(Update) Wells Fargo Premier $2,500 Bank or Investing Bonus (Requires $250k In Cash/Assets)
Update 11/3/26: The link is working again when opening incognito to show the $2,500 offer.Valid through 11/9/26.Looks like it might go down afterward to $2,000.
Update 10/13/26: The link is now showing $2,000 in regular browsing (valid through 1/13/27) and $2,500 incognito (valid through 11/9/26).Reposting as a headsup that they might be lowering the bonus soon.
Update 10/7/26: Offer is back at this link.
If it doesn’t work copy and paste the link or open it incognito mode.Valid through 11/9/26.
Offer at a glance
The Offer
$2,500 Link | $3,500 link $2,500 link (copy and paste link if it doesn’t work)
The Fine Print
Limit one bonus per customer.
Certain brokerage accounts are not eligible.
The account pays an APY of 0.25% if the balance is $0–$99,999.99 and 0.50% if the balance is $100,000 or more.Rates are variable and subject to change without notice.Fees could reduce earnings on this account.
Taxpayer Identification Number (Form W-9 for U.S.persons including a resident alien).Non-resident aliens signing Form W-8 are not eligible for the offer.
Consult your tax advisor.
Avoiding Fees
The Premier Checking account has a $35 monthly service fee (fee is waived first six months).The fee can be avoided each fee period with $250,000 or more in statement-ending qualifying linked (a) bank deposit account balances (checking, savings, time accounts (CDs), FDIC-insured IRAs) and (b) investment account balances.
Initial monthly service fee waiver: We’ll waive the monthly service fee for each fee period ending within the first 64 days of opening.
Regarding investing: it looks like there is a $95 $49.95 (pdf)when you transfer out all of your investments and terminate your account.I suppose you can just leave there $1 indefinitely to avoid this fee (?).(See this link > “account maintenance fees”.) (Some readers say you need to leave at least $95 or maybe $125 in order to avoid the fee.)
Our Verdict
Since this offer is available for both new accounts and upgrades, the best play here would be to open a new Wells Fargo ordinary checking account online and get a $325 bonus with $1,000 direct deposit.
Then (after the bonus posts), go to a Wells Fargo branch and upgrade to a Premier relationship.Then, sometime in the next 45 days, transfer over $250,000 in cash or assets and leave it there until day 90.The fine print seems clear that you can get the Premier offer so long as you have not done a Premier checking offer in the past 12 months, even if you did a standard checking offer in the past 12 months.Just be aware that Wells bonuses take a full 90 days to post, so you’re risking the $2,500 offer expiring while you wait for the $325 to post.
The Wells Fargo Premier checking account earns an interest rate of .01%.
It looks like Wells Fargo has a self-directed investment option, and you can ACAT transfer over any ETFs (and possibly mutual funds) from another brokerage, and that would work toward the $250,000 qualifier.
You can also buy U.S.Treasuries, brokered CDs, or other safe mutual funds which would earn top interest rates as well, see our post: Utilizing Money Market Funds & Treasury Bills For Brokerage Bonuses.Some suggest WMPXX.And I believe some have reported getting confirmation that retirement investing accounts can work to meet the $250,000 requirement as well.
Let’s break down the math for those who want to do this bonus with a cash transfer and for those who want to use the Wells Fargo investment arm:
Let’s just round it up and say you’re money will be in transit for 2 months, you’ll still be getting around 6% return for those two months, plus the regular .50% interest.That’s a solid couple percentage points above what you’d earn from a regular high interest savings account.You can also open a savings account earning 3.25% making the deal significantly better, see this comment.
Again, you’ll net the full $2,500 bonus without any trade-offs.(Just be sure to deposit more than $250,000 of investments in case the assets lose value and your balance dips below $250k.)
Possibly you’ll get hit with one $35 fee on your way out.And then there’s also the above-mentioned $95 $49.95 ACAT-out fee if you transfer out all of your investments.You need to make sure your investment accounts are linked to Premier Checking
Separately, there’s also now a $525 Wells Fargo in-branch savings bonus as well.
Multiple readers heard from their banker that the $25k won’t stack with the $250k offer.In reality it probably will stack.
We’ll add this to our list of Best Bank Bonuses and Best Brokerage Bonuses.If you did this bonus before and are doing it again, you can use the same brokerage account as the first time. It’s just the checking account that needs to be closed and then opened again in branch with the banker applying the promo code to the new checking account.Some suggest waiting 3 months after closing before opening again.
RELATED: My $2,500 Wells Fargo Branch Visit
F.A.Q’s
The link errors out, is this deal deal?
If the link errors out try copying and pasting the link into your browser.
You can also try opening it in incognito mode to see if that makes it work.
Publisher: Source link