What is an early termination fee?

Some banks will charge you a fee, usually somewhere between $25 and $50, if you close your account too soon after opening it. The window is typically 90 to 180 days. It's the bank's way of discouraging people who open an account, grab the bonus, and immediately leave. If you're churning bank bonuses, this fee is one of the two account-closing traps to know about.

Here's what the fees actually look like on accounts we track as of August 2026. BMO Smart Advantage charges $50 if you close within 90 days. M&T charges $50 if you close within 180 days. U.S. Bank's Smartly Checking lists a $50 early-closure fee. KeyBank and PNC both charge $25. Meanwhile plenty of banks charge nothing at all: Citi, Regions, Associated Bank, and most credit unions we track have no early closure fee. The fee is bank policy, not an industry standard, so it always pays to check.

The second trap is worse than the fee: the clawback. Some offer terms say the bank can take back the entire bonus if you close within a set window. Associated Bank, for example, charges no closure fee but reserves the right to claw back its bonus if you close within 12 months of opening. A $50 fee stings. Losing a $400 bonus you already collected hurts a lot more. The fee and the clawback are separate rules, and an account can have either, both, or neither, so read the offer terms for both before you plan your exit.

The math matters most on small bonuses. A $50 fee on a $400 bonus is an annoyance. A $50 fee on a $150 bonus wipes out a third of what you earned. The standard approach is simple: note the hold period required for the bonus and the early closure window, and wait until both have passed before closing.

Finding the fee can take some digging, because it usually lives in the account's fee schedule rather than the bonus offer page. We do that digging for you: every bonus page on this site with a known fee shows it as an "Early closing fee" row in the Account Details section, alongside the monthly fee and the hold period. When we haven't confirmed a bank's policy, a quick search for the bank name plus "early account closure fee" will usually turn up what other people have found.