Nacha reported on 20 October that Same Day ACH carried 470.4 million payments in the third quarter of 2026, up 36.7% from a year earlier. Their value reached $1.3 trillion, up from $970.4 billion. The year-on-year growth rate has risen in each quarter of 2026.
What Nacha reported for the third quarter
Across the whole ACH Network, the quarter produced 9.3 billion payments worth $25.6 trillion. Those are increases of 5.9% in count and 10.2% in value over the third quarter of 2025. Same Day ACH made up 470.4 million of the payments, and the value of those payments grew 32%. Year to date, Same Day ACH has handled 1.3 billion payments worth more than $3.6 trillion, up 30% and 28.7% from the first three quarters of 2025.
Two other lines in the release matter for treasury teams. Business-to-business payments rose 9.7% to nearly 2.3 billion in the quarter, and ACH claim payments to healthcare providers rose 2.6% to more than 144 million. Nacha ties both to organizations moving away from checks. Jane Larimer, Nacha’s president and CEO, said: “Both the number of Same Day ACH payments, and the value of those payments, show the significant role that Same Day ACH plays in helping to meet the nation’s faster payment needs.”
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Growth has sped up every quarter this year
Nacha’s two earlier 2026 releases give the comparison. In the first quarter, Same Day ACH volume rose 23.6% to 403 million payments, worth $1.1 trillion, a 22.1% gain. In the second quarter, volume rose 29.5% to 435.7 million payments, and value rose 28.1% to $1.3 trillion. The third quarter’s 36.7% gain in volume and 32% gain in value continue the climb: 23.6%, then 29.5%, then 36.7% for count, and 22.1%, then 28.1%, then 32% for value.
The quarterly counts also stack in order. The second-quarter release put first-half Same Day ACH at 838.7 million payments valued at almost $2.4 trillion. The third quarter alone added 470.4 million payments, more than the 403 million of the first quarter or the 435.7 million of the second, and its $1.3 trillion matches the second quarter’s value. A rising growth rate on a larger base means each quarter adds more payments than the one before it.
The same second-quarter release carried a date that bears on the next stage. Larimer said then: “In 2027, the dollar limit will increase to $10 million, further strengthening Same Day ACH’s position in the market as a compelling faster payment method.” Nacha’s third-quarter release does not repeat the limit, and it gives no reason for the acceleration beyond Larimer’s reference to demand for faster payments.
Where RTP sits next to it
The Clearing House publishes its own figures for the RTP network. Its RTP page lists 150 million transactions totaling $621 billion in the third quarter of 2026, a daily average value of $6.9 billion as of September 2026 and more than 1,378 participants. It also says the network accepts payments of up to $10 million, around the clock.
Set against Nacha’s numbers, our arithmetic puts Same Day ACH at about 3.1 times the payment count of RTP in the quarter (470.4 million against 150 million) and about 2.1 times the value ($1.3 trillion against $621 billion). Nacha and The Clearing House publish these figures separately and we have not checked that they count on the same basis, so the ratios are a rough order of magnitude. The comparison still shows that the older rail with a same-day window is moving more payments than the newer always-on rail, and doing so while its growth rate climbs.
Both rails are working their way into treasury use. Bank of America said its corporate clients grew RTP volume 48% from January through July against the same period in 2025, a figure we covered in Corporate RTP Volume at BofA Jumps 48% on Treasury Use. The Federal Reserve’s FedNow service has a different timetable abroad: FedNow’s cross-border plan has a design but no start date. Nacha has also formed a project team on stablecoins, which we reported in Nacha Forms a Project Team Just for Stablecoins. That work runs separately from the volume figures above.
What it means for the finance leader
In our reading, the figures say that treasury teams have not waited for one faster rail to win. Same Day ACH is growing faster in 2026 than it was in the first quarter, and RTP is clearing hundreds of billions of dollars a quarter. A finance team can use both.
Three actions follow from the numbers and dates in the releases:
- Sort outgoing payments by when the recipient needs the money. Payments that must land the same day can use Same Day ACH on the connection the bank already provides. Payments that must land after hours or on a weekend need an always-on rail, and the RTP page says that network runs around the clock.
- Ask each bank which rails it exposes and at what per-payment limit. The Same Day ACH limit changes to $10 million in 2027 according to Nacha, and RTP already accepts up to $10 million according to The Clearing House. Large payments that were routed by size may be routable by timing instead.
- Track your own mix. If the share of payments you send on Same Day ACH matches the network trend, the 2027 limit change is a planning item for your next bank review.
Nacha’s next quarterly release will show whether the sequence of 23.6%, 29.5% and 36.7% continues into the fourth quarter.
