What Counts as a Direct Deposit for FourLeaf Bonuses?
FourLeaf files every incoming transfer under a spending category, and a deposit only counts when it lands in the one labeled Paychecks/Salary. Based on 184 community data points, employer payroll, Current pushes, and Chase Business payroll all have clean recent records, while Relay, Discover, and Fidelity pushes have failed. Only the first $350 of the headline $550 is near-term money.
What FourLeaf Federal Credit Union Officially Requires
The headline number on this offer is $550, but only $350 of it is near-term. FourLeaf Federal Credit Union pays $350 when you receive one recurring qualifying direct deposit of $500 or more within 90 days of opening a Free, Smart, or Student Checking account. The remaining $200 arrives as two later $100 payments: one after you keep a qualifying monthly deposit of $500 or more running for 12 consecutive months, and a second after 24 consecutive months. Each piece is paid within 60 days of qualifying, so treat the $350 as the real target and the other two as long-hold money. Membership requires a FourLeaf Savings Account funded with $5, and membership is open nationwide even though the branches are not. FourLeaf's terms define a qualifying deposit as a recurring payroll, pension, or government deposit, and rule out ATM deposits, debit card transfers, online transfers, and Zelle by name. What the terms do not tell you is the mechanic that actually decides the outcome. FourLeaf files each incoming transfer under a spending category, and the deposit only counts when it lands in the one labeled Paychecks/Salary. Across the 105 direct deposit reports on this page, three routes have real depth. Employer payroll worked in 32 of 33 reports spanning October 2023 through September 2026, and the single exception was not a coding failure at all: that member got two real payroll deposits to post and was then told that former Bethpage bonus recipients are ineligible, which is an eligibility rule rather than a deposit problem. FourLeaf was Bethpage Federal Credit Union before the rename and treats itself as the same institution for bonus history. Current pushes are the strongest fintech route in this dataset: 27 worked, none failed, one is inconclusive, and every one of those reports landed between early July and early September 2026. Chase Business payroll is 10 for 10 over the same stretch. Two Capital One Business pushes and two LemFi transfers also worked, in September and August 2026, though two reports each is thin. One detail runs through the successful Current reports and is worth copying. Members who put payroll in the memo field saw the transfer arrive as an external deposit categorized Paychecks/Salary, and an August 2026 report explicitly lists a Current ACH push with a blank memo among the transfers that did not get that category. The memo is not a magic word, though. Relay pushes sent with a Payroll memo still failed.
See the FourLeaf Free Checking bonus page for full requirements and the current offer.
Direct Deposit Methods 12
Each card shows a transfer source with community-verified results. Click to see individual data points with links to the original reports.
Data sourced from bank-bonus community reports and Doctor of Credit. View all FourLeaf Federal Credit Union direct deposit data points →
What Does NOT Count at FourLeaf Federal Credit Union
How to Verify Your Deposit Counted
Open the transaction in FourLeaf online banking or the mobile app and look at the spending category, not just the description. A qualifying transfer shows up as an external deposit filed under Paychecks/Salary. Anything sitting under a generic deposit category has not counted, and members who caught that early were able to send a second push inside the 90-day window and still get paid. FourLeaf is unusually fast once you qualify. Across the 79 payout reports on this page, the median gap from account opening to the bonus landing is 23 days and the ten most recent average 27 days, well inside the 60 days the terms allow. Several members report the $350 arriving labeled as an interest adjustment rather than a bonus, so do not go looking for the word bonus in your activity feed. Two things to plan around beyond the deposit itself. Membership means opening the $5 savings account, and applications do go to manual review: multiple recent reports describe an online application sitting pending for days before approval, and one member was denied online and then approved on a second try over a video call. And if you collected a Bethpage checking bonus in the past, expect FourLeaf to treat that as the same institution and decline to pay. For comparison, see what counts as direct deposit at SoFi for another bank where Current pushes are a documented route, or what counts as direct deposit at Chase for a much stricter definition that still accepts Chase Business payroll the way FourLeaf does. For a cross-bank comparison of which transfer methods work and which don't, see the complete guide to what counts as a direct deposit for bank bonuses.
Related Guides
What is a direct deposit?
How direct deposits work and why banks require them for bonuses.
ACH push vs. ACH pull
Why the direction of your transfer matters for triggering bonuses.
Does Zelle count as direct deposit?
Why Zelle almost never works for bank bonus requirements.
What is an ACH transfer?
The banking system that processes most electronic transfers.