Withdrawing large sums of money
This is determined by each banking institution.  In general, if making the withdrawal in person, the limit is based on what you have in your account, but many ask for advance notice when withdrawing more than $5000.  They may still allow a larger withdrawal without notice, but usually have a policy in place and will tell you over the phone.  You should also be aware that the bank is required to report withdrawals totaling $10,000 or more in a day to the treasury department and may require extra paper work (businesses are often exempted or at least have higher amounts). For very large withdrawals, you would definitely have to wait, but you may not be able to get an answer over the phone as to how long unless you actually have $600K on deposit at that bank.  They will have some kind of protocol to handle such a request, i.e. teller will talk to a manager, who may have to make a call to a regional or national office and make special arrangements. Most branches don't want to have their regular stash of cash plus an extra $600K lying around.  There are insurance and security concerns.  The increased potential for theft can put employees and other customers at risk.  They may also not feel comfortable unloading bags of money from their vault or armored truck into the back of your car. While this is a very uncommon scenario, it has actually happened before.  It took 'weeks' and when funds were available, additional security and police escorts were called in. Edit: You can find summaries of the regulations here and here and more complete info here.  In general, the money should be available within 1-8 business days after it is deposited depending on the nature and amount of the deposit, but the regulations are really designed for more ordinary transactions.  For a $600K withdrawal, the bank can cite security issues and decline to honor the request in cash.  If you ask, your bank should provide their standard policy, which could include language such as this: We require prior notice for large cash withdrawals. We can refuse an order to withdraw funds in cash or to cash an item if we believe that the request is a security risk or possesses a hardship on the Bank. We may require you to accept an Official Check or electronic transfer to receive the funds. If we agree to a large cash withdrawal, you may be required to employ a courier service acceptable to us and at your risk and expense. If a large cash withdrawal is completed at a branch you will be required to sign a cash withdrawal agreement. Refusal to sign the agreement is grounds for us to revoke the cash withdrawal and require an alternate delivery for the funds. You might also find this question interesting.
Yes, those numbers are all that is needed to withdraw funds, or at least set online payment of bills which you don't owe. Donald Knuth also faced this problem, leading him to cease sending checks as payment for finding errors in his writings. I recommend talking to your parents.  You may be able to convert the account to a joint account that is shared with them, and then they would be able to withdraw the money for you. It's not your money. What does your wife think of this?  You know, the withdrawal is subject to full tax at your marginal rate as well as a 10% penalty. That's quite a price to pay, don't do it. So ... how are you going to have a bank run if you got rid of cash? I suspect big investors will attempt (have already attempted?) to pull their cash, but regular people? Not like running to the ATM will do much good and I don't think they have offshore accounts.  Excuse my naïveté, but that's the first thing that came to my mind... There is no document that I know of that stipulates otherwise. This can also be corroborated by the fact that RESP withdrawals are considered as income in the name of the student. Thus, so long as the student pays tuition and receives a T2202A slip from the educational institution, they should be able to claim tuition, education, and textbook amounts. There's nothing particularly special about a two million dollar cheque. While they aren't commonplace, the bank certainly has experience with them. Many ATMs won't allow a deposit of that size but the bank cashiers will certainly accept them. They will typically get a supervisor to sign off on the deposit and may ask about the source of the money, for fraud prevention reasons. They may be held for longer than a smaller cheque if the bank manager chooses to do so. If there's nothing remotely suspicious (for example, it is a cheque from an insurance company for an expected payout), you should expect it will clear in about a week. On the other hand, if it is a cheque from a bank in another country and the bank manager has any reason to suspect it may not be legitimate, they may hold it for a month or more. Even then, you are not guaranteed the cheque was legitimate. This is used in a common scam. As of now you are doing that. When you start earning larger sums of money, you will not withdraw and keep it in your house. You will leave it in the bank and they will earn money on it( By lending it out at a higher interest rate). When you are broke, that same bank will offer you a credit card or some other instrument that will help you survive. They will charge you money on that and make interest of you. When you have too much money and you start wiring money they will charge you a wire transfer fees. There are more than 500 ways in which banks make money off you. If you plan receiving $100 and $250 all your life and withdraw it immediately and don't plan doing anything else all your life, then you will probably not let the bank make any money off you. However, there are a very few people like that and banks barely lose anything accepting those customers. How do I withdraw a large sum from my bank and give it to a money management firm? Either write a check to the Money Management firm or wire transfer the funds to the account mentioned. I would advise to never cash out retirement funds unless you're actually retired, or in case of an extreme emergency. Not only because of the huge tax bill that you'd incur (as @Rick mentioned - in addition to your top bracket rate - add 10%), but also because you will never be able to recover from the loss. Your current retirement fund is the one that will compound the most. By the time you deposit the same amounts you're thinking of withdrawing now, the compound effect would have grown the original amount further. By the time you could catch up - it would compound further. You will never be able to repair the damage of early withdrawal at this stage. Consider this calculation (lets say you worked for 10 years out of 40 years of your career path, and have $1K to deposit a year, for ease of computation): Essentially, by withdrawing now, you'll reduce your retirement savings by about 50% in thirty years from now. How much is that 6% interest on your student loan? I seriously doubt its worth it. One strategy to consider is a well-diversified index fund of equities. These have historically averaged 7-8% real growth. So withdrawing 3% or 4% yearly under that growth should allow you to withdraw 30+ years with little risk of drawing down all your capital. As a bonus you're savings target would come down from $10 million to $2.5 million to a little under $3.5 million. Chase has a limit of $500,000 per day.  A banker should be able to help you determine any immediate tax liabilities that will arise as a direct result of the transaction.  You may wish to consult with a tax professional about any indirect implications the transfer may have.   This transaction will be reported to the government but assuming that you are not involved in any illegitimate activities the likelihood of the US government taking any action on the notice is incredibly low.  I have heard of 7 and 14 day holds being placed on out of character transfers but if you are buying property you should work with your bank to help facilitate.  Bankers understand the business and can help you avoid any appearances of impropriety that the government flags. Should your account be flagged, I would retain a lawyer immediately.  If you feel you have a reason to be concerned, then I would contact a lawyer in the US and Thailand before initiating the transfer.  As they say an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. "Bad plan. This seems like a recipe for having your money taken away from you by CBP.  Let me explain the biases which make it so.  US banking is reliable enough for the common citizen, that everyone simply uses banks.  To elaborate, Americans who are unbanked either can't produce simple identity paperwork; or they got an account but then got blacklisted for overdrawing it. These are problems of the poor, not millionaires.  Outside of determined ""off the grid"" folks with political reasons to not be in the banking and credit systsm, anyone with money uses the banking system.  Who's not a criminal, anyway.  We also have strong laws against money laundering: turning cash (of questionable origin) into ""sanitized"" cash on deposit in a bank.  The most obvious trick is deposit $5000/day for 200 days. Nope, that's Structuring: yeah, we have a word for that.  A guy with $1 million cash, it is presumed he has no choice: he can't convert it into a bank deposit, as in this problem - note where she says she can't launder it.  If it's normal for people in your country to haul around cash, due to a defective banking system, you're not the only one with that problem, and nearby there'll be a country with a good banking system who understands your situation.  Deposit it there.  Then retain a US lawyer who specializes in this, and follow his advice about moving the money to the US via funds transfer. Even then, you may have some explaining to do; but far less than with cash.  (And keep in mind for those politically motivated off-the-financial-grid types, they're a bit crazy but definitely not stupid, live a cash life everyday, and know the law better than anybody. They would definitely consider using banks and funds transfers for the border crossing proper, because of Customs.  Then they'll turn it into cash domestically and close the accounts.)" "You cant! There is the risk that between the time you get the check and the time you get to the bank that you will be murdered, have a heart attack, stroke, or aneurysm too.  And they are probably more likely than the bank going out of business between the time you deposit the money and get access to it. Prior to accepting the check I would do the following: Get a lawyer that specializes in finance and tax law.  There are some steps you can take to minimize your tax exposure.  There is little you can do about the immediate tax on the winnings but there are things you can do to maximize the return of your money.    You will want to do what you can to protect that money for yourself and your family.  Also create or revise your will.  This is a lot of money and if something happens to you people from your family and ""friends"" will come out of the woodwork trying to claim your money.  Make sure your money goes where you want it to in the event something happens to you. Get a financial planner.  This money can either make you or break you.  If you plan for success you will succeed.  If you trust yourself to make good decisions with out a plan, in a few years you will be broke and wondering what happened to your money. Even at 1% at 20million dollars that is 200k a year in interest... a pretty good income by itself.  You do not have to save every penny but you can plan for a nice lifestyle that will last, if you plan and stick to your plan. Do research and know what bank you are going to deposit the money in.  Talk to the bank let them know of your plans so they can be ready for it.  It is not every day that they get a 20 million dollar deposit.  They will need to make plans to handle it.  If you are going to spread the money out among several banks they can prepare for that too. When choosing that bank I would look for one where their holdings are significantly more than you are depositing.  I would not really go with one of the banks that was rescued.  They have already shown that they can not handle large sums of money and assuming they will not screw it up with my money is not something I would be comfortable with.  There were some nice sized banks that did not need a bail out.  I would choose one of them." Here are your options. While you remain an Australian citizen you cannot withdraw super just because you are residing overseas. You could renounce your citizenship - just make sure you have another one to fall back on. Generally it is advisable to mention what country you're asking about, as tax laws differ. To the best of my knowledge, however, this particular issue is handled consistently in every tax jurisdiction I'm familiar with. You invested X, it appreciated and is now worth X + Y. In your example, X = $10,000 and Y = $40,000. Total X + Y = $50,000. When you withdraw an amount, say A (in your example A = $10,000), it is considered a withdrawal of both the earnings and the original capital, in proportion to the total of your account. Taxable portion of the withdrawal is proportional to the earnings. Lets mark it T. In your example, T = $10,000 - $10,000 * $10,000/$50,000 = $8,000. I.e.: 80% of the withdrawal will be attributed to earnings and would be taxable (short term in your case, if you're in the US), and 20% to the original capital. This will keep the proportion of the remained the same - 20% of the remaining amount will be attributed to the original capital (accidentally, it will be $8,000), and the remaining 80% will be attributed to the earnings. The withdrawn amount attributed to the capital ($2,000), and the remaining amount attributed to the capital ($8,000) will equal exactly to the invested amount.