Examined Sep 18, 2026 No reward for a new customer Old cash offer ended in 2023 Fidelity's Refer a Friend program pays nothing to the new customer, and the one cash offer page still on its site ended on 04/08/2023.
Fidelity's referral page opens with the line “If they matter to you, they matter to us” and describes three steps: log in, share with a friend, they join. No dollar amount, stock or credit appears anywhere in its text, or in the text of the FAQ behind it. The saved copy of the referral page carries the internal page name “Referral Info Landing 000 No Reward”, and the FAQ carries “FAQ No Reward”. Fidelity's own labels say what the visible text leaves out.
What pays what
| You, opening a Fidelity account through a customer's referral link | Nothing stated |
|---|---|
| You, opening a Fidelity account with no link at all | The same: nothing |
| The $25 for $50 cash offer still online | Ended 04/08/2023 |
| Anyone Fidelity had not sent that 2023 offer to | Was never eligible |
What the friend actually receives is an email or a link. In Fidelity's words: “The email will indicate that you referred them to Fidelity and it will provide information about the benefits of everything we have to offer.” A customer can instead copy a personal referral link and send it by email, by text message, or by posting it on a social media account.
Do this, in this order
- Do not wait for a referral link. With some brokers, signing up without a link forfeits a reward. Here there is no reward to forfeit. If a friend at Fidelity offers you a link, using it costs nothing and earns you nothing.
- If anyone shows you a Fidelity cash bonus, ask for the Fidelity page behind it and read the date. The only cash offer we could read on Fidelity's site is the 2023 one. Its terms also reserve Fidelity's right to end it early: “Fidelity reserves the right to modify these terms and conditions or terminate this offer at any time.”
- If Fidelity sends you an offer directly, read that offer's own terms before you move money. The 2023 offer reached people through what its terms call the Fidelity offer communication. If something similar reaches you, look for the same four things those terms held: a funding deadline, a minimum deposit from an outside source, a limit per person, and a holding period.
- Choose the broker for reasons other than a bonus, or choose one that publishes a bonus. Three that do are listed under Second opinions, each with terms we have read.
The $50 cash offer page that is still online
This offer is valid for existing Fidelity Brokerage Services LLC ("Fidelity") customers who previously opened but did not fund an eligible Fidelity account in 2023, received the Fidelity offer communication and fund their eligible Fidelity account with a minimum of $25 by 04/08/2023.
It was a targeted offer, not a public one. Three conditions had to be true at once: you were already a customer, you had opened an account in 2023 and left it empty, and Fidelity had sent you the offer. A brand new customer arriving from a search engine never qualified, even while it ran.
What it looked like, for the next one. A $50 bonus for a $25 deposit from an external, non-Fidelity source. “Offer is limited to one bonus award per individual.” The eligible accounts were The Fidelity Account, the Fidelity Cash Management Account, a Fidelity Roth IRA and a Fidelity Traditional IRA. The bonus had to stay in the account for at least 90 days after it was credited, and the terms say Fidelity may charge accounts that fail to comply the cost of the bonus award.
Tax. The terms say cumulative bonus awards of $600 or more in a calendar year, credited to taxable accounts, will appear on your consolidated Form 1099, and that any taxes resulting from the bonus are your responsibility.
Why it still loads. Fidelity does not say. The page answered our request on September 18, 2026 with every 2023 date intact and no notice that the offer has closed. Its footer reads “Copyright 1998-2023 FMR LLC. All Rights Reserved.”
What Fidelity does not publish
Any terms for Refer a Friend. There is a landing page and an FAQ, and no terms and conditions document, which fits a program with nothing to award. Neither page is dated. Both carry the same 2023 copyright footer, while Fidelity's site-wide Terms of Use carry the line “Last Updated: July 1, 2026”. No end date is given for the referral program.
Whether it sends private offers today. The 2023 offer shows Fidelity has offered cash to selected customers before. Nothing we could read says whether it does so now. A PDF on Fidelity's site whose file name refers to cash offer terms refused our request, and two other addresses whose names refer to terms and to a referral program returned errors, so we say nothing about what they hold.
Small print on the invitation. The FAQ says: “Refusing cookies from Fidelity.com will prevent you from participating in Fidelity Friends and Family.” It warns that an email invitation may never arrive, because the friend opted out of Fidelity marketing, because a filter caught it, or because the address is no longer valid. It also says Fidelity will not share the friend's information with any third party or use it for marketing, and that the friend can unsubscribe from the invitation emails.
Who the site is for. Every Fidelity page we read carries the same line: “This is for persons in the US only.”
Is it worth your time?
There is nothing here to spend time on. No link to find, no deposit to time, no holding period to sit out. That is a finding in itself: if you were putting off opening a Fidelity account until a bonus came along, the pages Fidelity publishes give you no reason to keep waiting, and no reason to hurry either.
The one way to lose money on this page is to believe the 2023 offer is live, fund an account with $25 to collect $50, and find that the deadline passed on 04/08/2023. If a sign-up reward is what you are after, the three brokers below each publish one. Read their conditions as carefully as you would have read Fidelity's.
If you refer: Fidelity's pages name no reward for the customer who shares the link either.
