Do 10-Year CDs Exist?
Yes — but rarely at your neighborhood bank, where 5 years is the usual maximum. Terms of 6 to 20 years live mostly in the brokered CD market: bank-issued, FDIC-insured CDs sold through brokerages like Fidelity, Schwab, or Vanguard. They work like regular CDs with two differences — instead of an early-withdrawal penalty, you sell on a secondary market (price may be above or below what you paid), and some long brokered CDs are "callable," meaning the bank can end them early if rates fall.
What a Decade of Compounding Does
Long terms are where compounding stops being a rounding error. $10,000 at 4.00% APY becomes about $14,802 in 10 years — $4,802 of interest, of which roughly $800 exists purely because interest earned its own interest. Stretch to 20 years and the same deposit reaches about $21,911, more than doubling. The calculator above shows the compounding share separately so you can see it grow with the term.
The Case For — and Against — Locking 10 Years
- For: guaranteed income for a known long-term need; locking a historically good rate before a long decline; the bond-like stability retirees want without bond-fund volatility.
- Against: inflation is the silent killer — at 3% inflation, a 4% CD's real return is about 1% a year, for a decade. And callable brokered CDs hand the upside to the bank: if rates fall they call it; if rates rise you're stuck.
The Alternative Most Savers Should Compare
Before locking one long CD, price a CD ladder — five rungs rolling into 5-year CDs captures most of the long-term yield while freeing money every year. And for the 10-year-plus horizon specifically, compare against Treasury notes (state-tax-free) and honestly consider whether some of this money belongs in investments rather than deposits — a decade is long enough for growth assets to matter. For standard terms, start with our main CD rate calculator or the 5-year CD calculator.