Update 3/24/26: Some updates:
Update 9/17/25: Bonus now $500.
Update 2/9/25: The deal is now $400.
Update 1/12/25: The deal is back up to January 31, 2025
Update 9/9/24: Bonus now $350 but requires $2,000 in direct deposits.
4/20/24: The deal goes back to December 31, 2024
Offer at a glance
- Maximum bonus amount: 400 dollars
- Availability: Pennsylvania, Delaware, Ohio, New York, New Jersey, Maryland and West Virginia
- Direct deposit required: + 500 dollars
- Additional requirements: See below
- Hard/soft pull: Soft
- ChexSystems: Unknown, sensitive
- Credit card financing: Up to $1,000
- Monthly fees: ANY
- Early account closure fee:
- Family boundary: One for life
- Expiration date:
July 21, 2018September 15, 2018 None listedMarch 16, 2020January 8, 2022
Offers
- Citadel Bank offers a bonus of up to $500 when you open a new checking account. The bonus is divided as follows:
- Earn a $300 cash bonus deposit on qualified direct deposits of $2,000 or more that are posted to the new checking account within 90 days of account opening. A qualifying direct deposit is defined as a recurring electronic deposit into the checking account of payroll, pension, Social Security, government benefits or other regular monthly eligible income made through the Automated Clearing House (ACH) network.
- After meeting the direct deposit requirement, earn an additional $200 bonus by maintaining a daily balance of $5,000 or more in your new checking account within 61 – 90 days of account opening
Fine Press
- All standard account requirements apply.
- Cash bonus offer cannot be combined with any other offer. Offer available to new checking customers only.
- The customer must not have closed a Citadel checking account within the last 12 months and/or previously received a sign-up bonus or check prize.
- Limit one offer per family per lifetime.
- To qualify for the $300 cash bonus, a direct deposit of $500 or more must be posted to the new checking account within 60 days of account opening. Direct deposit transactions are limited to payroll, social security and government benefits.
- For the additional $100 cash bonus, the cash bonus offer verification requirements must be met and the customer must open any Citadel credit card with a limit of at least $1,000 and/or open a Citadel High Yield Savings Account.
- Minimum balance required to open Citadel High Yield Savings – $10,000.
- The minimum balance must be maintained in the High Yield Savings account for at least 30 days after opening the account in order to receive the additional $100 bonus.
- Limit an additional bonus of $100 per account.
- To claim the Cash Bonus(es), the customer must contact Citadel by calling (877) 780-1615 or by visiting a branch after meeting the requirements for each bonus.
- Checking account must be open for 60 days before Bonus Cash is awarded.
- Bonus money will be awarded after sixty days, after Citadel confirms that the requirements have been met.
- Account must be in good standing at the time of incentive processing in order to receive Bonus Cash.
- Bonus cash must be claimed within 60 days of fulfilling the promotion requirements.
- Bonus cash can be reported on a 1099-INT.
- Offer expires July 21, 2018.
- This limited time offer may be withdrawn or changed at any time.
Avoidance of fees
Monthly fees
They offer a free checking account with no monthly fees to worry about.
Early account termination fee
Citadel Bank does not charge any early account closure fees from what we could find.
Our verdict
Opening a credit card will almost certainly result in a hard withdrawal, so it’s not worth doing. The high-yield savings account earns 1.5% APY, so it’s not worth holding long-term, but it might make sense to open and keep funds there for 30 days to trigger the $100 bonus. Before they had one $250 checking bonus with no direct deposit requirement. Personally I’d take $50 less to avoid the direct deposit requirement, but I don’t guarantee the bonus will be returned and some people might prefer the extra $50. I think this is worth doing if you live in an eligible area, so I will add this to our list of best control bonuses.
A big thank you to the reader, Mr. Arre who informed us. Learn how to find bonuses and contribute to the site here.
Useful posts about bank bonuses:
Post History:
- Update 2/3/24: The deal is back, but $300 this time. Valid until JAN243008. Valid until March 12, 2024
- Update 6/28/23: New binding for $325.
- Update 3/15/23: Extends through December 31, 2023
- Update 1/12/23: Extends to March 14, 2023.
- Update 4/17/22: Offer is back and valid until December 31, 2022. Hat tip alopecia14
- Update 1/13/22: Offer is back and valid through March 31, 2022. Hat tip to the reader Jim
- Update 11/14/21: Offer is back and valid through 8/1/22.
- Update 2/2/20: The deal is back, but this time the $100 savings bonus is not available.
- Update 09/16/18: As far as I can see, there is no end date listed anymore.
- Update 08/26/18: Offer is back and valid until September 15, 2018. Hat tip to the reader Tyler.
