This is the length of time until the maturity. The maturity can be any length of time, although debt securities with a term of less than one year are often called money market instruments rather than bonds. Most bonds have a term of up to 30 years. Some bonds have been issued with maturities of up to 100 years, and some even do not mature at all.

In the market for U.S. Treasury securities, there are three groups of bond maturities: short term (bills) with maturities up to one year; medium term (notes) with maturities between one and ten years; and, long term (bonds) with maturities greater than ten years.