South Dakota Unclaimed Funds

South Dakota has millions of dollars in unclaimed funds! It’s difficult to know exactly how much but since 2015-2018 they have returned $62 million dollars, so you know it’s a lot!

Unclaimed funds is unclaimed or abandoned intangible property. It represents a certain obligation a company is holding for another person or business.

It includes checking and saving accounts, certificates of deposit, over payments, insurance checks, payroll checks, utility refunds, money orders, un-cashed checks, dividends, stocks, bonds, contents of safe deposit boxes and more.

Funds are considered abandoned and must be reported to the Unclaimed Property Division of the State Treasurer’s Office if the property in question has not had any activity within a certain period of time, e.g., three years for most properties, and the holder is unable to locate the property owner.


To prevent your accounts from becoming unclaimed or abandoned, keep accounts active and make sure that you make a deposit or withdrawal, update your contact information, or contact your financial institution at least every three years.

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The easiest way to  find unclaimed funds in South Dakota is to search the online database.  It provides you with the most up-to-date funds available to claim as soon as reports are received and reconciled from holders.

Click here to search for South Dakota unclaimed funds.

There is no deadline to make a claim.  Unclaimed funds are kept in a custodial capacity until the rightful owner or heir has successfully claimed the property.

There is no fee for inquiring about a property or filing a claim. There may be fees associated with certain property types such as safe deposit boxes or stocks. Safe deposit boxes turned over by a financial institution may have unpaid rent and drilling fees which are usually required to be paid prior to the contents being released. There may also be charges associated with stock transactions.

It generally takes about two to three weeks to process a claim. If you’ve not heard back from the unclaimed funds division within three weeks, you may want to contact their office to check on the status of your claim.

If you have any questions you can contact the Unclaimed Property Division of the Treasure’s Office at:

(866)357-2547 in-state toll-free or (605)773-3379 or email at unclaimed@sdtreasurer.gov.

Did you know you can make money finding unclaimed money for other people?

There is a little known business that lets you do that. Unclaimed money finders locate people that don’t know they money being held for them and help them to recover it.

In return, they charge a commission after the money is recovered.

Please click here if you would like to learn more about this business.