How the tiers work
eToro's welcome bonus is tiered by deposit size, which is the single most important thing to understand about it and the thing the advertising works hardest to obscure.
Reported structures have started at around $40 for a $500 deposit and reached a maximum in the region of $500 for deposits of $10,000 or more. The reward is credited in free stocks or cryptocurrency rather than cash.
Every advertisement for this offer leads with the top figure. Almost nobody opening a first account deposits ten thousand dollars, so for the realistic reader the relevant number is the bottom of the range, not the top.
Find your own tier before anything else
Work out what you were going to deposit, then look up the bonus for that tier. That is the number that applies to you. A tiered offer quoted at its ceiling is advertising, not information.
And never size a deposit to reach a tier. Depositing $10,000 you did not intend to deposit, to earn $500 locked for three months, is not a good trade.
The 90-day lock
The bonus is credited within roughly a week of qualifying, then locked for about 90 days before it can be used freely.
Shorter than Robinhood's eighteen months, far shorter than Crypto.com's year-long CRO commitments, and still long enough to matter for one reason: the reward is credited as an asset, not as cash.
A $500 bonus is worth $500 at the moment it is credited. Ninety days later it is worth whatever the stocks or crypto you were given are worth. That can go either way, and it is the difference between a cash rebate and what is really an asset grant with a holding period.
This is the same point we make about every token-denominated reward on this site, from Gemini's crypto payouts to Bitrefill's Sats Back. Denominating a reward in a volatile asset transfers price risk to you, and the headline figure never mentions it.
The referral side
Separate from the welcome bonus, and structured like Kraken's.
Reported terms pay around $30 per successful referral, capped at roughly ten friends. To qualify, the referred person must sign up through the link, verify their identity, and deposit at least $100 within 30 days.
The pattern by now should be familiar: a fixed per-unit payment with a cap, advertised as the cap. Dividing the headline by the maximum number of referrals gives you the number that matters for one introduction, and that is the calculation to run on any referral programme you encounter.
The conditions are reasonable and serve the same purpose as Kraken's. An exchange pays to acquire a funded, verified customer, not a registration, so the terms filter for exactly that.
Why there is no code
Search volume for "eToro promo code" is substantial, and the honest answer is that the welcome bonus does not use one.
eToro's bonus system runs through partner links. Some third-party sources list specific strings for unrelated discounts on other services, but the tiered welcome offer is claimed by arriving through a link, not by typing anything at checkout.
That makes most "eToro promo code" pages exactly what our main promo codes page describes: referral links dressed as coupons, on sites that rank by volume rather than accuracy. The giveaway is a list of codes with no dates, no terms, and a freshness badge on every entry.
If somebody sends you a genuine referral link and you want to use it, the safest method is to type etoro.com yourself and enter any referral identifier during signup rather than following an unknown redirect. Our safety guide explains why counterfeit broker pages buy advertising against these exact searches.
Regional availability
More variable here than for most platforms covered on this site, and worth checking before you plan around any figure.
UK eligibility for the tiered welcome bonus has come and gone across years, which is unsurprising given the FCA's restrictions on incentives to invest in cryptoassets. Our UK page explains why British users see a much sparser promotional landscape than almost anywhere else, and why that is deliberate policy rather than an oversight.
US availability has been reported as a tiered crypto deposit bonus with a lower ceiling than the international offer, subject to state-level eligibility. As with every US financial product, what you can access depends on where you live. Our US page covers checking that properly.
The summary
eToro's offer is honest enough in its mechanics: deposit more, get more, wait ninety days. The problem is purely presentational. Every page advertising it leads with a number that requires a five-figure deposit.
Find your tier, halve your expectations about what the locked asset will be worth, and judge the platform on its spreads instead.