They're called finders, locators, or heir finders. Most states cap by statute what they can legally charge you. Some ban them from contacting you at all for the first two years. And you can almost always do the same job yourself, for free, in ten minutes.
— of 51 jurisdictions verified against primary sources · — in progress
Before you pay anyoneDo this first
Searching is free. Claiming is free. The state pays you directly. A finder's entire value proposition is that they found it and you wouldn't have — so spend ten minutes proving that wrong before you hand over a percentage.
Banks, insurers, brokerages, utilities, and employers must turn over dormant property after 3–5 years. Old accounts, uncashed final paychecks, insurance payouts, deposits, refunds, settlement shares.
Property is reported to the state where the company sits, not where you live now. Move around and you scatter it, which is why this is state-by-state.
States hold it indefinitely. There is no deadline, so urgency in a call or letter is a sales tactic, not a fact.
Held a DBA, LLC, or licensed entity? Search those names separately. Vendor refunds and closed merchant accounts land in the same system.
Step 01 — Build your search terms2 minutes
Most people search once, get nothing, and quit. The record was typed by a clerk at a bank in 2009 using whatever was on the account. Search every form of the name.
Run it again for a spouse, a parent, a maiden name, and any business entity. Nothing is stored or sent.
Also try: former married names · hyphenated and un-hyphenated · Jr / Sr / II · the name paired with an old street address · common misspellings (doubled letters dropped, silent letters removed, phonetic swaps).
Step 02 — Work the statesTrack it
Tap every state you have lived, worked, banked, or held a policy in — including the state a former employer was headquartered in, even if you never set foot there.
No jurisdictions selected
Why every row links to the same two places: look-alike sites buy ads on state-name searches. The NAUPA directory and MissingMoney are the two official front doors, and both route to each state's real claim form. Start there instead of searching a state's name in Google.
Step 03 — The two national searchesDo both
The official portal run by the state treasurers' association. Covers all 50 states, DC, territories, and several Canadian provinces, linking straight to each state's own claim form with no middleman.
unclaimed.org/searchNAUPA-sponsored multi-state search. Run it alongside the directory, not instead of it — states feed the two systems differently, so one can surface a record the other misses.
missingmoney.comNAUPA's own index of national and federal sources, maintained by the people who run the state programs.
unclaimed.org/search-beyond-your-stateStep 04 — Federal moneySeparate systems
There is no single federal database — each agency keeps its own records. Below is the official domain plus the exact term to search once you're on it, so you're never guessing at a URL someone could spoof.
The government's own hub for unclaimed funds. Good first stop if you'd rather navigate from one .gov than jump between agencies.
usa.gov/moneyMatured savings bonds and undelivered Treasury payments. Treasury's standalone bond-hunt tool was retired and many matured bonds now get reported to state programs — so search your states too. Veterans and their families: service-era bonds are a common find.
treasurydirect.gov — Unclaimed Money and AssetsTreasury's explainer on unclaimed federal assets and which agency to approach for a specific missing payment.
fiscal.treasury.gov/about-us/unclaimed-assetsRefund checks that bounced back, and refunds owed on returns never filed. Three-year window on unfiled-return refunds — the one item here that genuinely expires.
irs.gov/refundsBenefits from private-sector defined-benefit plans that terminated. If an old employer's plan was taken over or the company folded, check here.
pbgc.govSearch on-site for: unclaimed pensions
Insured deposits and uncashed dividend checks from banks closed by regulators. Anyone who banked through 2008–2010 should run this.
fdic.govSearch on-site for: unclaimed funds
Share accounts from federally insured credit unions that were liquidated. Separate system from the FDIC — check both if you've used either.
ncua.govSearch on-site for: unclaimed deposits
If you ever carried an FHA-insured mortgage and paid it off or refinanced early, you may be owed a premium refund. One of the most commonly missed items on this list.
hud.govSearch on-site for: FHA refund
Wage and Hour Division holds back wages an employer was ordered to pay but never delivered. Worth checking against every employer you've had.
dol.govSearch on-site for: Workers Owed Wages
Enforcement actions sometimes create funds paid back to harmed investors. If you held stock in a company hit with an SEC action, look up the case.
sec.govSearch on-site for: distributions to harmed investors
Unclaimed insurance funds owed to current and former policyholders or beneficiaries — relevant for SGLI, VGLI, and older service policies.
va.govSearch on-site for: unclaimed insurance funds
Money owed to creditors in bankruptcy cases that was never collected. If you were ever a creditor — including as a small business that got stiffed — check it.
uscourts.govSearch on-site for: unclaimed funds bankruptcy
Step 05 — Triage the callerRead before you answer
Either way the move is the same: find the record on the official site first. Once you can see it yourself, you know whether there's anything worth paying anyone for.
Step 06 — File the claimHave this ready
Note the holder company, property type, state, and any reported address. The address is the key — it's usually where you lived when the account went dormant, and it's what you'll be proving.
Always finish on the state's own portal, reached through the NAUPA directory. Some states start the match on MissingMoney but require the claim itself on the state site.
Identity, plus a link between you and the reported address or account. Some states pay small claims on an ID alone.
A few weeks to a few months depending on the state and property type. Securities and safe-deposit contents take longer than cash.
Tax note: the principal was already your money, so getting it back generally isn't new income. Interest or dividends earned before the state took custody may be reportable. Ask a tax professional about your own situation.
How this data is builtShow the work
Every cap on this site is sourced to a statute or an official state agency page — legislative text, a state treasurer's or revenue department's own guidance, or a state's published finder registration rules. No figure is carried over from a commercial aggregator.
That distinction matters. During research for this site, a commercial source listed Washington as having no statutory cap. The Washington legislature's own bill report puts it at 5 percent, with a criminal penalty and a per se Consumer Protection Act violation attached. Numbers in this space are wrong often enough that only primary sources are used here.
Where a cap is not yet verified, this site says so and gives you the state's phone-call script instead of a guess. A wrong number here could cost someone real money, and a confident guess is worse than an honest gap.
Caps, registration requirements, and waiting periods change by legislative session. Verify against the current statute before relying on anything here. Corrections with a citation are welcome — the contact is in the footer.