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TurboTax’s 20% off applies to your federal return, and to nothing else on the bill.
October 31, 2026 is when the whole thing shuts, and it is the one date Intuit’s two pages agree about exactly. Intuit layers its terms, and the layer that binds is not the referral marketing page but the Refer a Friend terms and conditions, which announce themselves as updated as of October 27, 2025 and open by telling you that taking part makes a binding agreement between you and Intuit Inc. Read side by side, the two pages disagree about money in a way worth knowing before you count on any of it.
What pays what
| You, new to TurboTax, buying a paid federal return online or with an expert | 20% off |
|---|---|
| The person whose invitation link you used, per qualifying purchase | Amount "may vary" |
| That same person, in total, however many friends they bring | Capped at $500 |
| Your state return, on the same link | Not eligible |
| TurboTax Free Edition, CD and download products, other add-ons | Not eligible |
| Anyone who filed tax year 2024 with TurboTax | Not a new customer |
| Anyone outside the United States | Excluded |
| This site, for writing this page | Nothing |
The state return is a separate charge on most TurboTax bills and the discount does not touch it, so 20% off is 20% off part of what you pay. And "new customer" is defined backwards in time: a new TurboTax customer is "someone who did not file in the previous tax year 2024 with TurboTax". Somebody who used TurboTax in 2023 and left can qualify; somebody who filed there for tax year 2024 cannot, whosever link they click.
Do this, in this order
- Ask a person for the link, because a website cannot legally give you one. The binding terms tell an Advocate, which is Intuit’s word for the person sharing, "Not to share the invitation/referral link with any third party discount, coupon or affiliate program site as part of any third party program or in the form of any advertising or promotional placement, whether paid or unpaid." That clause names coupon sites and affiliate sites, and "whether paid or unpaid" closes the usual escape hatch that an unpaid editorial mention is somehow different. So if a page waves a TurboTax referral link at you, either it is not really the referral link, or somebody broke the agreement they accepted to put it there. If you came here hunting for a code to paste instead, does TurboTax have a coupon? sorts the discounts that genuinely exist from the ones coupon sites invent, and explains why none of the real ones can reach you from a page like this one.
- Check the calendar before anything else. The link has to be used within a fixed span: purchases count only "using the unique Link provided in the invitation received between October 8, 2025 and October 31, 2026." The friend discount is "good through October 31, 2026." Rewards are redeemable across the same window. One date governs the entire programme, and it is the last day of October 2026.
- Confirm you are new in the way the terms mean it. Not "never used TurboTax", specifically did not file tax year 2024 with TurboTax. This is the single cheapest thing to check and the one most likely to quietly disqualify a household where somebody filed there last time. We took that definition apart on its own page, who counts as a new TurboTax customer, including the backwards result it produces: somebody who left TurboTax after 2023 qualifies, and last year’s loyal customer does not.
- Buy the product the offer actually covers. The 20% applies to "the preparation and filing of their individual federal tax return or business federal tax return through a TurboTax Online or TurboTax Experts product". The exclusion list on your side is explicit: "TurboTax Free Edition, TurboTax State returns, TurboTax CD/Download products, and other add-on offerings are not eligible for the Offer." If you were going to file free, the honest answer is that the link is worth nothing to you, and there is no version of this offer that makes free filing cheaper.
- Do not assume the discount stacks, and check the cart total instead of the badge. Because the best single offer wins automatically, the number to trust is the price you are actually charged, not the percentage you were promised. If TurboTax is running a seasonal promotion worth more than 20%, you keep that one and lose this one, and the referral may stop being a referral in the process. When the 20% is simply not showing up on the bill, that silent swap is the first thing to rule out, ahead of the eligibility and product rules that account for most of the rest.
- Finish the return, do not just buy the product. The terms say "Purchase completion is determined by Intuit in its sole discretion, but may include completion of the use of the product to submit a tax return that is accepted by the relevant tax authority." A purchase that never becomes an accepted filing may not count, which means a rejected e-file you never went back to fix can cost your friend their reward while you have already paid.
The fine print that can still cost somebody the money
Your side of this is comparatively simple, because a discount either lands in the cart or does not. The side that gets complicated is the reward, and it matters to you even if you never share a link, because it is what a friend is agreeing to when they send you theirs.
The $25 is a marketing number, not a contractual one. The referral page says: "For each friend who files using your link, you’ll get a $25 gift card for select retailers. You can earn up to $500 in gift cards." The binding terms say something different, twice: "The amount of the Reward per qualified purchase by Advocate’s Friends may vary, but in all cases the maximum gift card value, donation amount or combination of the two which an Advocate can receive under this Program is capped at $500." Note what survives the move from the poster to the contract. The $500 ceiling does. The $25 does not, and the phrase that replaces it is "may vary".
The earning window and the redemption window close on the same day. Rewards "may be redeemed between October 8, 2025 – October 31, 2026", and the terms also say that "Up to 45 days after an Advocate’s Friend redeems the Offer using the Link from the invitation, the Advocate will be sent an email with Reward information." Put those two sentences side by side and the arithmetic is unkind. A friend who files in the last weeks of the window can trigger a reward whose notification email is allowed to arrive after the day redemption stops. That is our reading of two dates Intuit publishes, not a rule Intuit states, and it is the sharpest edge here: the safe referrals are the early ones.
Free filing earns nobody anything. "Purchases of Free products, TurboTax Free Edition, TurboTax Desktop products, and TurboTax State preparation and filing services do not qualify towards a Reward and are not part of this Program." A great many people who file with TurboTax file free, so the likeliest outcome of sending a friend your link is not a small reward but none at all, because they used the product that costs nothing and pays nothing.
You are contractually required to tell your friend you get paid, in capitals. "AS THE ADVOCATE, YOU MUST INFORM YOUR FRIEND(S) THAT YOU ARE ELIGIBLE TO RECEIVE A REWARD IF THEY MAKE A QUALIFYING PURCHASE FROM INTUIT AND YOU, AS ADVOCATE, AGREE TO DO SO." Failing to do it "is a violation of these Program terms and may result in Your immediate termination from the Program, disqualification from future participation, and forfeiture of any Reward owed to You." Most programmes merely suggest disclosure. This one capitalises it and attaches forfeiture.
You cannot do the obvious favour. The terms state that "You cannot prepare your Friend’s return for them." The most natural way to help somebody use your link, sitting down and doing their taxes with them, is the thing the agreement rules out. There is a one-identity rule too: use "only one email address and one identity", and creating multiple identities, entities or addresses is "immediate grounds for termination and non-payment of any/all Rewards". And no buying attention: "Not to engage in any form of paid advertising of or for the Program."
Exercising a privacy right can delete the money. This one we have seen almost nowhere else. "In the event You or Your Friend submits a request to delete Personal Information to Intuit, such deletion may result in the loss of referral tracking and/or cancellation of any subsequent reward and/or discount in connection with this Program." Ask a company to delete your data, as several state laws entitle you to do, and the tracking that owes you a reward can go with it, with nobody having done anything wrong.
Nothing is guaranteed to arrive, and the ceiling on complaining is $100. "INTUIT DOES NOT GUARANTEE THAT ANY REFERRAL REWARD, ELECTRONIC GIFT CARD, CHARITABLE DONATION OR OTHER ITEM OR STORE OF VALUE WILL ARRIVE ON TIME OR BY ANY SPECIFIC DATE." And the liability clause caps Intuit’s maximum exposure arising out of the Program so that it "WILL NOT EXCEED $100", against a reward the same document caps at $500. Disputes go to "BINDING ARBITRATION OR SMALL CLAIMS COURT, INSTEAD OF IN COURTS OF GENERAL JURISDICTION", with a jury waiver, a class-action waiver, and a 60 day informal resolution period first. Intuit can also "change, interrupt or stop the Program either for a period of time or permanently with or without notice". Taken together, the reward reads as a courtesy Intuit intends to pay and not a debt you could realistically enforce.
And the geography is absolute. "Program only available in the United States", and separately, "You have to be located in the United States of America to participate in this program and redeem your reward." Intuit employees and their households are out, so are government officials, so are sanctioned persons and people doing business in comprehensively sanctioned jurisdictions, and so are military end users as defined by 15 C.F.R. section 744.
- The most one Advocate can receive under the Program, in gift cards, donation or both$500
- Intuit’s maximum exposure arising out of the Program$100
Both ceilings come from the same document, the Refer a Friend terms.
Why this page shows a wordmark instead of a logo
Most companies carry a line asking you to seek permission before using their marks, and most of the time that line is aimed at people implying an endorsement, not at a review site naming the company it writes about. Intuit’s is not that line. Its trademark policy permits the name in plain text "in a descriptive phrase in order to refer to and properly name Intuit’s products", then says outright that "use of the Intuit corporate logo or any Intuit-owned product logos, product trade dress, or designs is strictly not permitted without a written license from Intuit." The permitted-use conditions say the same thing from the other side: any such use must "Be in plain text and not include Intuit’s logo", must "Appear less prominently than your mark or product name", must not use "the colors associated with the respective Intuit logo", and must "Include a disclaimer making clear the material or product has not been approved by Intuit". So the tile at the top of this page is a plain graphite wordmark rather than the logo or its colour, and the foot of the page says plainly that Intuit has approved none of this. We have no licence, so we do not behave as though we had one.
Is there a second TurboTax programme?
When a big brand runs a refer-a-friend scheme it usually also runs a publisher programme that pays websites and gives the reader nothing, and confusing the two is how people end up clicking a link they think is a discount. Here we can only take you halfway. Intuit’s trademark policy refers to anyone who is "a licensed distributor of Intuit’s software under various specific reseller or affiliate sales programs conducted by Intuit", and the same page lists Partner Programs in its navigation, so something of that shape exists. The obvious address for it returns a 404, though, and we found no live, readable page setting out its terms, so we will not describe a programme we have not read. What is settled is the part that affects you: the referral link is the one that carries your 20%, and its terms shut sites like this one out of carrying it.
Is it worth your time?
If you are paying TurboTax to do a federal return this year and somebody in your life already uses it, asking them for their link is worth about a minute, and a fifth off the federal charge is a genuine saving on a genuine price. Everything else here argues for keeping your expectations narrow. The discount does not touch the state return sitting next to it on the bill, it does not exist at all if you were going to file free, it is void for anyone who filed tax year 2024 with TurboTax, and it never stacks, so in any season where a better promotion runs it simply loses. I have read a great many referral agreements and this is not a mean one, but it is a carefully drawn one, and the drawing is all on Intuit’s side of the table. If you are the person sharing the link, treat the reward as a maybe: the amount is allowed to vary, free filers earn you nothing, the total stops at $500, notification can take up to 45 days, and October 31, 2026 ends the earning and the redeeming alike. And tell your friend you get paid. The terms demand it in capital letters, and the penalty for silence is losing the reward you were quiet to protect.
