The short answer
A voided check is a check marked VOID so it cannot be used for payment, while the routing, account, and check numbers along the bottom stay readable. To make one, write VOID in large letters across the face of an unsigned check in black or blue permanent ink, leave the signature line blank, and write down the check number. If the check is already gone, you need a stop payment, not a void.
Huntington Bank, the top result for this question, opens its page by saying most employers will ask for a voided check. That is true, and it is a habit rather than a rule: your bank almost certainly publishes a prefilled direct deposit form that does the same job and gives away less.
Stop payment is a different job
Voiding works only on a check you still hold. Once a check is out of your hands you cannot un-send it, and the remedy is a stop payment order to your bank, which costs money at most banks.
Under UCC 4-403, as adopted in most states, a customer may stop payment “by an order to the bank describing the item or account with reasonable certainty received at a time and in a manner that affords the bank a reasonable opportunity to act on it.” The clocks in subsection (b) are the part people miss: the order is effective for six months, an oral order lapses after 14 calendar days unless you confirm it in a record, and it is renewable for further six-month periods by a record given while the order is still effective.
The price varies. Chase charges $30 per request when a banker places a stop on a check or an ACH item, and $25 online or by automated phone, which covers checks only; it waives the fee on two products, both Chase Private Client (Chase Additional Banking Services and Fees, effective 6/14/2026). Wells Fargo charges nothing on Prime Checking and Premier Checking, paper or ACH, and $30 per item on every other account (fee schedule CNS2013, effective July 28, 2026).
If that is your situation, stop here and call your bank. Everything below is about a check you still have.
What a voided check gives away
You get asked for one in three situations, and they are all the same request wearing different clothes. Payroll wants it to start direct deposit. A lender, insurer, or utility wants it to set up automatic payments by ACH. Occasionally a vendor onboarding form or a refund request asks for one so somebody can push money the other way.
A voided check is a check marked VOID so it cannot be used for payment, while the numbers on it stay readable. Huntington describes the mark as indicating that the check “shouldn’t be used for payment… typically written in large letters, so it cannot be mistaken for cash use.” It is not a blank check, and Huntington puts the line plainly: “You should never give someone a blank check because anyone can fill it out and withdraw money from your bank account… This is why employers ask for a voided check to set up direct deposit, not a blank one.”
- 1The routing number. Nine digits, first group in the line along the bottom. It names the bank, not you. The one drawn here, 250250025, is the sample number the IRS prints on Form 8888. Worth knowing: the routing number on your check is not always the one your bank wants used for a direct deposit.
- 2The account number. The next group, usually 8 to 12 digits. This is the field that matters, and the field Granite's check schema flags as sensitive. Sound Credit Union says the account number in this line can carry a share or suffix code that the number printed elsewhere does not.
- 3The check number. The last group in the bottom line, and the same number printed in the top right corner. Write it down before the check leaves your hands, so you can recognize it if it ever posts to your account.
- 4Where the VOID goes. Large letters, across the entire face, in black or blue permanent ink. Huntington's alternative is to write VOID in five places instead: the date line, the payee line, the amount box, the amount line, and the signature line.
- 5The signature line, left blank. A voided check is not a blank check. The signature is the part that would make it negotiable, so it never goes on.
- 6What else is on the paper. Your legal name and your mailing address are preprinted on the check, and your signature style is on any check you have already written. Synovus, in its check-fraud guidance, says that set is enough to produce a counterfeit check.
What rides along with the numbers is the part other guides skip: your legal name, your mailing address, and, on any check you have already written, your signature style. Synovus, in its check-fraud guidance, says that combination is enough to produce a counterfeit check. A bank verification letter gives them the two numbers and nothing else.
Where the numbers actually live
The line of odd-looking digits along the bottom is the MICR line, and it is the authoritative one. Granite’s own check schema says so in its classification rules: the MICR line is conclusive. Our field-by-field guide to reading a check covers the rest of the document, and the reference page for a personal or business check covers what we read off one.
One correction worth printing: the routing number on your check is not automatically the right number for a direct deposit. The IRS tells filers to ask their financial institution for the correct routing number, and its Form 8888 instructions (Rev. 12-2025) say a filer would use the number on their check unless the institution instructed them to use a different one for direct deposits. The MICR line settles what is printed on the check, not what payroll should use.
How to void a check, step by step
Four steps and a pen. About two minutes. The last one is the one that protects you afterward.
- Start with an unsigned check.The signature is what would make it negotiable, so it never goes on. That instruction is ours, not a rule we found in a bank’s guidance.
- Write VOID in big letters across the entire face of the check, in black or blue permanent ink. Both halves of that are Huntington’s wording, and Huntington gives an either-or alternative: write VOID in the date line, the payee line, the amount box, the amount line, and the signature line instead of one big mark. One or the other, not both.
- Confirm the numbers are still legible. That is a goal, not a rule about where the ink may go. No source we read says to keep ink off the MICR line, and Huntington tells you to write across the entire face.
- Record the check number you just used.Huntington: “After you void the check, record the voided check number in your checkbook… If that check number is posted to your account, contact your bank right away.”
The check-number log and the carbon copy
The log is the only step with an alarm attached. If that number ever appears on your monthly bank statement, that is the one you want to catch.
The carbon copy is the other one. Huntington again: “Finally, if you use duplicate checks, make sure your VOID marks are seen on the duplicate, too.” A duplicate book keeps a legible copy of a check you meant to destroy, which is exactly the thing that turns up years later in a filing cabinet.
Do you need a voided check for direct deposit?
Most employers will ask for one. No rule requires it. Both of those are true, and the gap between them is where you get to choose what you hand over.
Start with the organization that writes the ACH rules. Nacha stopped collecting voided paper checks from its own staff and moved to a secure self-service payroll portal. In a blog post of 14 January 2022 by Michael W. Kahn, Nacha’s Director of Human Resources, Jennifer Shannon, is quoted saying “Gone are the days of submitting a voided check to HR.” The post names three ways to get the numbers without one: online or mobile banking, a bank-generated prefilled form, and calling the bank.
Peter Davey, a former Nacha payments executive, wrote in 2019 that “From my time in the payment industry I have never seen a rule or regulation that required a voided check in order to sign up for direct deposit.” Gusto’s help center says it needs only the two numbers, an account type, and an e-signed authorization, and verifies with a test deposit or instantly through Plaid.
The IRS agrees by omission. Form 8888 (Rev. 12-2025) asks for a routing number, a Checking or Savings box, and an account number, and prints a sample check diagram captioned to warn that the numbers may be in different places on your check. It gives no instruction to attach anything.
You also get to pick the bank: 12 CFR 1005.10(e)(2) says no institution or other person may require a consumer to receive electronic fund transfers at a particular institution as a condition of employment or of a government benefit, though it does not bar an employer from requiring direct deposit generally and says nothing about voided checks.
The fairest statement of the other side comes from Paychex, which in a separate guide for employers frames the voided check as a fraud control rather than a formality: not required by most direct deposit providers, but an extra step that can help validate accounts and protect against fraud. Not required, and still worth something.
The validation ladder
A voided check is the oldest of four ways to validate a bank account, and the only one Nacha does not list. Read the ladder below as how account validation works in ACH generally, not as a rule your employer is following. Nacha’s WEB Debit Account Validation Rule, effective March 19, 2021, requires an Originator of WEB debit entries to validate the account before first use. But WEB debits are consumer-initiated internet debits, and direct deposit is made of payroll credits: the rule is why validation became standard practice, not the rule anybody cites when asking you for a check.
It is also method-neutral. Nacha’s own examples of sufficient validation are “the use of a Prenotification Entry, ACH micro-transaction verification, use of a commercially available validation service provided by either an ODFI or a third-party, and use of account validation capabilities or services enabled by APIs,” written as an “including, but not limited to” list. A voided check is not on it.
In Nacha’s words: a prenote is “a non-monetary Entry (i.e. no funds move as a result of the transaction) that precedes the first live entry,” optional for every entry class, and Micro-Entriesare “ACH credits of less than $1 and any offsetting ACH debits, used for the purpose of verifying a Receiver’s account.”
What to send when you have no checks
Ranked by what each one proves against what each one gives away. The prefilled form from your own bank wins on both counts. Paychex states the general case plainly: “If you don’t have checks, several alternatives work just as effectively.”
| What to send | Verification value | What it exposes | How to get it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Your bank's prefilled direct deposit form | Highest. The bank fills in the numbers and states them as its own. | Routing number, account number, your name. | On chase.com: sign in, choose your checking account, More, Account Services, Set up direct deposit form. At Bank of America, PNC, or anyone else, look for a prefilled direct deposit form under account services or account details. |
| An account verification letter | High. Signed by the bank, on bank letterhead. | Routing number, account number, your name. Not your address or a signature sample. | Ask a branch or your bank's secure message center. The substitute most pages on this topic recommend. |
| A voided check | Moderate. It proves you hold a check with those numbers on it, nothing more. | Routing number, account number, your legal name, your mailing address, and your signature style on any check you have already written. | From your own checkbook, marked as described above. Most employers still ask for this one. |
| A counter or temporary check | Moderate, and sometimes refused outright. | The same set as a voided check, minus the preprinted name in some cases. | Wells Fargo charges $3 per sheet of three, against $30 for a singles check order (fee schedule CNS2013, effective July 28, 2026). Paychex warns some employers do not accept starter checks. |
| A deposit slip | Low, and it carries a real trap. | Routing number, account number, your name. | Paychex lists it as carrying the same numbers. But IRS Form 8888's instructions (Rev. 12-2025) tell filers to ask their bank for the correct routing number when a deposit slip differs from their checks. |
| Account details from your banking app | Low to moderate. Fine for a payroll portal, weak as standalone proof. | Routing number, account number, and whatever else the screen happens to show. | Paychex names an online banking document, downloaded or printed from the app. Chime says its accounts surface the numbers in the app rather than issuing checks. |
| A generated voided check image | None, in the sense that matters: no bank has verified anything on it. | Whatever you typed into a stranger's website. | Generator sites print a VOID-marked check from details you type in. We are not saying employers reject them; a bank letter is simply better, because the bank makes the assertion. |
How to get a voided check when your bank sends none
Online-only accounts and most new checking accounts arrive without a checkbook. A check order costs $30 or more, so ask a branch for a counter check instead, at $3 per sheet of three at Wells Fargo. Better: skip the check and ask for the direct deposit form or the account verification letter, which the bank produces on the spot and neither of which carries your address.
Why it gets refused
Two documented reasons, and two we can only report from experience.
Starter checks. Paychex says some employers or organizations may not accept starter checks, meaning temporary checks without your name preprinted. The counter check you can buy today for $3 a sheet may be exactly the thing payroll hands back.
The deposit-slip routing number.A deposit slip can carry a different routing number than your checks, which is why some ACH originators ask for a check instead, according to a BankersOnline Q&A. The IRS documents the underlying problem on Form 8888. The resolution is not “use the check,” because a check’s number can be wrong too. It is to ask your bank which routing number it wants used.
Two more, which are our own reading of how payroll rejects a check rather than something a bank publishes:
- A name mismatch. The name on the check has to match the name payroll has for you.
- The wrong kind of account. A business check for a personal payroll deposit, or the reverse, raises a question you will have to answer.
Sending it safely
Check fraud is not a historical problem. Financial institutions filed more than 350,000 suspicious activity reports about potential check fraud in 2021, a 23 percent increase over 2020, and more than 680,000 in 2022, nearly double the previous year (FinCEN Alert FIN-2023-Alert003, 27 February 2023).
The same alert records 299,020 mail theft complaints to the U.S. Postal Inspection Service from March 2020 through February 2021, up 161 percent year over year. FinCEN’s later Financial Trend Analysis counted 15,417 BSA reports of mail theft-related check fraud between 27 February and 31 August 2023, associated with more than $688 million in transactions, actual and attempted.
So pick the channel deliberately. Best is your employer’s payroll portal, where the document lands inside something with access controls instead of in somebody’s inbox; then a secure upload link, then hand delivery. Refuse plain email and text: an emailed voided check sits in at least two mailboxes forever, and only one is yours. Our guide to sending documents securely covers the rest. When you are done with one, deface it further and shred it or file it.
What the law gives you back, and what it does not
Regulation E protects electronic fund transfers, and its liability is tiered rather than absolute. Report a lost or stolen access device within two business days and your liability is capped at the lesser of $50 or the unauthorized transfers; miss that window and the cap rises to $500. An unauthorized transfer appearing on a periodic statement has to be reported within 60 days of the institution’s transmittal of that statement to avoid liability for subsequent transfers (12 CFR 1005.6(b)). Once you give notice the institution has 10 business days to determine whether an error occurred, and if it takes the extended 45-day investigation it must provisionally credit your account within those 10 (12 CFR 1005.11(c)).
A forged paper check runs on different rules. Checks are excluded from the definition of an electronic fund transfer at 12 CFR 1005.3(c)(1), so those clocks do not apply; the paper side runs on UCC Articles 3 and 4. Ask your bank about that path rather than assuming the 60-day number covers you.
After you hand it over
Nothing visible may happen for a while, and that is normal.If your employer’s payroll provider sends a prenote, no money moves, so expect either a $0.00 line or nothing at all in your account. Neither means it failed.
Your employer decides when the switch takes effect, so ask: verification takes a few days and payroll runs on its own calendar. Confirm the first deposit landed by finding it on your bank statement and matching it against your pay stub.
Keep a copy of the form you submitted and of the check you voided, with the date and who received it. Our retention guide covers how long the rest of the banking pile is worth keeping.
What Granite does with a check
Of the 115 document types in Granite’s schema library as of 2026-09-03, exactly two carry a bank routing number: the check itself, and the ACH/EFT authorization form whose own classification rule calls the attached voided check “supporting evidence, not the primary document.” Checks themselves are going away: U.S. check payments fell to 9.2 billion in 2024, down 5.9% a year since 2021 (Federal Reserve Payments Study, published 2026-07-01; Granite schema census, 2026-09-03, which counts document types the library can read, not documents users upload).
We counted the schema files and read every extraction field key across them. Two carry a routing number, and the same two carry a bank account number; thirteen more carry an account number of some other kind, mostly tax forms. This describes the schema library, not upload volume.
Our check schema reads the payee, amount, date, check number, drawer, and bank, plus the routing and account numbers, with the account number flagged sensitive. Its negative rules keep a check from being filed as something else: not an invoice, not a receipt, not a deposit slip, money order, or bank statement.
The funds-transfer authorization schema is the one that encodes this page’s argument. Its rule text reads: “A voided or canceled preprinted check is frequently included as account verification — that voided check is SUPPORTING EVIDENCE, not the primary document.” It reads the external bank name “often read from the attached voided check,” plus the routing number and the external account number, both flagged sensitive. The form is the record. The check is the attachment.
Extracted field values are encrypted at the row level, and the bytes in our object storage are always ciphertext. How Granite reads a document covers the pipeline, and our security page covers the encryption.
Now the gaps. The sensitive flag is the only marking a field gets: there is no redaction code in the product, so nothing masks an account number in the interface, and we will never claim we cannot see it. The check schema has no void-status field, so a voided check files as an ordinary check. And we do not generate voided checks or direct deposit forms, deliberately: the bank is the party whose assertion is worth anything here.
Sources
Primary sources for the claims above, read on 2026-09-03: UCC 4-403, Chase fee schedule (eff. 6/14/2026), Wells Fargo CNS2013 (eff. 7/28/2026), Chase direct deposit setup, Huntington, Paychex (updated 02/06/2026), Nacha on direct deposit without a voided check (14 January 2022), Nacha WEB Debit Account Validation Rule, Nacha Micro-Entries rule, Nacha ACH developer guide, IRS Form 8888 (Rev. 12-2025), Regulation E at 12 CFR 1005.10, .6, .11, and .3, FinCEN Alert FIN-2023-Alert003, FinCEN Financial Trend Analysis on check fraud, and the Federal Reserve Payments Study topline (published 2026-07-01). Fee schedules and bank menus change; check the current version before relying on a price here.