Robinhood for IRA? 3% bonus

[Saluki]

I have a nice size chunk of my money in the TSP (federal equivalent of 401k). It's very low cost but has few options (SP Index, short term bonds, long term bonds). And the SP500 feels frothy now. 

 

I noticed that Robinhood has offered a 3% bonus for IRA rollovers if you have RH Gold. So I'm thinking that if I pay off my TSP Loan which is at 4% (-$22k), and transfer, say $1mm to my broker (RH doesn't have a way to xfer from TSP), then from my broker to RH, I should get $30k for that money. A one time 3% boost doesn't sound bad since it's not taxable, and there are no strings except keeping it at RH for 3 years. 

 

With new money in my IRA that ISN'T in the SP500 anymore, I can have more control and can sell some (hopefully temporary) losers in my taxable account before the end of the year, and buy them in my IRA which will let me lower my taxes and increase my retirement savings. For instance, I'm up on JOE as a whole, but I do have some lots that were above todays price, but without a xfer, I have no cash sitting around my retirement account. 

 

Any wholes in this strategy? Also how is the execution? I only have a small taxable account with Robinhood that I use because the margin rates are much better than Merrill or Schwab, but I noticed that use payment for order flow. Schwab does too, and I only found out recently when I noticed that a small cap stock that I have resting bids in were executed lower than my bid price but I didn't get a fill.  Is RH decent for fills? What about keeping track of my contributions before the transfer, to know my cost basis? 

 

Any thoughts/ 

[Malmqky]

I had no clue this was uncapped and included transfers - I thought it was just a match on yearly contributions (eg 3% of 7k). 

 

obvious downside I suppose is that you have to use robinhood as a broker...robinhood sucks for fills.

 

have nothing to add but wanted to say thanks for bringing this up. 

 

[COBFInfinity]

One thing to think about is that you have to liquidate your TSP funds to move them and will therefore be out of the market for some period of time. If you're moving stocks, it's possible that you could miss 3% gains while you're trying to capture a 3% bonus. Of course, you could miss losses and come out ahead, but the point is you're taking a risk moving it all at once. So one thing to consider is whether you can move smaller portions of the TSP out at a time (ideally bonds or other lower volatility choices first, if you can pick specific funds to liquidate) and then when the cash is in your brokerage account, get it invested and proceed with another round from the TSP. Depending on how much effort you want to put in, you can try to have offsetting sales of equities in TSP to match the equity buys in brokerage so that your equity exposure across both accounts is relatively stable. I don't have a TSP account, so not exactly sure how the mechanics work, but something to consider when having to roll over cash (whether or not there is a transfer bonus.)

[Malmqky]

https://robinhood.com/us/en/support/articles/ira-match-faq/

 

I'm seeing 1% for transfer fyi, where are you seeing 3%?

[bizaro86]

28 minutes ago, COBFInfinity said:

One thing to think about is that you have to liquidate your TSP funds to move them and will therefore be out of the market for some period of time. If you're moving stocks, it's possible that you could miss 3% gains while you're trying to capture a 3% bonus. Of course, you could miss losses and come out ahead, but the point is you're taking a risk moving it all at once. So one thing to consider is whether you can move smaller portions of the TSP out at a time (ideally bonds or other lower volatility choices first, if you can pick specific funds to liquidate) and then when the cash is in your brokerage account, get it invested and proceed with another round from the TSP. Depending on how much effort you want to put in, you can try to have offsetting sales of equities in TSP to match the equity buys in brokerage so that your equity exposure across both accounts is relatively stable. I don't have a TSP account, so not exactly sure how the mechanics work, but something to consider when having to roll over cash (whether or not there is a transfer bonus.)

 

You could buy some short term calls to cover this risk. It eats some of the gains though.

[Saluki]

1 hour ago, Malmqky said:

https://robinhood.com/us/en/support/articles/ira-match-faq/

 

I'm seeing 1% for transfer fyi, where are you seeing 3%?

 

You are correct. It looks like the 3% match for rollovers was a one time thing and it expired last year. Oh well. 

 

https://www.cnbc.com/select/robinhood-offers-match-ira-transfers-401k-rollovers/#:~:text=Gold subscribers can get 3,only be a 1% match.

[nsx5200]

I did it for my wife's 401k about a year and a half ago.  It might still be on-going, as I see this in her account:

 

The transfer was through a third party, and that third party took its time.  That caused the transfer to missed the deadline, so she only got 1% match.  I don't remember exactly how long, but my poor recollection is that it took ~2+ months to do, so try to factor that in w/ the deadline.

 

Like what you stated, Robinhood is a PFOF(that is how they make the big bulk of their money, thus the huge marketing effort to suck in money and induce unnecessary trades).  I do feel like the execution price is not as good as Fidelity, so consider it a relatively a high frictional cost platform, and mitigate it by buying-and-holding on it.  Their interface is very modern and very responsive so I do a lot of my pricing research on it before actually placing the actual order on other platforms.

 

Other tidbits:  The 3% bonus requires a 5 year hold, as seen in the screenshot(in the fine print).  They don't pay interest on 'cash' in the retirement account, AFAIK, so you're forced to DIY w/ short-term T-bill ETFs like SGOV.  The gold subscription does come with free $1k margin in the non-retirement account, so you can use that free margin to buy T-bill ETF to defray the cost of the subscription without incurring too much risk.  They do offer limited margin and dividend reinvestment as well, if those are important to you.

 

I would recommend reading other people's experiences from Boglehead and Reddit as well.

https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=410277

 

If you have specific questions or features, I'd be glad to help you research.

[Saluki]

Okay, I just found the November 19, 3% on Transfer offer. You can't see it in the IRA FAQ or other sections if you go in from the "open an account tab." But if you go in from the "Transfer" tab, I see the Nov 19 offer, so I'll start trying to get the process going. 

[mjm]

according to grok they do not pay interest.   "

No, Robinhood does not pay interest on cash in retirement accounts. According to their official brokerage cash sweep program details, this feature applies only to non-retirement investing accounts (like standard brokerage accounts) and accounts managed by Robinhood Strategies. Uninvested cash in IRAs or other retirement accounts is not eligible for the sweep program, so it doesn't earn any interest through Robinhood.

For context, in eligible non-retirement brokerage accounts, Robinhood Gold members currently earn 3.75% APY on swept uninvested cash (as of September 24, 2025), while non-Gold members earn just 0.01% APY. These rates can change based on market conditions."

[Malmqky]

I spoke with support, and they will not offer me a 3% transfer match - they state that is random and targeted. At the moment, it seems I am stuck with the 1%. Which isn't quiet tempting enough for me to transfer.

 

As for cost basis:

 

2. Cost Basis Display for Transferred Holdings:

After your transfer settles, your previous brokerage has up to 15 calendar days to send cost basis information to Robinhood.

Until Robinhood receives this data, your average cost and total return for those holdings will not display.

Once received, cost basis and total return will update in your account.

If cost basis is not provided by your previous brokerage, it will remain missing. You may need to request this information from your prior firm.

 

[Saluki]

Just a quick update. I did complete the process to transfer my Merrill ROTH and IRA to Robinhood, so about $300k for a $9k (3% bonus). 

• It's not on the website when you search, but they offer it to certain people at random and it has to be done by November 19th. I'm assuming they don't offer it to more than a certain amount of people at a time because they don't have the capital to pay out 3% of funds all at once since they make it back slowly in trading fees and interest. It's not on the website, but I see the offer when I look on my account, so check your account.
• I will not be able to get my government TSP fund over in time.
  • I had to pay off my TSP loan before they allow a transfer, and there is a delay between when you pay it off and the account shows it's okay to transfer.
  • after that, you can't transfer it directly to Robinhood. (RH isn't set up for that). So I would have to transfer to Merrill or Schwab, and it would take some time to process (and it involves paperwork with actual paper).
  • Then from Merrill or Schwab I would have to transfer it to RH, which would take a few more days. 

If I had started the process earlier, I might have made the deadline, but it's not going to happen. I'll still transfer it out because I think the SP500 is frothy and I've been doing well at 3, 5 and 7 year periods (but not this year) at out performing the index. 

 

I've decided to transfer it to Schwab. I have most of my money in Merrill, but if something goes wrong, like Lehman etc., Although I have SIPC, it's only for $600k, and it would take time to get your money back. So having most of my Non-retirement funds in Merrill and my TSP Funds in Schwab, will diversify the risk of something bad happening to any one institution. 

 

Another reason for Schwab is the tickers available. There is one ticker I own in Merrill that is not in Schwab or Robinhood (POWWP), but that's the exception, not the rule. There are a couple of microcaps like TBTC that Schwab has that ML or RH don't. And several others that I researched but didn't pull the trigger are available on Schwab but not Merrill, so being able to buy Kraken in my retirement account would've been a great feature if Merrill had it (they didn't before but have it now). 

Edited November 11, 2025 by Saluki
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