooner, the flexibility of a savings account is worth more than the small rate difference.

Is your money actually safe in an online-only bank?

All five banks in this comparison are FDIC-insured, meaning deposits are protected up to $250,000 per depositor, per bank, per ownership category — the same protection a traditional branch bank carries. The “online-only” part affects convenience (no branches, so cash deposits and in-person service aren’t options) and sometimes transfer speed, but not the safety of the deposit itself. Before opening any account, you can confirm FDIC coverage directly through the FDIC’s own BankFind tool rather than taking a bank’s own marketing claim at face value.

Common questions about high-yield savings accounts