Banks need accounts. You need more cash.
How about getting a $400 sign up bonus to make a Wells Fargo Everyday Checking account your main bank account?
That's right, Wells Fargo will give you money for opening an account. Open an account and within 90 days, receive a total of $4,000+ in qualifying direct deposits. It's reported as interest, so you'll owe taxes on it, but that's a nice little bonus to switch banks.
This looks similar to other high dollar bank promotions. Check them out after reading through this article.
Definitely worth a look if you're in a state where the offer qualifies (there are a few restrictions, listed below) but you can apply online so you're not even required to change out of your jammies to visit a branch!
Read on to figure out how you sign up for the offer as well as how long it takes to see the bonus. I’ve also compiled other Wells Fargo bonuses and promotions you can take advantage of below the $400 bonus review.
Here's another offer worth checking out, get up to $700 from this one and there's no direct deposit requirement:
Wells Fargo $400 Checking Account Bonus in a Nutshell
- What you get: $400 cash bonus
- Who qualifies: Available nationwide
- Where to open: Online or in-branch
- How to get it:
- Open an Everyday Checking account,
- Make a minimum opening deposit of $25 to fund your account,
- Next, receive a total of $4,000 or more in qualifying direct deposits into the new checking account within 90 days from account opening (the “qualification period”).
- When does it expire: 7/31/2020
And there's also a great $150 bonus from their Wells Fargo Cash Wise Credit Card too!
How Do I Get My $400 Bonus from Wells Fargo
This is what you need to do to get the Wells Fargo $400 Checking Account Bonus are:
- Open an Everyday Checking account online (from this webpage only) by 7/31/2020.
- Make a minimum opening deposit of $25 to fund your account.
- Next, receive a total of $4,000 or more in qualifying direct deposits into the new checking account within 90 days from account opening (the “qualification period”).
After the 90 day qualification period, you'll see the $400 bonus deposited into your account within 30 days if you met all the offer requirements.
Click below on the green “Learn More” button to open your account:
You cannot be an existing Wells Fargo consumer customer and you are limited to one bonus per customer per 12 months. You also cannot be an employee of Wells Fargo. If you don't qualify for Everyday Checking but can get an Opportunity Checking account, this offer still applies.
In the past, Wells Fargo paired this with another offer of $250 for their savings account. For the time being, it looks like that part of the deal has been removed.
For comparison purposes, the promotional requirements for the Savings Account were:
- Open an eligible savings account online by the promotional deadline.
- Make a minimum opening deposit of $25 to fund your account.
- Within 10 days, deposit at least $15,000 in new money and maintain a minimum daily balance of at least $15,000 for 90 days from account opening.
The only other restriction (which is no longer applicable now) was that you must go to a branch to open your savings account. You'd have to go to the promotional website, fill out the form to have Wells Fargo email you a promotional code, and visit a local branch to complete the process.
In-Branch Sign Up Coupon Code
If you want to open your account in a branch or simply don't like opening bank accounts online, you can get a promotional code emailed to you.
Click the orange button above and on that next page, you want to click on Open In-Branch (I drew the green box to show you where it is. It won't have a green box on the actual page and the page may look a little different with different pictures) and enter your name, email, and ZIP code to get a promotional code via email:
Then check your email for the code and you can go to the nearest branch.
Avoid Checking Account Fees
The account has a $10 monthly service fee. You can avoid it quite easily.
To get the fee waived, you need to do only one of the following each “fee period” (statement period):
- 10+ posted debit card purchases/payments from this checking account. This does not include transactions at an ATM.
- Qualifying direct deposits totaling $500 or more.
- Maintain a $1,500 minimum daily balance.
- A linked Wells Fargo Campus ATM or Campus Debit Card.
The fee is also waived if you, as the primary account owner, are between 17 and 24 years old.
Take Advange of Account Perks
The account itself is pretty standard for a checking account.
They do promote three features that are quite rare:
- You can turn off your debit card in the event you lose it, so it's not an outright closure unless you're 100% sure you've lost it. If you are 100% sure, you need to report it stolen. If you've misplaced it (say at a bar or something) and you know where it is, you can disable it until you get it back.
- Access ATMs without your card by requesting a one-time access code via the app.
- Overdraft Rewind lets you avoid an overdraft fee if you overdraft your account but receive a direct deposit the following day that replaces the amount you overdrew by.
>> Related: Here's how to find your Wells Fargo routing number
How Does This Offer Compare?
Wells Fargo has one of the better offers at this moment. $400 is simply much higher than any of the other banks and Wells Fargo has a huge geographic footprint so almost everyone qualifies for it.
By comparison, Chase offers a pretty solid promotion right now too. You can get up to $350 by opening a Chase Total Checking Account and a Chase Savings Account. To get the bonus, you have to set up a direct deposit to the checking and transfer in a lot of new cash to the savings account. It's a harder bonus to get and the sum is smaller, so it's comparable but not better.
Capital One 360 also has a bonus tied strictly to the transfer of new money. Open a 360 Performance Savings account and you can get $100 if you transfer in at least $10,000 of new money. The bonus gets as high as $500 if you have $50,000 sitting around somewhere. If you have a big slug of cash and need a place to put it, this bonus is a great way to pick up some easy money. The time requirements on this offer are higher – you need to keep the balance for 90 days and the bonus is deposited 60 days after that. That's half a year – but no direct deposit requirement.
Other Wells Fargo Bonuses & Promotions
The banking offer is just the beginning if you don't have any Wells Fargo accounts. You can get a cash bonus on their credit cards too.
Wells Fargo Visa: $150 Cash Bonus
Wells Fargo offers some solid cashback credit cards as well with generous new account bonuses.
Get $150 when you open a Wells Fargo Cash Wise Visa Card and spend $500 in purchases in the first three months of account opening. The card is an unlimited 1.5% cash back credit card on all purchases and does not have an annual fee.
$150 bonus plus 1.5% is a great start. It's 25% better than your standard cashback card – plus it is cold hard cash, not points you have to convert. There is also a 0% introductory APR for 15 months on purchases and balance transfers (there is a balance transfer fee)(learn more about the card overall here)
Learn more about this card (and others)
Worth a look if you want to go full Wells Fargo or just need to up your cashback credit card game.
Wells Fargo $400 Bonus
Strengths
- Very high dollar amount bonus ($400)
- Nationwide geographic footprint
- Easy bonus requirements
Weaknesses
- Direct deposit required (but low amount)
I tried to apply for this offer but it said currently not in my area. What area’s does this offer apply to?
Offer: Wells Fargo Banking Promotions: $400 Checking Bonus (June 2019)
There’s a drop down under Step 1 and it appears that in June 2019, it is available for:
Dallas, TX
Denver, CO
Houston, TX
Miami, FL
Orlando, FL
Phoenix, AZ
Seattle, WA
Washington, DC
What does it mean “$3,000” for three consecutive months?
Does it mean I have to have direct deposits of at least $3,000 each month for three months, totaling $9,000 deposited into the checking account in that time span?
Or does it mean the total direct deposits must add up to $3,000 after three months?
Yes, I read the requirement to mean the same thing – you need to have $3,000 each month for a total of at least $9,000.
Can you close the account after receiving the bonus or is there a set amount of time that we must keep it open or risk having the bonus clawed back?
There doesn’t seem to be a requirement to keep the account open for a period of time after the bonus.
I just received the $400 bonus after 2 days of meeting the 3month, $3000 reqmt.
Also, there was no reqmt to leave money in there after each deposit. But you need to leave 1500 in there to avoid fees. The big negatives I found were: 1) other than getting the bonus quickly, all other transactions with this account seemed to take 3x longer than other banks, citi, chase, and cap1. 2) upon initial setup with $25 opening deposit from other bank, the transaction didnt get processed by wells, so I had to push the $25 again after the fact. 3) after meeting requirements, Wells won’t let you transfer out your funds more than $5000/day, or $6000 in a month, so you need to consider this when moving on to the next bank’s offer.
No you don’t need to leave 1500 in there to avoid fees. One of the option to avoid fee said Qualifying direct deposits totaling $500 or more, OR
$1,500 minimum daily balance,
So it is no fee since you doing $3000 direct deposit a month anyway to qualify for $400 promotion.
Is this offer available at Tuscon, zip- 85719?
As of July 21st, 2019 – Yes.
I am an existing Wells Fargo customer but my husband just opened up a checking account for the new customer sign up bonus. I want to help him make the deposit minimum by having my checks deposited into his account. My work will not let me deposit into his account without being an authorized user. Since I am already an existing customer, can he still get the bonus if he adds my name to his bank account?
I’m afraid I don’t know but you could ask Wells Fargo.
Hi Ashley, were you able to get the bonus? I am looking into opening an account as a new customer but my wife is an existing customer. We want to open a joint account. Thanks!
Does the direct deposits have to be from the same source? I receive child support consecutively as well as a payroll. These combined exceed the $3000 per month deposit and both are paid directly to the account.
Requirements for the bonus say that you cannot be a consumer customer of Wells Fargo to get the $400 bonus. I have a Wells Fargo credit card does that disqualify me from getting the $400 bonus if I open a checking account?
I would call to ask for sure but it says “new checking consumers:”
This offer is intended for new checking customers only. You must have a valid bonus offer code. You are not eligible for this offer if:
You are a current owner of a Wells Fargo consumer checking account
You are a Wells Fargo team member
You have received a bonus for opening a Wells Fargo consumer checking account within the past 12 months
I don’t see the link indicated for the $400 offer (no orange “Learn More” button). Is the promotion still valid?
Your browser may be blocking javascript or something? If you are viewing it in AMP, it won’t load properly.
You may need to load it on another computer? The promotion is still valid though.
I see no orange button – did this go away?
The promotion is still active. Sometimes there are hiccups – you can click this link to reload the page and jump to the banner.
Thank you for sharing this message. One question is can I only complete the checking account part? Without opening the savings account, can we still get the $400? Thank you!
Yes!
I already have an AMEX card, can I still apply for Wells Fargo and get the bonus?
There shouldn’t be a problem if you have an AMEX card.
Hello,
I am in Iowa and I normally would not even reply here but I see that you have been active recently.
I would have to definitely change my main direct deposit for the wells fargo 3,000 DD but I was wondering could you tell me if the Wells Fargo atm coupon from a non-wells fargo debit card is still good?
Also I was considering the $250 Regions.
I am wondering about the chex pull on either the wells fargo or region if you know I would appreciate it. I have never churned before.
I have paypal, chime, coinbase and robinhood could I use any of those to satisfy direct deposit for either Regions or Wells fargo ? thank you very much, in advance,
Mark
Hi Mark – is your question about Chexsystems regarding whether they use that reporting system? They do. There’s no concept of a hard inquiry, or “pull,” like there is with credit reports.
As for the direct deposit, you’ll have to use a direct deposit through the Automated Clearing House (ACH) network.
Has the terms changed, please clarify. It reads as follows:
Complete qualifying direct deposits. Receive a total of $4,000 or more in qualifying direct deposits to the new checking account within 90 days from account opening (the “qualification period”).
How I interpret this is that $4,000 in direct deposits within 90 days, not $4,000 each month in direct deposits.
Yes it has and I updated the original post – the terms are easier to achieve now with a $4,000 total within the first 90 days, rather than $3,000 per month. I have the same interpretation and this was changed recently.
I would do the Wells fargo but I don’t know which one to click on for the opportunity checking.
At this moment, there is only a bonus for the Everyday Checking account.
I’m no longer seeing the link or banner for this promotion.
You may need to reload the page or turn off your ad blocker.
Hi Just called Wells Fargo banker . He said that this is a targeted promotion, also it’s not nationwide. Are these true? I live in Ohio where there is no WF branch. So i’m not qualified.
Thanks you very much for your reply.
If you click through to the offer page, it lets you open an account online if you enter in your current ZIP code. I tried 44101, a Cleveland OH zip code, and it let me go through with the account opening process. I didn’t click past that first page (I don’t live in Cleveland) but it appears to work.
Have you tried that?
Hey Jim quick question, what do you mean by “it is reported as interest so you’ll pay taxes”? Taxes on what?
The money that you get in this promotion is considered interest income so you’ll owe ordinary income taxes on that amount.
Hi Jim, is this promotion valid in my area 91205?
The best way to find out is to click through to the offer and enter your zip code. I did this with your zip code and it’s not available online.