What Is an NSF Fee?
An NSF fee, short for non-sufficient funds, is what your bank charges when a payment is returned because your account did not have enough money to cover it.
NSF fees typically run $26 to $35 per incident, and some banks charge them per transaction, so one bad timing week can trigger several fees in a single day.
NSF fees are different from overdraft fees, though the terms get used interchangeably. An overdraft fee means the bank paid the transaction anyway and covered the shortfall for you, at a cost. An NSF fee means the transaction was declined or returned, and you still owe whoever you were paying.
NSF fees are almost always a timing problem, not a math problem. The money is there later in the month. It is just not there on the specific day the payment tries to clear.