West Virginia’s Treasury Is Holding More Than $530 Million in Unclaimed Property and Has Returned Nearly $9.4 Million Since July 1

A year ago, West Virginia’s unclaimed property database held more than $513 million in listings. In an Oct. 21 release, the state Treasurer’s office put the figure at more than $530 million, and said nearly $9.4 million has gone back to owners since the new fiscal year began on July 1. The listings are searchable by anyone at WVUnclaimedProperty.gov, the Treasury’s public database.

The $530 million is the value of listings in the database, according to the Treasury release, not a pot of cash set aside for a single group. A listing is a record, and one owner can appear on several of them.

From $513 Million to $530 Million in a Year

The Treasury’s release from Nov. 6, 2025 reported that the database then held over $513 million in listings. The Oct. 21, 2026 release lists more than $530 million. Both are described as “more than” figures, so the exact change cannot be calculated from the releases, but the total has moved up rather than down even as claims were paid out. The July 23, 2026 release had put the database at more than $529 million, so the most recent figure is only slightly above the summer one.

Nearly $9.4 Million Returned Since July 1

State Treasurer Larry Pack’s office said that since Fiscal Year 2027 began on July 1, 2026, nearly $9.4 million has been returned to rightful owners. More than $2.4 million of that went out in September alone, according to the same release.

The Nov. 2025 release reported $9,740,139 or more returned in the first four months of Fiscal Year 2026, a window that included October. The 2026 figure was reported on Oct. 21, before October ended, so the two years cover different stretches of the calendar.

One month from the year before shows the scale of a single month’s returns. The Nov. 2025 release said $1,480,911 went back across 1,846 claims covering 4,905 properties in October 2025. Pack called it “the people’s money” at the time and said the office was working to get it back to them.

A Charleston Nonprofit and Six Fayette County Entities

The Oct. 21 release was built around a presentation in Charleston, where Pack gave $41,899.75 in unclaimed property, from liquidated shares and dividends, to The Education Alliance. Pack said the money can be “put back to work supporting their mission.” Dr. Amelia Courts, the organization’s president and CEO, said it was “thrilled to have recovered $40,000 in unclaimed property.” The check presented was $41,899.75.

A week earlier, the Treasury’s Oct. 14 release described a “Treasury Day” in Fayette County, where nearly $23,000 went to six local entities from stale-dated checks, accounts payable and miscellaneous checks:

• Fayette County Commission: $7,000
• New River Health Association: $5,867.16
• Fayette County Board of Education: $3,270.76
• Town of Fayetteville: $3,134.78
• Fayette County Sheriff’s Office: $2,465.05
• City of Oak Hill: $1,086.68

Pack said in that release that unclaimed property can make a meaningful difference when it is returned to the organizations that serve their communities. Fayette County Board of Education President Pat Gray said staff would “certainly put it to some beneficial use for the students of Fayette County.”

The same releases give county totals. Fayette County has more than 92,000 listings worth more than $10.7 million, and Kanawha County, home to Charleston, has nearly 568,000 listings worth more than $82.6 million.

A Fiscal Year That Fell Just Short of a Record

The Treasury’s July 23, 2026 release summed up the fiscal year that ended June 30: $40,168,816.26 returned across 25,407 claims covering 95,760 properties. That landed just short of the record $40.6 million set in Fiscal Year 2025. Earlier years were lower, according to the release: $28 million in Fiscal Year 2024, $26.8 million in 2023 and $18.6 million in 2022.

Over those five years, annual returns grew from $18.6 million in Fiscal Year 2022 to about $40.2 million in Fiscal Year 2026, more than double the starting figure. The climb came in uneven steps: about $8.2 million from 2022 to 2023, $1.2 million from 2023 to 2024, $12.6 million from 2024 to 2025, and then a dip of about $0.4 million in 2026. Those gaps are arithmetic from the Treasury’s totals.

Dividing the total by the number of claims gives roughly $1,580 per claim, a simple average rather than a typical payout. Since the program began in 1967, the office said, more than $388 million has been returned.

Pack said in the July release that much more remains in the system to go back to West Virginia citizens, and he encouraged residents to check the online database. The release cites an estimate that nearly 33 million Americans, about one in ten, have unclaimed property available to them.

Searching the State Database and Other States

The Treasury’s releases direct residents to WVUnclaimedProperty.gov, where the database can be searched by name. A report from The Money Overview that summarized the Treasury’s releases advised searching every name a person has used and each former West Virginia address, as well as the names of relatives who lived or banked in the state, and filing a claim on any match.

The state database covers only property held in West Virginia. The July release points to MissingMoney.com for searches across other states. For questions, the Treasurer’s Office lists phone numbers of 304.558.5000 and 800.422.7498, with hours of 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Eastern, at 1900 Kanawha Boulevard in Charleston.

A match in the database is the starting point for a claim, and the Money Overview report advises filing one on any listing that fits. The money in the examples above came from sources such as liquidated shares, dividends, stale-dated checks and accounts payable, according to the Treasury.

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This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.

Image: Daniel G Rego – CC BY-SA 4.0/Wikimedia Commons