All offers / Bank accounts / What counts as a direct deposit
Banking deep diveWhat counts as a direct deposit? The sentence that decides your bonus.
Companion pieces: Bank bonuses with no direct deposit and Bonus not paid? Run the checklist
People move $1,000 across from their old checking account in week one, watch it arrive, and assume the requirement is met. Ninety days later there is no bonus, because from the bank's side nothing qualifying ever happened. A direct deposit is an electronic payment that somebody else sends into your account through the banking network, because they owe you money: payroll, a pension or government benefits. Money you move yourself never counts, and that is how most of these bonuses are lost.
Every row below traces to that bank's own guide on this site, and every guide traces to terms we read on the provider's own page.
A direct deposit, in plain words
In the United States the network is usually the ACH, the Automated Clearing House, which banks use to move money between accounts in scheduled batches. Your employer's payroll provider tells the ACH to credit your account, and two days later your wages appear with a label attached saying who sent them and why. Two things follow, and they explain the whole exclusion list: somebody other than you has to start the payment, and it arrives labelled, so the bank can see it is payroll. Ally is the only one in this group that says the second part out loud: the deposit "must be clearly identifiable by Ally as such".
Gig platforms are the one wrinkle: some pay by ACH like an employer, and some pay by Original Credit Transaction, an instant push straight to a debit card. Chime and Upgrade both accept an Original Credit Transaction from a gig payer.
Why banks care this much
A bank paying you $400 is not buying a $1,000 balance, it is buying the account your salary lands in: the one you pay bills from, keep a buffer in, and never quite get around to closing. Every excluded item is a way of moving your own money around, and moving your own money proves nothing about where you get paid.
The five failures that account for most missed bonuses
- Pushing your own money in. Closed everywhere. Chase, Axos, Chime and Upgrade all exclude transfers you initiate, and Varo excludes anything deposited using a Varo routing number, which also closes the version where a friend pushes the money in for you.
- Zelle, Venmo, Cash App and PayPal. Person to person payments are named individually in almost every set of terms here; Current lists six apps by name. Whoever originally earned that money, it reaches you as a P2P payment, and a P2P payment is never a direct deposit.
- The check you photograph. It really is your paycheck, and it still fails at Chase, Chime, Current, Axos and Ally alike, whether you photograph it in the app or, at Axos, feed it to an ATM.
- Tax refunds and other one offs. A refund arrives electronically from the government, which is exactly why people expect it to qualify. The test is recurring income, not a government sender. The same Chase page that excludes a tax refund from the bonus names tax refunds as good enough to waive the monthly fee: we set Chase’s two definitions side by side.
- Gig instant pay. The same platform paying you the same money can qualify or not depending on which button you press. Chime counts a recurring scheduled payout from a gig platform and then excludes on demand payouts by name, listing Uber Instant Pay and DoorDash Fast Pay. If you always cash out the moment earnings appear, let one scheduled payout run normally.
Bank by bank: what counts, and what pays nothing
Each bank name links to its full guide. The figure under the name is the direct deposit bar that particular offer sets.
| Bank | What counts | What pays nothing |
|---|---|---|
| Chase $1,000 total within 90 days | An electronic deposit of your paycheck, pension or government benefits, sent by your employer or the government. The $1,000 is cumulative, so several paychecks add up. | The widest list we read: branch and Chase app check deposits, Zelle and other person to person payments, micro deposits, external transfers from a bank, brokerage or investment account, tax refunds, dividends, retirement distributions, debit card transactions and wires. |
| Chime One deposit of $200+ within 45 days | An ACH deposit or an Original Credit Transaction from an employer or payroll provider, a gig platform paying on a recurring schedule, or a government benefits provider such as Social Security, SSDI, SSI, the VA or state unemployment. | Bank ACH transfers, Pay Anyone transfers, verification or trial deposits, PayPal, Venmo and Cash App, mobile check deposits, cash deposits, one time deposits including tax refunds, and on demand gig payouts, naming Uber Instant Pay and DoorDash Fast Pay. Two $150 deposits also fail, because the $200 must arrive in one. |
| Current $200 of payroll within 45 days | A recurring deposit of your wages or compensation, sent by an employer, a payroll provider or a government payer. Current explicitly includes people paid as independent contractors, as long as the payment recurs. | Non direct deposit ACH transfers, peer to peer transfers between or within banks, transfers from digital wallets and P2P services naming PayPal, Venmo, Cash App, Zelle, Google Pay and Facebook Pay, mobile check deposits, cash deposits, and one time direct deposits such as tax refunds. |
| Varo $500 to $1,000 within 45 days | An electronic deposit of a paycheck, a pension or government benefits, sent by an employer or the government. | Tax refunds and government stimulus payments, person to person payments naming both Venmo and Varo to Anyone, and, uniquely, funds deposited using a Varo routing number. |
| Ally Checking route only, within 60 days | An electronic deposit from an employer payroll, a payroll provider service or a benefits payer such as Social Security or Military Pay, and it must be clearly identifiable by Ally as such. The savings route asks for no direct deposit at all. | Person to person payments such as Zelle, electronic check deposits made with your device, and funds transferred from one Ally account to another. |
| Axos $1,500 within the first 90 days | An electronic ACH deposit of your paycheck or government benefits such as Social Security or Disability. Summit Savings ignores direct deposit entirely and tests your balance instead. | International paychecks, international government benefits, real time payments, online banking transfers, ATM and mobile check deposits, and person to person payments. |
| Upgrade Amount not published anywhere public | A recurring ACH deposit from your employer, payroll or benefits provider or a gig economy payer, or an Original Credit Transaction from a gig economy payer. | One time direct deposits however large, including tax refunds, bank cash transfers, bank verification or trial deposits, peer to peer transfers from services such as PayPal or Venmo, merchant transactions, mobile check deposits, and cash loads or deposits. |
| Marcus No direct deposit test at all | Nothing has to. The Marcus referral reward is a rate boost rather than a payment, so there is no qualifying deposit to get wrong. What it needs instead is an existing customer's link and a balance worth boosting. | Opening cold without anyone's referral link, a CD at any balance, the second owner on a joint account, and anyone who held a Marcus savings account or CD in the last twelve months. |
| OnePay Within 45 days of opening | The most forgiving gate here, because it is an "or": $500 or more of direct deposits in the current or previous month, or a balance of $5,000 or more at the end of the previous month. | In the referral terms we could read, peer to peer transfers, cash deposits and check deposits. The current wording lives inside the app. |
| SoFi $1,000 pays $50, $5,000 pays $400, in 25 days | A recurring ACH deposit of regular income, including payroll, pension or government benefit payments. | Anything not sent by an employer, payroll or benefits provider or a government agency, and anything non recurring. Venmo pays $0. Note the separate $50 referral deposit is not a direct deposit test at all, and there mobile check deposits and instant transfers do count. |
Figures examined July 25, 2026 against each bank's guide on this site. Terms change, so confirm the current wording on the provider's own page before you open anything.
The pattern across all ten rows
Current and Upgrade both require the deposit to be recurring, so a single payroll push, however large, is not what the terms ask for. Varo bans its own routing number. Chase writes the longest exclusion list but is generous about totals, since $1,000 across three months can be several paychecks.
Three are unusually kind. Ally's savings route skips direct deposit entirely, OnePay accepts a balance instead, and Marcus never asks in the first place, because it pays a rate. If your income cannot be redirected, those three are collected in the no direct deposit guide.
How to make sure yours actually counts
- Change it at the source. Give your employer or payroll provider the new routing and account numbers, or file the direct deposit form in your workplace system. A standing transfer from your old bank does not qualify.
- Start in week one. Payroll departments routinely take a full pay cycle to switch. Chime allows 45 days with no extensions, Current 45, SoFi 25 for the direct deposit bonus.
- Check the label on the first deposit. If your transaction list describes the money as a transfer instead of a payroll deposit, you have found the problem while there is still time to fix it.
- Do not close or restrict the account before payout. Chase, Ally, Axos and Varo all require the account to be open and in good standing when the bonus is paid.
- Keep the evidence. Dates, amounts and screenshots of how each deposit was labelled. If the bonus does not arrive, that is the difference between a real review and a template reply: see the bonus not paid checklist.
Other definitions that decide whether you qualify
Every one of these is read from the company’s own document and dated. See all 59 questions we have answered.