E*TRADE Premium Savings Account
Earn a cash bonus of up to $800. Terms apply¹
Updated October 12, 2026 · By the MoneyAtlas Editorial Team
Category Ratings
Pros
Rate locked for six months: new accounts earn 4.25% APY fixed from the day they open, and it holds even if the standard rate falls.
Higher FDIC coverage: a multi-bank sweep insures up to $500,000 for individual accounts and $1 million for joint accounts.
Cash bonus up to $800: promo code SAVE800 pays $400 on $20,000 in new money or $800 on $100,000, on top of the promotional APY.
Cons
Rate steps down at month seven: the promotional APY runs six months, then the account pays the 3.75% standard rate, which is variable and can change at any time.
The bonus needs real money: the $400 tier takes $20,000 in net-new funds and the $800 tier takes $100,000, each held through a 45-day maintenance period.
No spending access: the savings account moves money only through transfers to a linked account.
Top rate for six months, competitive after
The 4.25% promotional rate, the cash bonus of up to $800 and deposit insurance well past $250,000 are the real draws, and because the 3.75% standard rate underneath still beats most big banks, you are not forced to move the money at month seven.
No monthly maintenance fee and no minimum balance to open or keep, though the account closes if you do not fund it within 90 days.
A single savings product. Checking and lending sit at Morgan Stanley Private Bank as separate accounts rather than part of this one.
Backed by Morgan Stanley Private Bank with E*TRADE's established phone and secure-message support, but nothing that stands out against dedicated online banks.
The E*TRADE platform is mature, and moving cash between savings and a linked brokerage account is the smoothest part of the product.
No debit card, no ATM access, and no branch network for this account. Every withdrawal runs through a transfer to a linked account.
The E*TRADE Premium Savings Account, offered through Morgan Stanley Private Bank, pays a 4.25% APY promotional rate fixed for six months on new accounts opened by January 10, 2027. It carries no monthly fee, no minimum balance, no cap on withdrawals, and deposit insurance that goes well beyond the standard limit.
What the E*TRADE Premium Savings Account offers
E*TRADE is best known for investing, and Morgan Stanley now owns the brand. The Premium Savings Account is its cash savings product, held at Morgan Stanley Private Bank. It is built to hold money you are not investing, and it links cleanly to an E*TRADE brokerage account if you keep one.
The account has three headline features. The first is a rate fixed for six months on new accounts. The second is a cash bonus of up to $800 for funding it with money from outside the bank. The third is deposit insurance well past the usual coverage limit, through a multi-bank sweep program. Together they make the account most attractive to investors who already use E*TRADE and to savers holding a large cash position.
APY and how you earn interest
New accounts earn a 4.25% APY promotional rate for the first six months, fixed from the day the account opens. After that period, the rate moves to the 3.75% standard APY. To get the promotion, open a new Premium Savings account by January 10, 2027.
On a $10,000 balance, the promotional rate earns roughly $213 over six months. Once the rate steps down to 3.75%, the same balance earns about $375 over a full year. Interest compounds daily and is credited to the account monthly.
The promotional rate is locked for the full six months from account opening, so a cut to the standard rate during that window does not touch you. Balances above $10 million fall outside it. What you actually need to plan for is month seven, when the account reverts to the 3.75% standard rate, which is variable and can move at any time.
Do the arithmetic on the reversion before you open, because the headline rate is not what you earn over a year. Six months at 4.25% on $25,000 pays about $531. The next six months at 3.75% pay about $469. Blended, the first year yields roughly 4.00%, and that is the number to hold against a flat-rate competitor, not the 4.25%. The standard rate is variable and tracks the Federal Reserve's benchmark rates, so treat 3.75% as a starting point, not a floor. Set a calendar reminder for month five so the step-down is not a surprise.
The cash bonus and how to qualify
Separate from the rate, E*TRADE is paying a cash bonus on new Premium Savings accounts funded with money from outside the bank. You have to enter promo code SAVE800 when you open the account; there is no way to add it afterwards, and without it the bonus does not apply. The enrollment window runs to January 10, 2027.
The sequence is deposit, then hold. Your net-new deposits over the first 30 days set the tier. From day 31 you have to keep an average daily balance at that tier for the next 45 days, and the bonus lands within 30 days after that, so roughly 105 days from opening. If the balance you hold is below the tier you deposited into, you get paid at the lower tier. Net-new means money from outside Morgan Stanley, so shifting cash over from an E*TRADE brokerage account or a Max-Rate Checking account does not count, and interest you withdraw to an outside bank is subtracted. Each customer can claim two of these bonuses in a lifetime.
Fees and minimums
There is no monthly maintenance fee and no minimum balance requirement. You can open the account with any amount. Two timing rules matter: if you do not fund the account within 90 days of opening it, E*TRADE will close it, and if you are going for the cash bonus the money has to land inside the first 30 days.
Accessing your money
The Premium Savings Account has no debit card and no ATM access. You move money by transferring to a linked account, and there is no cap on how many withdrawals you make and no penalty for making them. If you need spending access, Morgan Stanley Private Bank offers a checking account with a debit card and ATM fee reimbursement that can sit alongside the savings account.
Money comes in five ways: ACH transfer from an outside bank, wire, physical check, mobile check deposit up to $250,000 a day, and transfer from an E*TRADE brokerage account. Transfers between E*TRADE accounts post immediately. Money arriving from an outside bank is available on the third business day after the deposit if you start it before 4 p.m. ET.
The absence of a withdrawal cap is worth stating plainly, because savings accounts carried a six-per-month federal limit until April 2020 and a lot of comparison pages still repeat it. Morgan Stanley Private Bank's current rate and fee schedule sets no limit on Premium Savings withdrawals and lists no excess-withdrawal fee. The real constraint is timing rather than count: an outbound ACH takes a few business days to land, so this is not the account to reach on the same afternoon.
FDIC coverage and safety
Deposits in the Premium Savings Account are FDIC insured, and the coverage is larger than a standard account. Through a multi-bank sweep program, balances are spread across several program banks so that an individual account is insured up to $500,000 and a joint account up to $1 million. A standard single-bank account only insures $250,000 per depositor, so this is a meaningful upgrade for anyone holding a large emergency fund or a cash position between investments.
How that coverage is built matters if you are counting on it. Your balance does not sit in one bank. It sweeps across a panel of participating program banks, and each slice earns its own FDIC insurance up to $250,000 per bank. The extended limit is the sum of those slices, not a special allowance granted to E*TRADE or to Morgan Stanley Private Bank. There is a catch worth checking. If you already hold deposits at a bank that sits in the sweep panel, those balances count against the same per-bank limit, and your real coverage is lower than the headline figure. Read the program bank list against where you already keep money before you assume the full amount applies.
Who the E*TRADE Premium Savings Account is best for
This account fits savers who want to capture a strong six-month rate and who hold enough cash to value the higher insurance limits. It is a natural pairing if you already invest with E*TRADE, since you can move cash between savings and your brokerage account easily.
It is a weaker fit if you are chasing the single highest long-run rate. The 3.75% standard rate holds its own against most leading high-yield savings accounts, but a handful pay more, and it is the promotional rate that puts E*TRADE near the top of the table. The account is a poor fit for anyone who needs spending access, since there is no card and no ATM.
Compare
The promotional rate makes E*TRADE hard to beat over the first half-year. What matters more for the full twelve months is the 3.75% rate underneath it, which sits close enough to most flat-rate accounts that the step-down is a dip rather than a cliff.
Where E*TRADE clearly wins is deposit insurance. Coverage several times the standard limit is rare, and for a saver parking a large sum, that protection can outweigh a slightly higher rate elsewhere.
If you would rather not track a reversion date at all, compare it against accounts that pay one rate and keep paying it. Synchrony Bank High Yield Savings and SoFi Checking and Savings both do. E*TRADE wins on insurance depth, on the cash bonus, and on convenience if your brokerage already lives there. Whether it wins across the full twelve months depends on where those flat rates sit when your promotional period ends.