Bank customers who overdraw their checking accounts at the largest U.S. financial institutions will keep paying fees far above $5 per transaction. Congress used the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to void the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s overdraft cap, and President Trump signed the disapproval resolution into law on May 9, 2025. The rule would have required very large banks to offer a $5 overdraft option, a change the CFPB said would save consumers billions of dollars annually. That relief is now off the table.
What the CRA Disapproval Means for Overdraft Costs Right Now
The joint resolution, formally titled S.J.Res. 18, targeted the CFPB’s final rule known as “Overdraft Lending: Very Large Financial Institutions.” That rule had been published in the Federal Register on December 30, 2024, and it gave covered banks a compliance pathway that included charging no more than $5 per overdraft event. By signing the disapproval into law, the president erased the rule entirely and, under CRA procedures, blocked the CFPB from issuing a substantially similar regulation without new congressional authorization.
For the tens of millions of account holders at the country’s biggest banks, the practical result is straightforward: overdraft pricing reverts to whatever each institution chooses to charge. Before the CFPB acted, typical overdraft fees at large banks ranged well above the $5 threshold the agency had proposed. Nothing in the disapproval resolution requires banks to lower those charges voluntarily, and no replacement cap is pending in either chamber of Congress.
The CFPB’s own compliance guidance now confirms the rule is no longer in effect after the president signed the joint resolution. That acknowledgment closes any ambiguity about whether banks still need to prepare for the $5 option. They do not. Instead, institutions can continue to rely on their existing overdraft programs, subject to longstanding disclosure and consumer protection requirements but without a new, explicit dollar ceiling.
How S.J.Res. 18 Moved From Senate Floor to Presidential Signature
The legislative record shows the resolution advanced quickly through both chambers. According to Congress.gov’s action history, S.J.Res. 18 became Public Law No. 119-10 after clearing the Senate, passing through the House Rules Committee for floor scheduling, and receiving the president’s signature, all within the 119th Congress’s first months. House procedural records indicate the resolution reached the floor without amendment, meaning lawmakers voted on the disapproval as a clean up-or-down question rather than negotiating any compromise fee level.
The CFPB had framed its original rulemaking as closing what the agency called an overdraft loophole. In its final rule materials, the Bureau said the change would “save Americans billions in fees” by sharply limiting what very large banks could charge when customers spent more than they had in their accounts. That framing drew sharp opposition from banking industry groups and their allies in Congress, who argued the cap would reduce access to overdraft services and push consumers toward costlier alternatives like payday loans or bounced transactions.
Supporters of the CRA resolution leaned on those industry concerns, contending that a strict federal cap would make banks less willing to cover shortfalls at the point of sale and at ATMs. They also criticized the CFPB for singling out only the largest institutions, saying the rule would distort competition between big banks and smaller community institutions that were not covered. With the president’s signature, the CRA vote settled the immediate regulatory debate in the industry’s favor and locked in a statutory barrier against similar CFPB action for the foreseeable future.
Unanswered Questions About Large-Bank Fee Revenue After the Vote
One central question has no answer yet: will big banks keep overdraft fees at their current levels, or will competitive pressure and public attention push some institutions to cut prices on their own? Several large banks had already reduced or restructured overdraft charges in recent years, responding to reputational concerns and earlier regulatory scrutiny. Those moves created a patchwork of policies, with some institutions emphasizing low or occasional-fee overdraft programs while others continued to rely on more traditional, higher flat fees.
Without the CFPB’s now-voided framework, that patchwork is likely to persist. Consumers who bank with institutions that already trimmed overdraft costs may see little change, while customers at banks that maintained higher fees will not receive the across-the-board $5 option the rule would have required. Because the CRA prevents the Bureau from issuing a “substantially similar” overdraft cap for large banks absent new legislation, any future push for uniform limits will have to originate in Congress rather than through agency rulemaking.
In the meantime, the stakes for household finances remain significant. Overdraft fees typically fall hardest on customers with volatile incomes and low account balances, who may incur multiple charges in a single billing cycle. The CFPB had argued that a $5 cap would meaningfully reduce that burden, especially at very large institutions that collectively serve tens of millions of checking accounts. With the cap blocked, advocates for those consumers are likely to shift their efforts toward disclosure reforms, voluntary bank commitments, or state-level initiatives that stop short of triggering the CRA’s “substantially similar” restriction.
For now, the practical advice for bank customers is unchanged but newly urgent: know your institution’s overdraft terms, monitor balances closely, and consider opting out of overdraft coverage on debit card and ATM transactions if the fees outweigh the benefit of having charges approved. The federal fight over a $5 cap may be over, but the underlying tension between bank revenue models and consumer protection on overdraft lending is likely to continue well beyond this Congress.
