Every major brokerage runs a sign-up bonus right now, and there's no rule against opening more than one. Robinhood, moomoo, Webull, LongBridge, Acorns, tastytrade, SoFi, and Public.com all pay for a genuinely new account — which means the same person can legitimately collect from several of them at once. The bonuses aren't the hard part. The terms are.
What "new customer" actually means
Every offer is gated on being a first-time account holder, verified against your SSN — not your email or device. Moomoo's current welcome bonus, for example, excludes anyone who opened a brokerage account before a fixed cutoff date, and explicitly caps it at one reward per person, not per account. Open a second moomoo account to double up and the second one simply won't qualify.
This is where stacking works and where it breaks. Stacking across different brokerages is fine — Robinhood, moomoo, and SoFi have no relationship to each other and no way to see your other accounts. Stacking within one brokerage, or re-registering after closing an old account, doesn't. If you've ever funded a brokerage account before, assume that broker already knows.
The funding window and the holding period are two separate traps
Most offers have two clocks, not one. First, a funding window — deposit a minimum amount within a set number of days of opening the account. Second, a holding period after that — leave the funds (and often the bonus itself) in the account for a stretch of time, commonly 90 days to a year, sometimes longer. Public.com's retirement-match offers, for instance, carry a holding period measured in years, not months.
Miss the funding window and you never get the bonus. Pull money out before the holding period ends and most brokers claw it back — not a penalty, a full reversal. Read both numbers before you fund anything. "Deposit $100 to get $50" and "keep $100 in for 12 months to keep $50" are different offers wearing the same headline.
The bonus is taxable the moment you receive it
A free-stock or cash bonus counts as ordinary income, not a gift and not a capital gain — even though you didn't do any work to earn it. Cash bonuses typically show up on a 1099-MISC (or occasionally a 1099-INT if the offer is structured as interest) once they cross $600 in a tax year. Free-stock bonuses are valued at fair market value on the day the shares hit your account, and that value is what gets reported.
Two details catch people off guard. Under $600 with no 1099 issued doesn't mean untaxed — you're still required to report it as other income. And brokers generally don't withhold anything, so if you're stacking five or six bonuses in a year, that's five or six line items you need to account for yourself when you file, not a surprise the IRS will let slide. The IRS gets a copy of every 1099 issued in your name, and mismatches tend to surface as a notice well over a year later.
Before you open the next account, check
- The exact funding deadline and minimum deposit — not just the bonus headline
- The holding period, and whether early withdrawal claws back the bonus, the deposit, or both
- Whether you've ever held an account at that broker before, under any name or email — the SSN check doesn't care
- Whether the offer is stackable with other promos at the same broker, or limited to one welcome bonus per person
- What the bonus will be worth on your tax return, and whether you're setting aside cash to cover it
Run those five checks per offer and stacking across eight brokerages isn't a loophole — it's just reading the terms before everyone else does.