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How to Avoid a Monthly Maintenance Fee
Monthly fees are annoying, but they’re entirely avoidable.
One of the best ways to avoid a monthly maintenance fee is to get a bank account that doesn’t charge one from the jump.
How can you avoid a monthly maintenance fee?
Banks charge monthly maintenance fees to cover operating costs, like staff salaries, maintaining physical branches and ATMs, and other infrastructure. In exchange for accessing the bank’s services, you pay a monthly maintenance fee.
Depending on the bank and the account type, monthly maintenance fees are usually around $5 to $25 per month, which can mean paying anywhere from $60 to $300 annually just to keep the account open.
So, how do you avoid these monthly maintenance fees on checking, savings or money market accounts?
There are three main ways to avoid these pesky fees:
- Meet the bank’s requirements to get them waived
- Ask for no-fee options, such as student, senior or military accounts
- Open an account that doesn’t charge monthly fees
Hot tip
Banks and credit unions are legally allowed to charge you a maintenance fee on various deposit accounts. However, the bank must display the fee when you open the account, and they can’t charge more than what was advertised.
1. Meet the bank’s requirements to get them waived
Many banks charge monthly maintenance fees, but most also offer ways to waive those fees.
For example, the Chase Total Checking account normally has a $15 monthly maintenance fee. But you can waive that monthly fee by meeting one of the following criteria:
- Receive direct deposits totaling $500 or more per month
- Keep a balance of $1,500 or more at the beginning of each statement period
- Maintain an average balance of $5,000 or more at the beginning of each statement period, including qualifying linked deposits and investments
Before opening a checking, savings or money market account, ask the institution about any possible fee waivers available. Most fee waivers require setting up direct deposit or meeting a minimum balance requirement.
2. Ask for no-fee options, such as student, senior or military accounts
If you want to avoid a monthly maintenance fee and you’re part of a specific demographic, you might be lucky enough to qualify for an account that skips them.
- Student accounts. There are lots of student accounts that don’t charge monthly fees while you’re in school, or until you’re age 24 or 25.
- Senior accounts. Plenty of senior accounts don’t charge monthly fees for those aged 55 to 60 and up.
- Military accounts. For military members and their families, there are specialized institutions designed for service members that don’t charge monthly fees, such as Navy Federal Credit Union. Several bank accounts, like the Chase Premier Plus Checking account, waive monthly maintenance fees for active service members or veterans.
- Kids’ banking. Some kids’ bank accounts don’t charge monthly fees for children and teens under 18. Just remember that these accounts require an adult co-owner.
If you’re a senior, student or service member, there’s a good chance your bank or credit union will offer special benefits for bank accounts, including waiving monthly fees or extra perks like ATM rebates or free checks. Doesn’t hurt to ask!
3. Open an account that doesn’t charge monthly fees
Instead of jumping through hoops to avoid a monthly maintenance fee, it’s probably easier to just open a bank account that doesn’t charge them at all.
Some top accounts that don’t charge a monthly maintenance fee for all account holders include:
- SoFi Checking and Savings
- Varo Bank Accounts
- Wealthfront Cash Account
- Chime Checking Account
- American Express High Yield Savings
Compare more top bank accounts
Narrow down top checking accounts by monthly maintenance fees, APYs and features.
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How we picked these
What is the Finder Score?
The Finder Score crunches over 300 checking accounts from hundreds of financial institutions. It takes into account the product's monthly fees, overdraft fees, opening deposit, customer support options, ATM network and features — this gives you a simple score out of 10.
To provide a Score, Finder’s banking experts analyze hundreds of checking accounts against what we consider is the best option: no monthly fees, no overdraft fees, a large ATM network of 50,000 or more, additional features outside of typical banking services, and the optional perk of earning interest. Accounts that are nearly free to maintain and use are scored the highest, while accounts with costly fees and few features are scored the lowest.
Bottom line
While many checking and savings accounts offer fee waivers, it’s probably easier to just choose a bank account that doesn’t charge monthly maintenance fees at all.
Compare the best free checking accounts or the best savings accounts.
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