Free interactive tool
Escrow Refund After Payoff: 20-Business-Day Calculator
When you pay a mortgage off in full, whether by selling, refinancing or making the last payment, the servicer must return what is left in the escrow account within 20 days, not counting Saturdays, Sundays and federal holidays (Regulation X, 12 CFR 1024.34(b)). That is about four weeks. A different rule covers the yearly escrow analysis: a surplus of $50 or more must be refunded within 30 calendar days if your payments are current. This calculator gives you the date for your case, and the servicer’s deadlines if you have to send a written notice of error.
Enter your payoff or analysis date
Runs in your browser. The dates you enter are not sent to us or recorded.
The rules the calculator applies (read September 28, 2026)
| Situation | Deadline | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Loan paid in full (payoff, sale or refinance) | Escrow balance returned within 20 days of payoff, excluding legal public holidays, Saturdays and Sundays. | 12 CFR 1024.34(b)(1) |
| Refinance with the same lender, the loan’s owner, or a lender using the same servicer | If you agree, the balance can move into the new loan’s escrow account at closing instead of coming back to you. | 1024.34(b)(2) |
| Annual escrow analysis shows a surplus | $50 or more: refunded within 30 days of the analysis, if the servicer received each payment within 30 days of its due date. Under $50: refunded or credited to next year’s payments. | 12 CFR 1024.17(f)(2) |
| The refund is late: notice of error | A missed payoff refund is a named covered error; a late surplus refund falls under the catch-all for other servicing errors. The servicer must acknowledge your written notice within 5 days and correct the error or explain within 30 days (weekends and holidays excluded), with one 15-day extension if it tells you why in writing first. | 12 CFR 1024.35(b)(4), (b)(11), (d), (e)(3) |
| Time limit for the notice | A servicer need not answer a notice of error delivered more than one year after the loan is discharged. | 1024.35(g)(1)(iii)(B) |
How to send a notice of error that counts
- Write it; a phone call is not a notice of error. Include your name, the loan number or other details that identify the loan, and the error: “the escrow balance of $[amount] was not returned within 20 business days of the payoff on [date], as 12 CFR 1024.34(b) requires.”
- Send it to the address the servicer names for notices of error if it has named one (1024.35(c)). A note on a payment coupon does not have to be treated as a notice.
- Keep proof of the date it arrived, since the servicer’s 5- and 30-day clocks start then.
When the calculator does not fit
- Home equity lines of credit are not “mortgage loans” under the payoff-refund and notice-of-error rules (12 CFR 1024.31).
- Business days here skip weekends and the federal holidays in 5 U.S.C. 6103(a), plus the Monday after a Sunday holiday. That Monday is not in the regulation’s text, so the date shown may be one day later than a strict count.
- A payoff statement, a mortgage escrow shortage and a property tax bill sent to you directly are separate questions; see reading an escrow shortage and a tax bill when you have escrow.
Worked example (hypothetical)
A homeowner sells and the loan is paid in full on Friday, November 20, 2026. Thanksgiving (November 26) and the weekends do not count, so the servicer must return the escrow balance by Monday, December 21, 2026.
Nothing arrives. The homeowner’s written notice of error reaches the servicer’s error address on Monday, January 4, 2027. The servicer must acknowledge it by January 11 and correct it or explain by February 17, 2027, skipping Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Washington’s Birthday. A notice must arrive by November 20, 2027, one year after payoff, or the servicer need not answer it.