How to stop paying overdraft fees
By Amine, founder of Lirandel. Last fact-checked October 22, 2026. General information, not financial advice.
An overdraft fee is what a bank charges when you spend more than is in your checking account and it covers the difference. A returned-payment (NSF) fee is what it charges when it refuses the payment instead. Banks with over $1 billion in assets reported about $5.8 billion in these fees in 2023, down by more than half from the $11–12 billion a year they collected before the pandemic, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Many banks have cut or dropped them, but not all.
Why they happen
Most overdrafts aren't a big purchase. They come from timing: rent or a card autopay leaving the day before a paycheck lands, a subscription renewing, or a transfer that takes a day longer than expected.
See it coming
- Know which bills leave your checking account and when, and when your pay arrives.
- Look a few weeks ahead, not just at today's balance: the lowest point is what matters.
- Turn on your bank's low-balance alerts, and keep a small cushion for the bills you know are coming.
Lirandel does this for you: it projects each checking account's balance for the next 30 days from your own paychecks and bills, and warns you before the lowest point, not after. It leaves out one-off moves like money sent to your investments, and payments that bounced back.
Ask for the fee back
If you were charged anyway, ask your bank to refund it. It costs nothing to ask, and a first fee or a clear timing mix-up is the easiest case to make. Be brief: say which fee, the date, that it was a timing issue, and ask for it to be refunded. Lirandel prepares this message when it sees an overdraft fee.
Consider your account
If you're paying overdraft or monthly maintenance fees regularly, compare your account with ones that charge neither. Some banks no longer charge overdraft fees at all.