You can, but it’s not a strategy we recommend for earning passive income. Criteria for obtaining a bonus can be cumbersome, requiring you to keep the account open for a certain length of time, make qualifying direct deposits (sometimes in the thousands) and maintain daily balance amounts, not to mention the monthly maintenance fees associated with many checking and savings accounts.
Also, some banks will disqualify you from earning a bonus offer if you’ve had a negative balance in the past. Chase, for example, disqualifies customers from bonus offers if they’ve had a negative balance within the last three years.
If you do decide to try your luck scoring welcome bonuses by opening multiple accounts, it’s important to know that you’ll owe taxes on any money earned through these signup bonuses.
