Can you close a bank account after getting the bonus?

The bonus has landed and the account is doing nothing for you. Whether you can close it today depends on two dates the offer terms set, and they are not the same date.

Has the bonus actually been paid?

Check the account, not the calendar. Chase pays the Total Checking bonus "within 15 days" of the requirements being met, and Wells Fargo deposits its Everyday Checking bonus "within 30 calendar days". ^{1 2} Until the credit is in the account, closing forfeits it: Chase requires that "the enrolled account must not be closed or restricted at the time of payout", and Wells Fargo requires that the account "must stay open through the time we attempt to deposit the bonus". ^{1 2}

If the posting window has passed and nothing has landed, the problem is upstream of closing. Work through why a bonus has not posted first.

Is there an early-close window?

This is the clause people miss, because it lives in a different place from the bonus conditions. Some offers print a period after opening, commonly 90 to 180 days, during which closing the account forfeits the bonus or charges an early-close fee. It applies even after the bonus has been paid.

The Chase and Wells Fargo terms we read do not print a fixed window. ^{1 2} That is not the same as having none. Both reserve the right to reverse a bonus, and a bank can also carry an early-closure fee in the account's fee schedule rather than in the offer. Search both documents for close, closure, early and fee, and if neither prints a number, ask in writing.

What counts as promotional abuse?

Both banks name it as a reason to withhold or reverse a bonus. Wells Fargo's terms say it "may close or restrict the account and decline or reverse any bonus" where it suspects promotional abuse. ² Chase's exclusions likewise sit inside terms that describe the bonus as a new-customer offer with a required period of use. ¹

One bonus, earned by the printed conditions and followed by a closure after the printed windows, is not abuse. A pattern of opening accounts for the bonus and closing them the day the money lands is what the clause exists for, and it is also what makes a bank refuse the next offer.

The order that keeps the bonus

1. The bonus posts, and you can see it in the account activity.
2. The posting window in the terms has passed, so there is no pending reversal for a missed condition.
3. Any early-close window printed in the offer or the fee schedule has passed.
4. Then close, and keep the closing confirmation.

Between step 1 and step 4 the account costs you only what its fee schedule says. Meeting the fee waiver, usually a small direct deposit or a minimum balance, is cheaper than a reversed bonus.

What this looks like in CardLab

An enrolled bonus in CardLab carries the safe-to-close date derived from the offer's printed window, and alerts you the morning it passes. Where the offer prints no window, the tracker says so instead of printing a zero, because a missing number is a question for the bank, not an answer.