This Major Bank's New $15 Monthly Fee Will Hit Customers Soon

Some Wells Fargo checking account holders will be charged an extra $5 a month when the banking giant raises its service fees from $10 to $15 on November 29, 2025. One of the largest banks in the U.S., Wells Fargo announced the pending fee changes, and new ways to avoid the monthly charge, back in September 2025.

Monthly service fees are among the common fees banks use to make money from their account holders, and Wells Fargo is not the only large bank that has raised its monthly service fee recently. Chase Bank, for example, increased its monthly service charge from $12 to $15 in August 2025. This is a pretty big shift, as Bankrate reported that the average monthly fee charged for checking accounts in 2024 was $5.47, and 47% of noninterest checking accounts weren't charged a fee of any kind.

There are ways to avoid these monthly fees, such as maintaining the bank's minimum balance, but even that will be more difficult now. Wells Fargo will increase that minimum balance in October 2025.

As Wells Fargo explains in a webpage, primary account holders who are between 17 and 24 years old aren't charged a monthly fee. Military personnel with direct deposit through the Wells Fargo Worldwide Military Banking program are also not charged. But if you are under 17, over 24, and not in the armed forces, the monthly fee can also be avoided by receiving $500 per month via qualifying electronic deposits. These include direct deposits of salary or government benefit payments made via the Automated Clearing House, The Clearing House's real-time payment system network, or the networks of certain credit providers.

And here is where things change. Prior to October 25, 2025 you could avoid being hit with a monthly fee by maintaining a minimum daily balance of $500. After that date, the minimum daily balance goes up to $1,500. However, there will also be another method of avoidance: having $5,000 or more in a Wells Fargo checking, savings, CD, or investment accounts, or other Wells Fargo fiduciary and custody accounts.

This isn't the first time Wells Fargo announced big changes. The company was among three popular bank chains that closed branches in 2025. Per the Daily Mail, Wells Fargo, Chase, and Bank of America each closed 14 branches between July 17 and August 28 of that year. In addition, Wells Fargo closed tons of bank accounts in April 2025 that hadn't been in use for 16 months.

Ironically, it was a series of banking scandals, including a finding that Wells Fargo associates opened millions of accounts without their customers' authorization, which led to a $1.95 trillion cap on its assets in 2018. However, the Federal Reserve ended that restriction in June 2025, allowing the bank to go after larger growth strategies once again.

As for why Wells Fargo, or any other major bank, may want to increase its fees, it could be because we are entering into an era of lower interest rates. Plus, with rates shifting since the Great Recession, interest rates have not been that stable. "Volatile interest rates in the past two decades have led banks to a greater reliance on fee income, which can be more stable than interest income from lending," explained Bankrate chief financial analyst Greg McBride in an article on checking account fees.

The higher banking fees will also likely impact those without stable income and low bank balances. Wells Fargo CEO Charles Scharf told CNBC in September 2025 that, while companies are in a solid financial position, lower-income consumers' balances are even lower than they were before COVID-19 as they've continued to need to spend heavily to make ends meet.