All offers / Are sign-up bonuses taxable?
General informationFour kinds of bonus, four different answers, and one thing to write down.
Companion reading: stock reward lock-ups compared
A cash bank bonus, a crypto reward, a share of stock, and cash back on your own shopping are four different objects, and they are generally treated four different ways. Knowing which one you have received is most of the work.
The 30-second version
| What arrived | How it is generally treated | What that means in practice |
|---|---|---|
| Cash for opening a bank account | Interest, or other income | Usually reported by the provider. Commonly a Form 1099-INT when treated as interest, or a Form 1099-MISC when treated as other income. |
| A referral bonus in cash | Other income | Varo states plainly that its referral bonuses are reported to the IRS on Form 1099-MISC. |
| A crypto reward | Property, not currency | Generally income at its value on the day it lands, and then a separate gain or loss if you sell it later at a different price. |
| Free or gifted stock | Property, not currency | Same two-step shape as crypto. The share has a value on the day it arrives, and selling it later is its own event. |
| Cash back on your own purchases | Usually a rebate | Generally understood as a discount on something you bought rather than as income. This is the one piece of good news on the page. |
| A credit you cannot withdraw | Depends, and can still be reportable | Groundfloor says it may be required to send both parties, and file with the IRS, a Form 1099-MISC, on a reward that is a restricted credit rather than cash. |
Cash bank bonuses: the simplest, and the most reported
A few hundred dollars for opening a checking account and routing a payroll deposit is the least ambiguous case. It is a payment from a company, given for doing something specific, and it is generally treated as interest or as other income accordingly.
Which form it lands on depends on how the provider classifies it. Some describe the payment as interest, in which case a Form 1099-INT is the usual vehicle. Others treat it as other income and use a Form 1099-MISC. Varo's terms say bonuses are reported to the IRS on Form 1099-MISC, the provider's own description on the Varo guide.
Crypto rewards: two events, not one
A crypto sign-up reward is an asset whose price moves from the second it arrives, so two separate things happen at two separate times. The first is the arrival: a reward of this kind is generally treated as income at its value on the day it lands. The second is any later sale. If the token is worth more or less when you sell it than when it arrived, that difference is generally a separate gain or loss.
A volatile reward can be worth meaningfully less by the time you can touch it, while the arrival-day value is the one already on the record. Our guides that pay in tokens carry a short tax note for exactly this reason, and the Nexo guide is the fullest example.
Stock rewards: the same two-step, in a brokerage account
A gifted share behaves like the crypto case. It has a value on the day it arrives, and selling it later is a separate event with its own consequence. What makes brokerage rewards trickier is the calendar attached to them, because several of these offers stop you selling for months, so the arrival value and the sale value can be far apart through no decision of yours. The holding periods have their own page: stock reward lock-ups compared.
Cash back and points: usually the good news
Cash back you earn on your own purchases is generally treated as a rebate: you paid a price, part of it came back, so what you really paid was less. A discount on your own spending is not usually income.
That reasoning covers the reward you earn by shopping. It does not automatically cover a bonus paid to you for introducing somebody else, because nobody bought anything to generate that payment. Points behave similarly.
Credits and vouchers: value you cannot spend can still be reported
Groundfloor's referral reward is a restricted credit that has to be invested and repaid before the funds can be withdrawn, and Groundfloor's own legal page says it may be required to send both parties, and file with the IRS, a Form 1099-MISC. A locked credit that generates a tax form is not the same as money in your pocket, and the Groundfloor guide says so on the page.
Fundrise's reward is a share voucher rather than cash, and the guidance it gives is simply that a reward can be taxable, with Fundrise stating that it does not give tax advice. No form is named. Absence of a named form is not a statement that nothing is reportable, and the Fundrise guide puts it exactly that way.
Write these four things down, on the day
- What it was. The provider, the program, and the kind of reward: cash, tokens, shares, credit, or points.
- The date it actually arrived. Not the date you qualified, and not the date you signed up. The day it appeared in the account.
- Its dollar value on that date. This is the one people skip and the one that is hardest to reconstruct, particularly for a token or a share.
- What the provider said it would issue. If the terms name a form, write down which one. If they name none, write that down too.
If your year got complicated
Someone who collected several crypto rewards across different platforms, sold some of them, and moved assets between wallets has a genuinely complicated year, and the arithmetic is not the sort of thing to do from memory in April. There are tools built for that, and this site reviews several of them because they run referral discounts of their own. That is a commercial interest and we would rather name it than let you find it.
Frequently asked
Are bank sign-up bonuses taxable?
Generally yes, and generally reported by the provider. Your own position is a question for a tax professional.
Which form does a bonus arrive on?
It depends on the provider and on how the payment is classified. Interest commonly appears on a Form 1099-INT and other income commonly on a Form 1099-MISC. Some providers name no form at all.
Are crypto bonuses taxable?
A crypto reward is property. It is generally income at its value on the day it lands, and a later sale at a different price is generally a separate gain or loss.
Is cash back taxable?
Cash back on your own purchases is usually treated as a rebate. A referral bonus paid for introducing someone else is a different thing.
Do I need to keep records if the amount is small?
Keeping the note costs thirty seconds and answers the question later. Whether anything needs reporting is not a call we are qualified to make.
What we found across every offer
Every one of these is read from the company’s own document and dated. See all 59 questions we have answered.