Varo Bank: $150 Checking Account Bonus

Varo Bank is offering a $150 referral bonus when you open their free online bank account and make a qualifying direct deposit. Full details of the offer below, including important commentary at the end of the post.

This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission at no cost to you if you decide to make a purchase through my links. Visit this page for more information. The content on this page is accurate as of the posting date; however, some of the offers mentioned may have expired.

Overview

Get a $150 referral bonus bonus when you open a Relay account and make a direct deposit of $500 or more:

  1. Open a Varoonline bank account using this link.
  2. Make a direct deposit of $500 or more within the first 45 days of account opening.
  3. Receive the $150 bonus deposited into your Varo account within 7 days of completing the offer requirements.

This bonus requires using a referral link. The links above are mine. You don’t have to use it, but if you do, thank you for supporting me and this site.

What Are The Offer Details?

Availability: Nationwide
Expiration: 03/31/2026
Household Limit: None
Direct Deposit Required: Yes, $500+
Early Account Termination Fee: None listed

The Bottom Line

Bonus is very good with easy requirements. The standard referral bonus is $100 so this limited-time increase is 50% higher. You can refer up to five friends and family members within a calendar year. If you used a referral link and received a bonus, this counts as one of the five referrals. If you refer more than five people, subsequent new users you invite will continue to be eligible to earn a bonus, but you will no longer receive one.

Varo Bank (previously just Varo or Vary Money) used to be a fintech platform, just like Chime, Current, and Albert when they launched their app in 2017.

They were the first fintech to become a nationally FDIC-insured bank in 2020. The main difference is rather than insuring their deposits via partner banks, they have direct FDIC protection. It might sound like a small difference until you read stories like juno.finance or Yotta losing customer funds because the “middleman”, Synpase Financial Technologies, Inc., collapsed.

I’ll add this to the best bank account bonuses list.

The other important thing I want to mention is, for whatever reason, Varo used to be anti-referrals unless it was a direct friend or family member. They used to ban people for referring others to their service. It was quite strange as that caused a lot of negative press amongst the blogger, YouTuber, and content creator communities.

Thankfully, they have changed their stance and have removed the anti-sharing language.

About John Pham

John Pham is a personal finance expert, serial entrepreneur, and founder of The Money Ninja. He has also been fortunate enough to have appeared in the New York Times, Boston Globe, and U.S. News & World Report. John has a B.S. in Entrepreneurship and a Masters in Business Administration, both from the University of New Hampshire.

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