Citi Priority Tier Review: Premium Banking for High Earners
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- Fee
- $30 per month
- Minimum deposit to open
- $30,000
Our verdict
Get the most benefit if you’re an international traveler or amping up your wealth strategy.
Citi Priority is one of four relationship tiers at Citibank, sitting between the standard Everyday Benefits tier and the more exclusive Citigold. It's available to new customers who choose it at account opening. However, you must maintain a $30,000 Combined Average Monthly Balance (CAMB) across eligible deposit, retirement and investment accounts with Citi within the first three months. If you can meet this requirement, there can be a lot of perks, like no monthly service fees, no Citi fees at non-Citi ATMs, waived foreign exchange fees on your debit card, higher Zelle and debit card spending limits and access to financial advisors through Citi Personal Wealth Management.
Best for: High-earners who want to make Citi their main bank.
Pros
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Signup bonus
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No ATM fees
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No foreign exchange fees
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Financial advisers
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Preferred pricing and perks
Cons
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High monthly service fee
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Keep your account open
Who is Citi Priority best for?
The Citi Priority tier acts as a package of bank accounts linked under one account name to give you access to its perks and benefits.
To get Citi Priority, you must open a checking or savings account in the Citi Priority Relationship Tier, and then maintain balance requirements to waive the associated fee.
This account works best if you keep a lot of cash on hand or have a large amount of money across all your bank, retirement and investment accounts.
To qualify for a Citi relationship tier, you must maintain a specific balance to get Citigold Private Client, Citigold or Citi Priority status. In the Citi Priority case, this means maintaining at least $30,000 across your Citi accounts.
You’ll get the most benefit from the Citi Priority tier if you keep all of your cash and investments with Citi. That way, you can reach their financial professionals for advice on your personal wealth strategy.
What we like about Citi Priority tier
This relationship tier is designed for folks who want to do most or all of their banking with Citi, and can meet high balance requirements.
Waived fees for a lot of banking services
If you’re in the Citi Priority tier, you will get monthly service fees waived on other accounts. For example, you could get the $5 monthly fee waived for Access Checking.
You also get money orders, official checks, stop payments and standard checkbook orders all waived — fees that add up quietly at standard tiers.
Travel-friendly debit card
The Citi Priority tier also works well if you regularly travel or send money abroad. Citi will not charge a foreign exchange fee for purchases or withdrawals when you use your Citibank Debit Card outside the US and Puerto Rico. Citi’s foreign exchange fee is usually 3%.
World Wallet foreign currency delivery fees are also waived. And if you need support while abroad, toll-free access to Priority Citiphone service is included when traveling.
Higher limits at ATMs and Zelle
Citi Priority customers get a daily ATM/debit card cash withdrawal limit of up to $2,000 per account per business day (versus $1,500 for standard-tier customers).
Your daily debit card PIN-based and signature purchase limit is also increased to $10,000 per account, when it’s normally up to $5,000 for standard customers.
Citi also states that Zelle transfer limits are also higher when compared to non-relationship tier customers, but the exact increase isn’t disclosed.
Lending discounts
Plan to do your borrowing with Citi? Then good news, because Citi Priority customers receive a 0.25% rate discount to the APR on personal loans and tiered interest rate and/or closing cost discounts on Citi mortgages based on eligible balances.
What could be better
To attain and remain in the Citi Priority tier, you must maintain a combined average monthly balance of $30,000 to $199,999.99.
To meet this requirement, balances can include checking, savings, CDs, IRAs and linked investment accounts — but yeesh, that’s still a high requirement. If your balance falls below this threshold for three consecutive calendar months, Citi will automatically demote to a non-relationship tier.
High monthly fee without meeting requirements
Keep in mind that you’ll be paying a hefty $30 monthly fee unless you meet minimum balance requirements, which is higher than most accounts we’ve seen.
If you’re not interested in obtaining advice from Citi’s financial advisers or in their product discounts, you can find plenty of other premium checking accounts that offer similar perks.
Compare with other checking accounts
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How we picked theseWhat 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.
Bethany Finder
Banking editor
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