Journal · September 2, 2026 · updated July 13, 2026
What the 24 February 2026 Refer and Earn Terms Changed
The current Refer and Earn terms carry a revision date of 24 February 2026. On its own that is a dull administrative fact. Used properly it is the most efficient filter available for referral information, because it tells you which pages on the internet are describing a rulebook that no longer exists.
A revision date is a boundary, not a change
The date does not tell you what was altered — Tesla does not publish a diff. What it tells you is that any referral guide written before it is describing the previous rulebook. Not necessarily wrong on every point; simply without authority on any of them. That is a useful thing to know about a page before you act on it.
And the revision was not the only movement. Weeks later, in March 2026, Model S and Model X were removed from the programme. Read together, the pair is the clearest available statement of how narrow eligibility now is: Model 3, Model Y, and Cybertruck in Premium AWD and Cyberbeast trims, with Cybertruck Dual Motor AWD excluded.
How to tell whether a page predates it
Four tests, in the order they are quick to apply:
- Does it list Model S or Model X as earning a buyer benefit? If yes, it predates March 2026 and has not been revisited since. This is the single fastest tell, and it is extremely common.
- Does it describe a cash discount instead of a software trial? The North American buyer benefit is 3 months of free Full Self-Driving (Supervised). Pages promising "$1,000 off" are describing an earlier programme.
- Does it quote the European reward as around 1,000 km? That figure doubled to roughly 2,000 km in April 2026, so a page carrying the old number understates the reward by half.
- Does it carry any date at all? Not a copyright year in the footer — a date attached to the claim. If there is none, there is no way to place it relative to the boundary.
What the revision did not change
The mechanics, which is the part worth learning once and relying on:
- The benefit attaches at the moment the order is placed, through the link, and cannot be added afterwards.
- One referral applies per transaction, and a vehicle order and an energy order are separate transactions.
- The referrer is paid in Tesla Credits, capped at the first 10 successful referrals per calendar year.
- Credits expire 12 months from the Grant Date; Supercharging distance expires in six.
Those five statements have survived every 2026 change. If you only remember one thing from this page, the first one is the one that costs money when forgotten.
The figure this page will not give you
What a successful referral pays the referrer. Public reporting puts it at $250 in some places and $500 in others, with equal confidence, and both cannot be current. Averaging them would produce a third number that describes no account anywhere — which is worse than saying so plainly.
The mechanism is not in dispute, and the authoritative amount is visible in the referrer's own Tesla app. That is a less satisfying answer than a dollar figure and it stays true after the next revision, which on 2026's record will not be long coming.
Why the churn matters more than any single change
Five dated movements landed inside eight months: the FSD purchase withdrawn in North America on 14 February, a second FSD price tier in late January, the terms revised on 24 February, Model S and X removed in March, the European reward doubled in April, and the FSD purchase withdrawn in Europe and the UK on 22 May. A reader cannot be expected to track that. What they can do is check the date on a claim before relying on it, and prefer a live screen to any page.
The one live screen that outranks every page
The order summary, before payment. It shows what your configuration actually gets, in your market, on the day you order. When a page and that screen disagree, the page is out of date — and this page is not an exception to that rule. It is the reason a referral site worth reading stamps its facts with dates and tells you where to check them yourself.
For the sequence that gets a referral attached in the first place, see how to apply a referral code at checkout; for the running record of programme changes, see what's new since March 2026.
Sources:
- Tesla Support — Refer and Earn
- Electrek — Tesla referral program guide
- Not a Tesla App — referral FSD incentives