What Happens to Seized Money and Can You Get It Back?

If federal agents or local police seized your cash, you can get it back, but only if you act fast and file the right paperwork. Learning how to get seized money back comes down to one document and one deadline: the written notice the government must send you, and the claim you must file in response. In most federal cases you have as few as 35 days from the date on that notice letter to file a formal claim. Miss it and the government keeps the money through administrative forfeiture, with no judge ever reviewing the facts.¹

Federal civil forfeiture is a legal action against the property itself, not against you, and no criminal conviction is required. The government only needs probable cause to seize the money in the first place.² Getting it back is on you.

Start With the Receipt and Wait for the Notice

The officers who seized your cash should give you a receipt or written inventory. Keep it. If you didn’t get one, write down the date, location, amount, and names or badge numbers of the officers while the details are fresh.

After the seizure, the government has to send you written notice of its intent to forfeit the property. Federal law gives the seizing agency up to 60 days from the date of seizure to send that notice. If state or local police took the cash and then handed it off to a federal agency, the deadline stretches to 90 days from the original seizure.¹ If the government blows the notice deadline entirely, it must return the property, though it can restart forfeiture proceedings later.

The notice letter is the document that starts every other clock. It identifies the property, explains the government’s basis for the seizure, and lays out your options. Read it line by line. The deadline printed in that letter is the one that controls your case.

File a Formal Claim to Force the Case Into Court

A formal claim is how you tell the government you want a judge to decide the matter. Under federal law, the deadline in the personal notice letter cannot be set earlier than 35 days from the date the letter was mailed.¹ If you never received a letter but the government published notice (in a newspaper or online), you have 30 days from the date of final publication.³

The claim goes to the agency named in the notice letter. It has to identify the specific property, state your interest in it, and be made under oath or penalty of perjury. You do not need to post a bond. Federal law explicitly allows any person to file a claim without posting one.¹ Before the Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act of 2000, claimants had to put up 10% of the property’s value, which priced many people out of fighting small seizures. That barrier is gone.

Once your claim is valid and on file, the government has 90 days to file a formal forfeiture complaint in federal district court. If it doesn’t, it has to return the property, though a court can extend the deadline for good cause.¹ This is a real deadline, and weak cases often quietly end here.

Petition for Remission as an Alternative or in Parallel

If you’d rather skip court, you can file a petition for remission or mitigation directly with the seizing agency. This is an administrative request asking the agency to give the money back voluntarily. The notice letter will tell you to file within 30 days, but in practice, petitions for administratively forfeited property can be filed any time before the property is formally forfeited.⁴

A petition doesn’t have to follow a particular format, but it should describe the property, explain the circumstances of the seizure, document your ownership with bank statements or receipts, and make a clear case for return. One important catch: filing a remission petition does not preserve your right to go to court. If there’s any chance you’ll want a judicial hearing, file the formal claim first. You can pursue both at the same time.

What the Government Has to Prove

If the government files a complaint, you have 30 days after being served to file your own claim asserting your interest, then 20 days after that to file an answer to the government’s allegations.¹

In court, the burden is on the government. It has to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the money is subject to forfeiture, meaning it’s more likely than not that the funds are connected to criminal activity.² If the theory is that the money was used to commit or facilitate a crime, the government also has to show a “substantial connection” between the cash and the offense.

The Supreme Court has held that the Eighth Amendment’s protection against excessive fines applies to state and local forfeitures, not just federal ones.⁵ If the seized amount is grossly disproportionate to the offense, you can argue the forfeiture violates the Excessive Fines Clause. That argument has gained traction when large sums are tied to relatively minor conduct.

The Innocent Owner Defense

Even if the government proves the money is tied to a crime, you can still win by showing you are an innocent owner. The burden on this defense is yours, and the standard is preponderance of the evidence. You have to show either that you didn’t know about the illegal conduct or that you took reasonable steps to stop it once you did.¹

The statute lists examples of reasonable steps: notifying law enforcement, revoking the wrongdoer’s permission to use the property, or working with police to prevent the illegal use. You are not required to do anything that would put you or anyone else in physical danger.¹

If you acquired your interest in the property after the illegal conduct, the test is different. You have to show you were a good-faith purchaser for value with no reason to believe the property was subject to forfeiture.¹ You cannot claim innocent ownership of contraband or anything that is illegal to possess.

Attorney Fees, Interest, and Getting Representation

Fighting a forfeiture is expensive, which is why many people walk away from small seizures. Federal law provides some backstop if you win. When a claimant “substantially prevails” in a civil forfeiture case, the government must pay reasonable attorney fees and litigation costs.⁶ You substantially prevail if you get an order returning your property or a final ruling in your favor, unless the court finds the government’s position was substantially justified.

The government also owes interest on returned cash: any interest actually earned on the funds, plus imputed interest at the 30-day Treasury Bill rate for periods when the money sat in a non-interest-bearing account. Interest begins accruing 15 days after the seizure.⁶ Expect that interest to be taxable.

If you already have a court-appointed attorney in a related criminal case, the court may authorize that same lawyer to handle the forfeiture matter. There’s a separate rule for homes: if the seized property is real estate you use as your primary residence, the court must provide a Legal Services Corporation attorney whether or not you face related criminal charges.¹ For a cash seizure with no related criminal case, there is no guaranteed right to a free lawyer.

A Note on State Seizures and Small Amounts

Many states have their own forfeiture laws, and some now require a criminal conviction before the government can keep seized property. Federal law does not. When state or local police seize cash and then transfer it to a federal agency, the case follows federal rules regardless of the state’s law. The federal Department of Justice generally will not pursue forfeiture of cash under $5,000 unless the person was criminally prosecuted for related activity, in which case the floor drops to $1,000.⁷

Whatever the amount, the move is the same. Hold on to the receipt. Watch for the notice letter. File the formal claim by the date printed on it. Everything you can do to get your money back flows from those three steps.

1
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 983 – General Rules for Civil Forfeiture Proceedings
2
U.S. Department of Justice. Asset Forfeiture Program – Types of Federal Forfeiture
3
eCFR. 28 CFR 8.10 – Claims
4
eCFR. 28 CFR Part 9 – Regulations Governing the Remission or Mitigation of Civil and Criminal Forfeitures
5
Supreme Court of the United States. Timbs v. Indiana
6
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 USC 2465 – Return of Property to Claimant; Liability for Wrongful Seizure
7
United States Department of Justice. Justice Manual 9-111.000 – Forfeiture/Seizure