All offers / Investing / Stock reward lock-ups
Investing deep diveNothing about a free stock offer is difficult until you try to leave with it.
Companion reading: are sign-up bonuses taxable?
Brokerages rarely hand new customers cash. They hand out stock, and stock arrives attached to a calendar: a period during which the reward is on the page but not in your hands. Sometimes that period is three days. Sometimes it is a year. The clock is the part that decides whether an offer suits you, and it is almost never in the advertisement. Here are seven, side by side.
The clocks, compared
| Offer | The hold | What breaks it |
|---|---|---|
| Robinhood | 3 trading days before you can sell, then 30 days before the proceeds can be withdrawn. The reward itself expires 60 days after it is issued if unclaimed. | Nothing much, if you claim it. This is the shortest clock here and there is no deposit at risk behind it. |
| Moomoo | A freezing period of 60 to 180 days, depending on which deposit tier you qualified for. | Moomoo's terms: if you withdraw assets during the bonus freezing period resulting in your account equity falling below the bonus threshold, you will not be able to claim free stocks. The test runs on average assets, so a market fall can do it without a withdrawal. |
| Webull | A 12-month maintenance period on the promotion. | Taking the deposit back early. Separately, fractional shares cannot move to another broker in kind, so a transfer out force-liquidates them. |
| Public | The reward must be claimed within 30 days, then its cash value cannot be withdrawn for 12 months from the day it is claimed. | Withdrawing inside the year can trigger an early withdrawal fee of up to $20, which is the entire size of the reward. Fractional shares are also not transferable. |
| M1 Finance | Three stacked clocks: fund within 30 days of signing up, hold the funding amount 30 days more, then the bonus itself is locked for 90 days from payment. | Any withdrawal or external transfer request during the 90-day window means you relinquish the bonus. It is automatic, with no partial credit. |
| tastytrade | Six months, starting when the new client meets every opening and funding requirement. The bonus can be traded immediately but not withdrawn as cash until then. | Withdrawing below the minimum funding amount can revoke the credit. Trading losses do not. The referrer's bonus rides on the new client's clock, not their own. |
| Acorns | No fixed lock-up on the standing offer, but a continuous Good Standing condition and a wait of roughly 30 to 45 days for the shares to arrive. | Losing Good Standing at the wrong moment, which Acorns judges at its sole discretion. The reward is ETF shares with no cash alternative. |
The three shapes a lock-up takes
1. A wait before you can sell
The gentlest kind, and Robinhood is the clean example. Nothing is forfeited by waiting and no deposit of yours is trapped, so the only cost is that this is not quick cash. Claim it inside 60 days, though, because an unclaimed reward expires.
2. A wait before your own money can leave
The expensive kind, because it is your deposit and not the reward that is pinned. Webull, M1, tastytrade and moomoo all hold your own money for the length of the promotion, and the reward is often small relative to the sum being held still. That is a good trade only if the money was staying put anyway.
3. A penalty for leaving early
The kind worth reading twice. Public charges an early withdrawal fee of up to $20 against a $20 reward, so leaving early can cost exactly what staying would have earned. M1's version is a straight forfeiture: a withdrawal or external transfer request during the bonus's 90-day lock relinquishes it. tastytrade reserves the right to revoke the bonus including by deducting its value from the account balance, which can leave a person worse off than if they had never taken the offer at all.
The clause people miss: market movement can break a hold
tastytrade is explicit that decreases in account value caused by trading or market fluctuations do not affect eligibility. Only a withdrawal that drops the balance below the minimum endangers it.
moomoo measures the requirement on average assets during the freezing period, so a price fall can take the account under the tier threshold without you touching anything. That is why the moomoo guide suggests depositing above the threshold rather than exactly at it.
The other exit that catches people: transferring out
A reward paid in fractional shares is harder to leave than it looks. Public's terms state that fractional shares have limited or no voting rights and are not transferable. Webull's fractional shares cannot be moved to another broker in kind, so transferring out force-liquidates them. Acorns pays in ETF shares corresponding to your chosen portfolio, and states there is no cash alternative. So "I will move the account later" is not a way around a hold. The exit is a sale, and a sale has its own consequences at tax time.
Two more holds worth knowing about
- Stash attaches 90 days to the money, not the share. Its current referrer terms require a cash bonus to remain in the Personal Portfolio for 90 days from deposit, and if a stock reward is sold, the sale proceeds have to stay for the rest of that same 90 days. See the Stash guide.
- Fundrise's terms say nothing at all about a hold. The invitation program terms disclose no lock-up, no redemption window, and no holding period, which sounds generous until you remember the voucher converts into shares of real-estate funds whose liquidity rules live in the offering circulars instead. See the Fundrise guide.
When a lock-up makes a bonus not worth taking
Four tests. If any one of them fails, walk away.
- You might need the money during the hold. This outranks the other three combined. A bonus that forfeits on withdrawal is not yours until the calendar says so.
- The exit penalty approaches the size of the reward. When leaving early costs what staying would have paid, the offer is a bet on your own certainty.
- A monthly fee runs the whole time you wait. Acorns charges a subscription from the first month, and M1 charges a monthly platform fee unless the balance stays high enough to waive it. A fee running for the length of the hold quietly eats the reward.
- The reward is small next to the sum being pinned. Compare the reward with the deposit and the months, not with other rewards. The same $1,000 can sit for twelve months for $20 at Public or six months for $100 at tastytrade.
- tastytrade, for $1,000 sitting six months$100
- Public, for the same $1,000 sitting twelve months$20
The two rewards named in test four, as each offer publishes them. Public asks for twice the wait and pays a fifth as much.
Frequently asked
How long is a free stock locked up?
Anywhere from 3 trading days at Robinhood to 12 months at Public and Webull, with moomoo at 60 to 180 days and tastytrade at six months. The deposit is often held longer than the reward.
Can a broker take a bonus back after paying it?
Several reserve the right to. M1 forfeits it on an early withdrawal request, tastytrade can deduct its value from the account balance, moomoo blocks the claim if equity drops below the threshold, and Acorns can rescind or recapture shares already provided.
Does losing money in the market break a bonus?
At tastytrade, no: its rules say trading and market losses do not affect eligibility. At moomoo it can, because the requirement is measured on average assets.
Can I move a free fractional share to another broker?
Generally not in one piece. Public says fractional shares are not transferable, and Webull's are force-liquidated on a transfer out.
The full guide for each
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.