Best UK bank referral bonuses in 2026: every scheme we've tested

Affiliate disclosure: the guides linked below contain referral links. That's the nature of refer-a-friend: if you use one, the new customer gets the bonus described and we get the referrer's side of the same published reward. Nobody pays us to rank higher, and the order below is by what a new customer actually receives.

If you're looking for banks with a referral bonus in the UK, the honest list is shorter than most roundups suggest. As of June 2026, five banking brands we cover run a refer-a-friend scheme that actually pays new customers: Monzo (a £20, £50 or £100 mystery reward), Tide (£100 in credit for business accounts), American Express (6,000 Avios on the BA Classic card), Yonder (£10 off, two months free and up to 10,000 points) and Zilch (£5 off your first purchase). A sixth may be on the way: Starling began trialling a refer-a-friend scheme in June 2026 that pays both sides £25, but we haven't been able to test it yet, so it sits outside the ranked list for now. The big high-street names (Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds, NatWest, Santander) run no public refer-a-friend schemes at all: they compete for new customers with switching bonuses, which work differently and are covered further down.

Every offer on this page was re-tested at the start of June 2026, and each linked guide shows the exact date that specific scheme last passed our checks.

The five bank referral bonuses compared

Which UK banks have referral bonuses in 2026?

Refer-a-friend is now almost entirely a digital-first thing. Across UK banking, the schemes that exist today split by account type:

• Personal current account: Monzo runs the only established referral bonus among major UK current accounts. Chase doesn't run one, and Starling only began trialling a £25 scheme in June 2026 (covered below, not yet tested). Monzo itself doesn't pay a switching bonus, so the referral is the only sign-up reward it offers.
• Business banking: Tide pays £100, the largest flat referral amount of any scheme here.
• Credit cards: American Express runs the most established referral programme in UK cards, and Yonder (a points-based challenger card) runs the most generous one by total value.
• Pay later: Zilch pays a small £5 reward on sign-up.
• High-street banks: none of Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds, NatWest or Santander currently advertises a public refer-a-friend scheme. First Direct paused its recommend-a-friend scheme some years ago and now competes with a switching bonus, and Nationwide's old £100 referral programme is also long gone.

We cover referral schemes beyond banking too (energy, mobile, investing), but this page sticks to bank accounts, cards and money apps. For the full cross-category list, see every UK referral code we track.

Monzo: £20, £50 or £100 mystery reward

The biggest potential cash bonus of any UK bank referral, and the simplest to qualify for. Join through a referral link (there's no code to type), make any card payment within 30 days, and a mystery reward of £20, £50 or £100 lands in your account a few days later. The referrer receives the same mystery reward. Most people land £20, so treat the £100 as upside rather than the expectation.

Eligibility is strict in one specific way: you must never have held a Monzo account before, even a closed one. You'll also need to be a UK resident aged 16 or over, and the reward only applies to personal current accounts, not joint ones.

Get the link and the full terms on our Monzo referral code page, and if you want to know how the random amounts actually work, we've broken down the odds in Monzo's mystery reward explained.

Tide: £100 of account credit for your business

The largest guaranteed referral amount on this list, but it's for business banking: Tide is a business current account for sole traders and limited companies. Sign up with a referral code, spend £500 on the Tide card within 90 days, and £100 in account credit lands for both you and the referrer.

Tide is also the only scheme here that still uses an actual typed code rather than a tracking link, so you enter it during sign-up. The £500-in-90-days spend requirement is the real qualifier: fine if the card becomes your day-to-day business spending card, pointless if the account would sit empty.

The code and the step-by-step are on our Tide referral code page, and our Tide review covers whether the account itself fits your business before the bonus enters the picture.

American Express: 6,000 Avios on the BA Classic

Applying for the British Airways American Express Classic through a referral link pays a 6,000-Avios welcome bonus, 1,000 more than the standard 5,000 you'd get applying directly. You need to spend £2,000 on the card in the first three months to trigger it, and the card has no annual fee. Existing cardholders can refer up to 15 people a year, with the referrer's reward varying by which Amex they hold.

This is a credit card, so an application means a credit check, and the £2,000 spend target only makes sense if you'd route that spending through the card anyway. If you're weighing Amex against a challenger points card, we've compared them directly in Yonder vs Amex.

Full terms on our American Express referral code page.

Yonder: £10 off, two months free and up to 10,000 points

The most generous referral package by total value, spread across three parts. Joining Yonder's Full plan (£15/month) through a referral link gets you £10 off your first purchase, two months of the membership fee free instead of the standard one, and up to 10,000 bonus points that unlock in tiers as you spend in the first 30 days: 2,000 points at £200, another 3,000 at £500, and the final 5,000 at £1,000. On the free plan, the referral pays £10 off plus up to 1,000 tiered points. Referrers earn 10,000 points on a Full sign-up or 1,000 on a Free one.

Like Amex, it's a credit card with a credit check, and the full 10,000 points require £1,000 of spending in the first month. Our Yonder referral code page has the link, and is Yonder worth it covers the membership maths.

Zilch: £5 off your first purchase

The smallest reward here, but also the lowest effort: sign up through a referral link, get approved for the card, and £5 in Zilch rewards is credited to spend on your first purchase. The referrer gets £5 too.

One honest caveat: Zilch is buy-now-pay-later credit. A £5 bonus is not a reason to start using BNPL, so this one only makes sense if you were going to use Zilch anyway. Our Zilch review covers how the product works; the link is on our Zilch referral code page.

One to watch: Starling's new £25 trial

After years without any public refer-a-friend scheme, Starling began trialling one in June 2026: both the new customer and the referrer receive a guaranteed £25, added to a Space within 7 days of the new customer's first card payment, which must happen within 30 days of opening the account. The code is typed into the app during sign-up, the scheme caps at 10 successful referrals per referrer, and it applies to personal current accounts only.

It isn't in the ranked list above because it fails the test this page is named after: we haven't been able to test it yet. The trial is rolling out gradually and we don't have a working referral code so far. Our Starling referral page explains the scheme in full and will carry a tested code as soon as we have one; until the trial settles, treat the terms as subject to change.

Referral bonus or switching bonus: which pays more?

These get lumped together, but they're different mechanisms and they don't compete for the same decision:

• A referral bonus comes from an existing customer's link or code. You open a new account alongside whatever you already have. Nothing closes, no direct debits move, and the amounts are smaller: £5 to £100 across the five schemes above.
• A switching bonus comes from the bank itself, requires a full switch through the Current Account Switch Service (CASS), and usually closes your old account as part of the process. When the big banks run them, they're typically £100 to £200, but they appear and vanish with marketing cycles rather than running permanently.

In practice you rarely have to choose between them for the same bank. None of the five referral schemes on this page requires a switch, and the banks that pay switching bonuses don't run referral schemes. If you want both, they come from different banks: keep your old account, collect a referral bonus on a new digital account, and save the CASS switch (and your old account's closure) for whenever a high-street bank's switching offer is live and worth it.

How we test these offers

Every referral scheme listed on this site is re-checked monthly: we open the live landing page, confirm the advertised reward still matches what each guide says, and re-read the qualifying terms. The date on each brand guide is the date that specific offer last passed, not a calendar stamp. When a scheme breaks or gets paused (it happens; brands pull referral programmes with no notice), the guide says so prominently rather than quietly carrying on. The full process is on our methodology page.

All five ranked offers above were last tested in early June 2026. Starling's new trial is the flagged exception: listed for completeness, but without a tested code yet.

Bank referral bonus FAQs

Which UK bank has the biggest referral bonus?

Monzo has the biggest potential bonus: a mystery reward of £20, £50 or £100, although most people receive £20. The biggest guaranteed amount is Tide's £100 account credit, which is for business accounts and requires £500 of card spending within 90 days.

Do Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds or NatWest pay refer-a-friend bonuses?

No. As of June 2026, none of the major UK high-street banks runs a public refer-a-friend scheme. They compete for new customers with switching bonuses instead, which require a full account switch through CASS. If a page claims a current Barclays or HSBC referral code, treat it with suspicion.

Do Starling, Chase or Revolut have referral schemes?

Chase doesn't run a referral bonus at all. Starling spent years without one, but began trialling a refer-a-friend scheme in June 2026 that pays both sides £25; it's new enough that we haven't been able to test it yet. Revolut has run invitation campaigns for existing customers on and off, but there's no standing public scheme you can rely on being live. Among UK personal current accounts, Monzo's is the only long-established referral bonus.

Can I get a referral bonus and a switching bonus at the same time?

Not from the same bank, in practice: the banks that pay referral bonuses don't pay switching bonuses, and vice versa. But the schemes don't conflict across banks. Opening a Monzo account through a referral link doesn't involve CASS, so your existing account stays open and you remain free to use it for a switching offer elsewhere later.

How many bank referral bonuses can I claim?

One per brand, as a new customer. Every scheme here is for genuinely new customers only, and previously holding an account (even a closed one) usually disqualifies you. Across different brands there's no shared limit: nothing stops one person collecting the Monzo, Yonder and Zilch rewards separately, beyond each brand's own eligibility checks.

You might also like

• Best second UK bank account to pair with Monzo
• Is Monzo worth it? An honest review after 9 years
• Yonder vs Amex referral: which rewards card is better?

Referral bonuses change and break without notice. Each guide linked above shows the date that offer was last tested, and the full comparison of every UK referral code we track is updated as schemes move.