Truist Bank Bonuses: $500 Checking Offer and Requirements

The Truist $500 checking bonus goes to new One Checking customers who enter the promo code when they open the account. Within 120 days, they must also receive at least two qualifying direct deposits totaling $2,000 or more and make 20 qualifying debit card purchases. The offer runs until Feb 2, 2027, and only residents of certain states can open the account. Truist pays the $500 into the new account within about four weeks after you meet the requirements, as long as the account is still open, in good standing and has a positive balance.

Both conditions have to be met inside the same 120-day window. If you finish the deposits but make only 19 purchases, you do not qualify, and the same is true the other way around.

Who is eligible

Truist runs personal banking in a set footprint, and the promotion follows it. To qualify you need to:

• Live in an eligible state or D.C.: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia or Washington, D.C.
• Be at least 18 and a U.S. resident with a taxpayer identification number.
• Not be a Truist employee or otherwise affiliated with the bank.
• Be a new personal checking customer. You cannot have a Truist personal checking account now. You are also excluded if you had one and closed it on or after a cutoff date set in the offer terms.

The rule covers personal checking only, so a Truist savings account, credit card or loan does not exclude you. Truist was created in 2019 when BB&T and SunTrust merged. Former BB&T or SunTrust checking customers should check whether their account became a Truist account before it was closed, and compare the closing date with the cutoff in the terms.

How to earn the bonus, step by step

1. Open One Checking through the offer page and enter the promo code. Without the code, or through a different link, the account opens normally but never earns the bonus, and getting a missing code added afterward is not guaranteed. Save a screenshot of the confirmation screen showing the code was accepted.
2. Fund the account with at least $50. This opening minimum is separate from the direct deposit requirement.
3. Redirect your direct deposits early so payroll processing delays do not use up the 120-day window.
4. Spread the 20 debit card purchases across the first few weeks instead of leaving them for the end.
5. Keep the account open, in good standing and above zero until the bonus posts. That can be about four weeks after you qualify, so plan to keep the account active past day 120.

Meeting the direct deposit requirement

Qualifying direct deposits include payroll and government benefit payments, such as Social Security. The terms set a minimum count (two) and a minimum total ($2,000). For example, ten payroll deposits that add up to $2,000 meet both conditions, provided each one counts as a qualifying direct deposit. So do two $1,000 deposits, or one $1,500 deposit followed by a $500 deposit. A single $2,000 deposit is not enough, because it is only one deposit.

Transfers you start yourself from another bank are not employer payroll or benefit payments, so do not rely on them to count. Mobile check deposits and teller deposits are not direct deposits at all. If your employer lets you split your paycheck, you can send part of each check to Truist. That counts toward the deposit tally while the rest keeps going to your current bank, as long as the Truist portions add up to $2,000 across at least two deposits.

Hitting 20 debit card purchases

Twenty purchases in 120 days averages a little over one per week, but they must be made with the Truist debit card. Cash withdrawals, transfers and bill payments sent from the account are not card purchases. Ways to get there without changing your spending:

• Break up routine spending. Use the Truist card for groceries, gas, coffee and household items.
• Move small recurring charges such as a streaming service or phone bill to the debit card. Each billing cycle adds a purchase.
• Split transactions. Three separate store visits count as three purchases. One combined trip counts as one.
• Track the count yourself as each purchase posts.
• Leave margin at the end. A purchase made on day 119 may not post until after the window closes. Finish well before day 120 and add a few extra in case a transaction is reversed or refunded.

The dollar amount of the purchases does not matter, so twenty small purchases meet the requirement just as well as twenty large ones.

Account fees and the real cost of the bonus

One Checking charges a $12 monthly maintenance fee. Truist waives it in any statement cycle where you meet one of these:

1. $500 or more in qualifying direct deposits during the cycle
2. A combined balance of $500 or more across related Truist accounts
3. A personal Truist credit card, mortgage or consumer loan (including LightStream loans)
4. A linked Truist small business checking account
5. Student status
6. Being under 25, or 62 or older

The waiver is checked per statement cycle, which matters during the bonus period. The 120-day window covers roughly four statement cycles. Suppose your $2,000 arrives as two $1,000 deposits in the first cycle, and you keep no other Truist balances. The first cycle’s fee is waived, but the next three may each be charged $12. In that example, a $36 fee would cut the bonus to $464 before taxes. Without any waiver for all four cycles, the cost would be about $48 (assuming four cycles at $12). Routing at least $500 of direct deposits into the account each cycle, or keeping a $500 combined balance, avoids the fee altogether. People in the age or student groups never pay it.

One Checking charges no overdraft fees. Other charges still apply:

• Out-of-network ATM: $3 per withdrawal in the U.S., $5 internationally
• Paper statements: $3

Switch to electronic statements when you open the account, and use Truist ATMs if you need cash. Then the monthly fee is the only charge that can reduce the bonus.

What the $500 is worth after fees and taxes

Truist reports the bonus on Form 1099-INT for the year it is paid, and it is taxed like interest income. Hypothetical example: a filer in the 22% federal bracket who pays no monthly fees would owe $110 in federal tax on the bonus and keep $390, before any state income tax. The same filer who paid $36 in monthly fees would keep about $354. Because the bonus is reported in the year it posts, a bonus earned late in the year but paid in January goes on the next year’s return.

$500 on $2,000 of direct deposits is a 25% return, and your money is not locked up: the deposits are your own pay, and you can spend them normally. The real cost is the time it takes to redirect payroll, the effort of 20 card purchases and the risk of a monthly fee if you skip the waivers. That effort is small for someone who already uses a debit card and can split a paycheck. Someone who pays almost everything by credit card for rewards gives up some card rewards for about four months.

To compare offers from other banks, subtract the fees you would realistically pay from each bonus and estimate taxes on the rest. Then check whether the requirements match how you already bank. A larger bonus that needs a high balance held for months can be worth less than this one if that money would otherwise earn interest. Run the same calculation on an offer with a different structure, such as the Chase checking and savings bonus, before choosing.

One Checking vs. Marquee Checking

Truist has also attached the $500 bonus, with the same deposit and debit purchase requirements, to its Marquee Checking account. The two accounts differ mainly in the fee:

For most people, Marquee costs more to hold while chasing the bonus. Without the $250,000 balance or a Truist Wealth relationship, four cycles at $35 would cost about $140, which cuts the bonus by more than a quarter. Marquee makes sense only for someone who already holds that much at Truist or plans to. Because the new-customer rule covers all personal checking, you cannot earn the bonus on both accounts.

How we checked Truist

We visited truist.com on 13 November 2026, connecting from Tallinn, Estonia. The homepage carried the title “Truist Bank | Checking, Savings, Lending, and Financial Services.” In the footer, the bank identifies itself as “Truist Bank, Member FDIC.” It also names Truist Investment Services, Inc. as an SEC registered broker-dealer and member FINRA and SIPC. Insurance licence numbers sit there too, among them CA License #0H18131 for Marsh & McLennan Agency, LLC. From the footer we clicked through to the commercial banking section, the About us page and the terms and conditions.

Now the prices. The checking page promises $500 after you open a new eligible checking account and complete qualifying activities. It lists a $50 minimum opening deposit and a monthly maintenance fee of “$12 or $0.” Overdraft fees are also listed there: “Overdraft-related fees None.” Savers get a different pitch. The CD page offered 3.25% APY on a 12-month CD for balances of $100,000 and above. We did not start an application, so we cannot say at what point the bank asks you to sign in or create a profile.

On the same day we searched FDIC BankFind Suite twice, once by bank name and once by web address. Both searches returned Truist Bank, certificate 9846, insured since 01/01/1934, with headquarters at 214 N Tryon St Charlotte, NC 28202 and website www.truist.com. That record matches the footer claim.

Customer sentiment looks far worse. We read Trustpilot on 13 November 2026. Truist scored 1.2/5 from 2,241 reviews, and 94% of them were one-star. The profile is not claimed, and the company had replied to none of the 8 newest reviews. The Wayback Machine’s first capture of the domain dates from 2001-03-02. We did not look up the insurance licences or the broker-dealer registration in their own registers, and we did not test the bonus ourselves. Those parts of this review rest on Truist’s published wording.

After the bonus posts

Once the bonus posts, decide whether to keep the account. If you still qualify for a fee waiver, One Checking costs nothing to keep and gives you a no-overdraft-fee backup account. If you move your direct deposits back to your main bank and lose the waiver, the $12 fee returns each cycle. Closing also affects future offers: because the new-customer rule counts checking accounts closed on or after a set date, opening and quickly closing an account can keep you out of a later Truist promotion.