- Sign-up bonus
- Free Trading Bonus: trading fees refunded on up to €10,000 of volume in the first 7 days, plus a campaign welcome bonus (cash, crypto or a crypto bundle) where available
- Fee discount (kickback)A kickback is the share of your own trading fees the platform hands back to you, usually for as long as the account exists.
- 100% of trading fees refunded during the 7-day, €10,000 window; no lasting discount afterwards
- Referrer reward
- Inviter gets a campaign bonus when you meet the requirements, plus 15% of your trading fees, paid daily in euro and capped at €500 per month
- KYCKnow Your Customer: identity verification with an ID document and often a selfie, required by regulated platforms before bonuses or withdrawals.
- Required: identity verification plus bank account (IBAN) verification
- Withdrawable?
- Fee refunds are paid in euro immediately. Welcome bonuses carry a 180-day withdrawal lock unless the campaign says otherwise.
- Availability
- Residents of countries where the campaign runs, shown in the Campaign Hub (EEA-focused)
- How the bonus unlocksWhat you must do (deposit, trade a volume, hold funds) before the bonus becomes usable or withdrawable.
- The 7 days start when you create the account, not when verification finishes. Welcome bonus requires a EUR deposit or trading volume set by the campaign.
How to claim it, step by step
- Step 1
Register with the referral code attached
Use a referral link or type the code into the referral field while creating the account. The 7-day Free Trading clock starts at this moment.
- Step 2
Verify your identity and bank account right away
Complete ID verification and link your bank account (IBAN). Do it the same day, because unverified days still count against the 7-day window.
- Step 3
Deposit euros
EUR deposits through any available payment method count toward a deposit-type welcome bonus. Crypto deposits do not.
- Step 4
Trade within the first 7 days
Fees on filled buy and sell orders are refunded in euro right after each trade, until you reach €10,000 in volume or the 7 days end.
- Step 5
Check the Campaign Hub
Click the gift icon at the top of the app or web platform to see your remaining days, volume and any welcome bonus requirements.
A Bitvavo referral code is less about a big headline number and more about timing. The most reliable part of the offer is the Free Trading Bonus: for the first 7 days after you open the account, Bitvavo refunds the trading fees on up to €10,000 of volume. Depending on the campaign running in your country, the same code can also unlock a welcome bonus paid in euro or crypto, which comes with a withdrawal lock. Both are tied to the code you enter at registration, and neither can be added later.
This review lays out the conditions Bitvavo publishes in its help centre, translates them into euros and points out the two places where new users most often lose value: the 7-day clock and the 180-day lock.
- €10,000of trading volume with fees refunded
- 7 dayswindow, counted from account creation
- 180 daysdefault withdrawal lock on welcome bonuses
- 15%of your fees paid to your inviter, capped at €500 a month
What a Bitvavo referral code actually unlocks
Bitvavo’s help centre describes a referral system built from campaigns. Every campaign has its own requirements, bonus amounts and country list, and the Campaign Hub (the gift icon at the top of the app or web platform) shows what applies to your account.
| Part of the offer | Who gets it | Value | Condition |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free Trading Bonus | You | Fees refunded on up to €10,000 | Trades in the first 7 days |
| Welcome bonus | You | Cash, crypto or a crypto bundle | Deposit or volume target in the campaign period |
| Referral bonus | Your inviter | Set by the campaign | You complete the requirements |
| Referral commission | Your inviter | 15% of your trading fees | Paid daily in euro, max €500 a month |
Note the word “eligible” in Bitvavo’s wording. The Free Trading Bonus applies when you sign up with a referral code that is part of the campaign, and the welcome bonus differs per campaign and per country. So two people using two different codes in two countries can see different numbers. The Campaign Hub is the source of truth.
The Free Trading Bonus in real euros
Here is the mechanism. You pay the normal fee on each trade, and Bitvavo refunds that fee to your account in euro immediately afterwards. It continues until you hit €10,000 of total volume or the 7 days run out, whichever comes first. If one trade straddles the €10,000 mark, only the part inside the limit is refunded.
Bitvavo uses tiered fees based on your 30-day volume, with a maximum of 0.25% per trade. A brand-new account sits in the entry tier, so the refund is worth up to 0.25% of what you trade. The taker feeA taker order fills immediately against an existing order, such as a market order. A maker order rests in the order book and adds liquidity. Makers usually pay less. is the one most beginners pay, because market orders and the simple buy button are taker orders.
| Volume traded in the first 7 days | Fees at 0.25% | Refunded | You pay |
|---|---|---|---|
| €500 | €1.25 | €1.25 | €0 |
| €2,000 | €5.00 | €5.00 | €0 |
| €10,000 | €25.00 | €25.00 | €0 |
| €15,000 | €37.50 | €25.00 | €12.50 |
The ceiling is therefore about €25. That is modest, and it shows why “€10,000 free trading” sounds bigger than it is: it is a volume allowance, not a cash amount. The upside is that this refund is paid in euro straight away with no withdrawal lock, which is rare among exchange welcome offers.
How the Bitvavo welcome bonus works
The second layer is the campaign welcome bonus. Bitvavo describes two campaign types for new users, deposit bonuses and trade-volume bonuses, and the friend-referral campaigns can also be tiered, paying for steps such as verification, a deposit and a volume target.
The bonus itself comes in one of three forms:
- Cash bonus: a fixed amount in euro
- Crypto bonus: a fixed amount of one asset, for example 10 XRP
- Crypto bundle: several assets with a fixed total euro value, for example €20 split across BTC, ETH and SOL
You and your inviter do not necessarily receive the same bonus, and both amount and type can differ per country. Bitvavo credits it within 48 hours once you meet the requirements.
What counts is spelled out clearly. EUR deposits via any available payment method count toward a deposit target; crypto deposits do not. For volume targets, all filled buy and sell orders in the campaign period count, of any order type, on every market except EUR stablecoin pairs such as EUR/EURC and EUR/EUROP. Trades sent through the Trading API do not count, and neither do unfilled orders. Helpfully, one trade can count toward a volume welcome bonus and get its fee refunded under the Free Trading Bonus at the same time.
Open Referral PageThe 180-day reward time lock
Every welcome and referral bonus carries a reward time lockA period during which a bonus sits in your account and can be traded but not withdrawn. When it ends, the bonus becomes withdrawable automatically.. By default it lasts 180 days unless your campaign states a different period. During the lock you can trade with the bonus but not withdraw it. The unlock date appears as “Available on” in your transaction history, and the bonus becomes withdrawable automatically after that.
Bitvavo locks the euro value of the bonus at the moment it is credited, for cash, crypto and bundle bonuses alike. A crypto bonus can still lose market value in the meantime, so a €20 bundle credited in SOL and ETH might be worth more or less when the lock ends. The fee refunds from the Free Trading Bonus are not part of this lock.
Big campaigns: read the volume requirement first
Bitvavo sometimes runs larger referral campaigns. One margin-trading friends campaign paid €500 each to the inviter and the new user, but only if the new user reached €100,000 of trading volume within 30 days of ID verification. It also capped each inviter at five referrals and applied a 180-day lockup. At a 0.25% fee, €100,000 of volume costs around €250 in fees before any refund, and margin trading adds borrowing costs and liquidation risk.
Large headline amounts on Bitvavo almost always come with volume targets of this size. Before you chase one, divide the bonus by the fees you would pay to reach it. Our guide on spotting misleading crypto bonuses walks through that calculation.
What your inviter earns
On top of any campaign bonus, the inviter receives 15% of the transaction fees you pay. Bitvavo pays it daily in euro, caps it at €500 per month, and only pays once the inviter has verified their own IBAN. If you miss your campaign requirements, neither of you gets the campaign bonus, but the inviter still earns this commission on your fees.
None of the commission is shared back with you. Unlike exchanges that offer a lifelong kickbackPart of your own trading fee that the exchange or your inviter returns to you., Bitvavo’s referral gives the new user a one-off benefit only. For background on how these splits compare across platforms, see our explainer on referral kickbacks.
Eligibility and exclusions
To receive anything as an invited user you must be 18 or older, live in a country where the campaign is available, be new to Bitvavo, not have been offboarded before for compliance reasons, and finish identity and bank account verification within the campaign period. Bitvavo’s offer is aimed at residents of the European Economic Area, and the Campaign Hub lists which countries a given campaign covers.
Some groups are excluded outright: institutional clients, market makers, people acting in a professional capacity, and Bitvavo employees and their families. Creating a second account or referring yourself leads to disqualification and possible clawback. The programme is for personal, non-commercial sharing; inviters must only send codes to people they know and make clear they receive a bonus.
Is a Bitvavo referral code worth it for you?
| Your profile | What you get | Our take |
|---|---|---|
| First-time buyer, €500 | About €1.25 refunded, plus any deposit bonus | Small but free; the welcome bonus matters more |
| Moving €10,000 in during week one | About €25 in refunds | Good fit, verify on day one |
| Active trader beyond €10,000 | Refunds stop at the cap | Use it, then compare tiers with Kraken |
| Needs the bonus as cash now | Welcome bonus locked 180 days | Plan around the lock |
For a broader view of European options, compare with Bitpanda’s promo code or browse every exchange referral program we cover.
What works
- Refunds 100% of trading fees on up to €10,000 of volume in the first 7 days, paid in euro right after each trade.
- Fee refunds have no withdrawal lock, unlike most exchange welcome credits.
- Bitvavo publishes exactly which trades count: filled orders of any type, all markets except EUR stablecoin pairs, no API trades.
- Welcome bonus euro value is locked when credited, so the lock period cannot shrink a cash bonus.
Watch out for
- The 7-day window starts at account creation, so slow verification eats into the free-trading days.
- At Bitvavo's 0.25% maximum fee, the full €10,000 allowance is worth at most €25 in refunds.
- Welcome bonuses are locked for 180 days by default and their size changes per campaign and per country.
- No ongoing discount for the invited user; after day 7 you pay the standard tiered fees.
Use a Bitvavo referral code if you plan to place your first trades straight after signing up: the free-trading week is a genuine fee refund with no lock. Verify on day one, because the clock starts at registration. Treat any campaign welcome bonus as a bonus you can trade with now and withdraw in six months.
Open Referral PageFrequently asked questions
Can I add a Bitvavo referral code after signing up?
When does the Bitvavo 7-day free trading period start?
Do I still pay fees during the Bitvavo Free Trading Bonus?
How much does the Bitvavo referrer earn?
Why can I not withdraw my Bitvavo welcome bonus?
Is there a Bitvavo promo code different from a referral code?
Official sources
- Bitvavo Help Center — How does the Bitvavo Friend Referral Program work?
- Bitvavo Help Center — What is the Bitvavo Free Trading Bonus and how does it work?
- Bitvavo Help Center — What is the Bitvavo Welcome Bonus?
- Bitvavo Help Center — What is the trading fee when I buy or sell crypto?
- Bitvavo — Friend Referral Program terms and conditions
Terms are set by the platform and can change at any moment. Always confirm the live offer on the official page before depositing.