Extended to 6/30/2025
Update 1/3/25: Extended through 3/31/25
The Offer
- Citi is offering a bonus of up to $3,500 when you open and enroll in a new Citi Personal Wealth Management account. The bonus you receive depends on the amount of funds you fund the account with within two months of account opening, the funds must remain there for three months after account opening and you must enroll in eDelivery of statements. The bonus tiers are as follows:
- Fund $50,000 – $199,999 and get a $500 bonus
- Fund $200,000 – $499,999 and get a $1,000 bonus
- Fund $500,000 – $999,999 and get a
$1,500$2,000 bonus - Fund $1,000,000 – $1,999,999 and get a
$2,500$3,000 bonus - Fund 2,000,000+ and get a
$3,500$5,000 bonus
The Fine Print
- To qualify to earn a cash bonus reward, accounts must be funded in cash or securities and the account enrolled in e-delivery of statements within 2 months of account opening and the balance of the account must be maintained through the end of the month shown in the chart below. For example, an account opened in October must fund their account and enroll in e-delivery of statements between 10/1/20 and 12/31/20, then must maintain funds until 1/31/21.
- Offer valid for clients who are 18 years or older who fund a new individual or joint Citi Personal Wealth Management account between October 1, 2020 and December 31, 2020. Account and asset eligibility requirements are explained below. Citi Personal Wealth Management reserves the right to change or cancel this offer at any time.
- Cash or securities must come from an external, non-Citi, source through a standard transfer method (e.g., a standard Transfer of Assets form, check, electronic funds transfer, ADM deposit). “New-to-Citi Funds” are 1) funds deposited from external accounts or payees other than Citibank, N.A. and 2) must be deposited using domestic ACH transfer, Direct Deposit, checks drawn on banks other than Citibank, N.A., wire transfer, trustee to trustee transfer, or ACAT securities transfers.. Cash deposits, Citi Global Transfers, international ACH transfers, and person-to-person transfer services such as Apple Pay, PayPal®, Venmo, and Zelle®, do not qualify as New-to-Citi Funds. New-To-Citi funds may be deposited into a Citibank retail account and transferred to the new CPWM account during the account funding period outlined in the chart below. However, transfers of existing funds from a Citibank retail account are not considered New-To-Citi funds for the purpose of this promotion.
- To qualify to earn a cash bonus reward, accounts must be funded in cash or securities and the account enrolled in e-delivery of statements within 2 months of account opening and the balance of the account must be maintained through the end of the month shown in the chart below. For example, an account opened in July must fund their account and enroll in e-delivery of statements between 7/1/20 and 9/30/20, then must maintain funds until 10/31/20.
- The total funding for purposes of determining the bonus level funding considered for the promotion is defined as the total amount of eligible cash or securities received in the account minus withdrawals and transfers of securities out of the account as of the deadline to fund the account based on the month of account opening. Distributions, interest, and dividends from investments will not be counted. Market fluctuation will not impact eligibility for a particular bonus level.
- The amount of the cash bonus reward is based on the funding received during the promotional period. The cash bonus will be credited to the Citi Personal Wealth Management account for customers who were enrolled in the promotion and have met the qualifying requirements stated in the offer based on the date the account was opened.
- Limit one bonus per customer. If multiple accounts are opened or funded by a customer, the offer will apply to the eligible account with the highest balance. Multiple account balances in the name of the same beneficial owner will not be aggregated for purposes of this offer, except if one account is a non-managed brokerage account and the other account is a managed account, in which case the eligible funding from these two accounts may be aggregated for bonus qualification purposes. Any additional accounts opened during the promotional period will not be eligible for bonus eligibility. Citi Wealth Builder accounts are excluded from eligibility for this bonus. This offer cannot be combined with any other offer. All requirements of the offer, including the dates in the above chart, pertain to both the eligible managed account and brokerage account.
- For purposes of this offer only, the primary owner of a joint account will be considered the customer. All accounts are subject to approval and applicable terms and fees. Account must be open and in good standing at the time the bonus is credited to receive the bonus.
- The promotion is only available for certain account types, including individual and joint accounts. Accounts not eligible for this promotion include but are not limited to corporate and other business/entity accounts, trust accounts (except Living Revocable Trusts and Family Revocable Trusts which are eligible), retirement plan accounts other than IRAs and SEPs (e.g., 401(k), money purchase pension plan, profit sharing plan, and other ERISA plan account), estate accounts, UGMA/UTMA accounts, 529 college savings plan accounts, robo-advisory accounts under the Citi Wealth Builder Program, and insurance products (including annuities). For questions about eligibility, please speak to a Citi Personal Wealth Management representative.
Our Verdict
This looks to be a good brokerage bonus as the cash/securities only need to be in the account for roughly a month (e.g fund at the end of the second month and keep the funds in there for a month after that). Knowing Citi there might be a gotcha that I’m missing here.
According to the comments this works for self directed accounts, but the set up process is extremely slow due to it all being manual.
Hat tip to reader EW
Post history:
- extended through 12/31/24
- Extended to 9/30/2024
- Update 4/2/24: Extended to 6/31
- Update 1/16/24: Extended to 3/31
- Update 10/2/23: Extended to 12/31/2023
- Update 7/5/23: extended to 9/30/23
- Update 5/17/23: extended 6/30
- Update 11/1/22: Deal is back and valid until 12/31/22.
- Update 7/5/22: Extended until 09/30/2022. Deal is better on the higher tiers. Hat tip to Mawney
- Update 4/6/22: Extended until 06/30/2022
- Update 1/2/22: Extended until 03/31/2022.
- Update 1/4/2021: Deal is back and valid until 6/30/21. Hat tip to reader savingwizard
- Update 10/11/20: Deal is back until 12/31/20.
Is this still open? The “direct link” above seems broken.
Never mind. I implemented as blocking on my Ubiquiti router last night. It broke it.
If I currently have a joint brokerage account with 210k, can I open an individual brokerage account and do initial 50k funding in June, then transfer 209k out of my joint brokerage account out in July to another brokerage firm, then fund my individual brokerage account with another 160k in July.
Does that count as 210k into my individual account, or will that be affected by the transfer activity of the joint brokerage account?
What kind of conservative funds so they offer? Any money markets or equivalent that yield at least 4%?
Yes. Call and ask. They don’t publish it online. They have several funds available.
They (like many brokerages) for some reason don’t offer some popular no-load MMFs but they do offer a bunch of others that are about the same. However, they don’t make it easy to obtain it in a list form. You have to ask about the candidates you are interested in. In fact, the approved list even differs between the managed and self-directed accounts at the same brokerage (this is true even at JPM/Chase, probably because of the fees they get paid by the funds).
I have good success with AEAXX and AMAXX at Citi PWM self-directed, which both offer decent 7-day yield (better than SPAXX etc net of fees and currently higher than 4% that you mentioned). On the face of it, these have a load, but the fine print mentions the load waivers and I haven’t had to pay it. You may have to purchase/redeem over the phone (no cost) because of this.
You can always invest in SGOV — right around 4% and free of state taxes.
Yes, I would typically invest in that specifically–nice to confirm it is available.
So if I understand the terms correctly, I could open the account on June 1, 2025, wait to “initially” fund it with tiny amount on 6/30/2025 (latest ‘Date of Initial Funding’ period), deposit remaining amount on 8/31/2025 (latest ‘Account Funding’ Period), withdraw all funds immediately after 9/30/2025 (‘Maintain Funds’ period ), and get the cash bonus credited by 1/1/2026 (‘Cash Bonus Credited to Account’). Does anyone think otherwise?
Overall looks good to me, but better to plan a few days of buffer time for ACH transfers (if that’s how you will fund your account) to go through as you need to call them to do it. Also, 6/1/25 is a Sunday, and so is 8/31/25.
I have done a few of these over the years (legitimately, not churning) and only around last year, they added this vague language that suggests that the clock (Date of Initial Funding) starts only when a minimum of $50K is deposited.
“Fund a new or existing Citi Personal Wealth Management account with a minimum of $50,000 of New-to-Citi funds between 4/1/2025 – 6/30/2025. The date we receive the first New-to-Citi funds in your Citi Personal Wealth Management account is defined as your “Date of Initial Funding”
You could interpret this to be that any tiny amount will start the clock, and $50K minimum is only needed to qualify for the bonus OR that only a minimum of $50K triggers the “Date of Initial Funding”. My Citi investment rep (a bit more knowledgeable than the average frontline Citi RMs FWIW) told me that enrollment does not start the clock, the $50K deposit does. I’ve taken the safe approach and started with $50K since the initial funds can earn decent MMF level returns fairly conservatively anyway, matching other high yield savings account. That has worked each time for me (answering the MMF question separately in that message). Unless someone else has a recent DP showing less than $50K initial funding triggering it, just be careful on this point.
I’ve had a bonus come in for a quarter in which I did a single $10 Zelle transfer in the first month of the quarter, and then transferred in assets (several hundred thousand) before the funding deadline.
Thanks for that DP. Can you confirm this was recent (since that clause was only included about 6-8 months ago)? If so, that is awesome as I needed to get on this again in a few weeks also.
It was for 2024-Q4 promotion. The T&Cs for that quarter do have that language you are referring to.
I enrolled at the start of the quarter, and did initial funding in October. It was more than a $10 Zelle into checking this time (that was a few years ago), but it was less than $50k. It was an asset transfer of about $10k in October, directly into the enrolled brokerage account. Based on the T&Cs, with Initial Funding date in October, the Account Funding Period was through 12/31/24. I did another asset transfer, for significantly more than the remaining $40k needed, in December.
Bonus was supposed to be post by 5/1/25 and posted 4/29. Does that help?
If I currently have a brokerage account with Citi and let’s say it has 200k, then I open a Roth IRA and transfer 210k to the Roth IRA and enroll the Roth IRA account to this offer.
Can I move my brokerage account asset out without affecting the Roth IRA bonus?
Yes.
Any high yielding MM funds with CPWM? I can’t find any information on available funds.
The yield of SGOV has gone down a lot.
They’ll tell you if you call and ask but no information online as far as i can tell
Can someone confirm if Citi does pull a Chex for this kind of account just like they do for any of their personal or biz checking accounts?
No Chex pull.
SP
Thanks
That’s correct, no Chex pull for Citi brokerage accounts
SP
Thx
I have an IRA at Citi with a very small balance. I plan to add $250K in new funds to get the $1K bonus. Those funds are tied up in a different bonus and won’t be available until mid-June. I’m scheming to find a way to get the bonus clock started before then.
Citi’s published rules require funding w/ at least $50K before the end of the enrollment month. They also say “… If multiple accounts are funded by a customer in the same quarter, the offer will apply to the eligible account with the highest contribution. …”.
Can I open a new Roth account at Citi before April 30 and fund it with at least $50K as the “date of initial funding”? I cannot qualify for aggregating accounts but, if I transfer $250K into my existing IRA before the end of the “account funding period” (June 30), the IRA should qualify for the $1000 bonus as the “… eligible account with the highest contribution.”
No longer being the account with the highest contribution, funds in the Roth should be available for use elsewhere after funding the IRA if I keep the IRA balance above 250K (ignoring trading losses). Having enrolled before April 30th, the bonus should credit in the IRA by 11/1.
Has anyone done anything like that?
Edit: On second thought, I would fund the Roth by ACAT. I’m skeptical that Citi’s paper/docusign process would result in meeting the 4/30 funding deadline. I can get it started, though, and meet the deadline for May.
The terms are worded poorly; you don’t have actually have to get 50k+ in by end of first month, just by end of funding period. If you get any non-zero amount into account by end of whatever month you choose, you lock in your funding period.
You could do the “Date of Initial Funding” with the row that has 5/1/2025 – 5/31/2025. Then “Account Funding Period” would be Through 7/31/2025.
Are you able to get any amount into account by end of May (small ACAT transfer of just a few shares, and/or a bit of 2025 contribution to account, done at Citi)? Doesn’t need to be 50k. Then do the big 250k+ transfer by end of July.
Hi
Olympia
Could you expand on this a bit? Are you saying that we can enroll in 1 promo per quarter .. not limitations?
So if I had $100,000 .. then I could enroll in Q2 for $50K and then another $50K in Q3 for a bonus total of $500 + $500? Is this really possible ..I am getting excited? 🙂
Has any individual (not two people) successfully churned this 4x per year with two accounts?
I’m aiming for the 4x churn, on the 2x right now. I’ll post once all the bonuses pay out next year
Is this link working for anybody?
https://banking.citi.com/cbol/investment/cpwm/default.htm
Replying to myself: I found a working link but it was at a competitor’s web site. I was unable to convert it to a generic link without a referral in it, but the offer does seem to be available to the general public.
Out of respect to DoctorOfCredit, I will not post the competitor’s link here. I hope the local link can be updated.