Twelve months, on the futures side, unless your inviter clears a bar you may have no way to check. That is the short version of Binance's current referral FAQ, and it already answers the headline: no, the rebate that comes with a referral code is not open-ended. There are at least two off-switches. Futures runs on a clock that starts the day you open a Futures Account and ends 12 months later, unless the inviter passes an evaluation at a 30% rate or higher. Spot and margin run on a tier line: once you reach VIP 3, the FAQ says the inviter's share is discontinued. What happens to your own share at that point isn't spelled out separately, so your account history is the thing to trust there.
The logic holds at any exchange. A referral rebate is a slice of the fee you already paid, and it hangs on two things: the link between you and whoever referred you, and the platform's terms of the day. The platform decides whether that link can change, whether the terms change, and above which line it stops slicing. A referral code carries no duration promise of its own. So when a post promises a rebate "for life", the quickest check is the platform's own FAQ. Binance's does spell out both. Everything quoted below comes from the English version of that FAQ, which shows "Updated on 2026-08-05" and was read on 2026-11-05.
Spot, margin and futures follow different rules
The FAQ treats spot and margin in one passage and futures in another, and the two shouldn't be blended. The table only carries what the wording directly supports; where a cell says "not stated", the FAQ really doesn't say.
| Product | Time limit | Tier line | Can the limit be lifted? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spot and margin | Not stated in these answers | Inviter's share discontinued once you reach VIP 3 or higher; your own share not stated separately | Not applicable |
| Futures | 12 months from the day you open a Futures Account | Inviter's share only while you are a regular or VIP 1–2 user | Yes, if the inviter passes the evaluation at a 30% rate or higher (the FAQ notes this applies from 2025-08-01) |
Source: Binance, "Frequently Asked Questions on Binance Referral Pro Mode" (page shows updated 2026-08-05), read sentence by sentence in November 2026. If the page changes, the page wins.
The futures tier table is worth a second look. Tier 0 reads "10%" and "1 year"; Tiers 1 to 3 read "No limit" in the time column. Those tiers belong to the inviter. The footnote defines the term: "*Futures Commission Time Limitation: The period during which the invitee generates Futures commission for their inviter after the invitee opens a Futures Account." And right after it: "If a Futures commission rate of 30% or higher is not achieved by passing this evaluation, the Futures commission time limitation will remain in effect."
Put plainly, if the person who referred you sits in the bottom tier, your futures share has a year. If they pass at 30% or above, the year stops mattering. The FAQ doesn't say where a referred user could see which tier their inviter is in, so don't count on spotting it from your side in advance.
The futures clock: day one and the last day
Day one is not your sign-up date, and it isn't the day you entered the code. The FAQ says the referrer can earn from referrals "who are regular or VIP 1-2 users, and only for 12 months", counted "from the day the referrals open their Futures Accounts."
A made-up example. You sign up in March 2026, trade spot only, and open a Futures Account on 10 September. The year starts on 10 September and runs to around 10 September 2027; the six months before you touched futures don't count against it. Now take someone who opened a Futures Account on sign-up day out of curiosity and placed a first futures order six months later. Their clock has been running the whole time, and about half of the year is already gone.
That second case is the one people miss, because the trigger is opening the account, not the first trade. If you can't remember the opening date, we'd use the earliest transfer or fill on the futures side as a stand-in. That's our approximation; the platform's own record is the real start.
The door isn't shut for good once the year ends. The FAQ: "As a referee, you will stop receiving Futures rebates once the inviter's 1-year Futures commission validity period expires." And: "Referrals will only resume receiving rebates if the inviter achieves a Futures commission rate of 30% or higher" … "through evaluation and the inviter's 1-year Futures commission validity period will be waived." Whether it comes back depends on the inviter's evaluation, not on how much you trade.
The VIP 3 line, and whose share it stops
Spot and margin, in the FAQ's words: "For Spot and Margin trading: The referrer is eligible to receive referral commissions from their referred users if they are regular or VIP 1 - 2 users. The commissions will be discontinued once the referred user reaches VIP 3 or higher."
Read the subject carefully. What stops is the referrer's share. On the referred user's side, the FAQ says only this: "When the referral completes a transaction, the referrer receives the referral commission, while the referral receives the rebate if the referrer chooses to share it with them."
Our reading: your rebate is carved out of the inviter's share, so once that share stops there is usually nothing left to pass on. That is an inference from the wording; Binance doesn't say it outright. After you reach VIP 3, your own rebate history is the best evidence either way. For what it's worth, when we model costs for an account at VIP 3 or above, we leave the referral rebate out entirely. Counting it would flatter the numbers.
The line itself has been moving. The FAQ notes: "Starting from 2026-07-21 08:00 (UTC), the VIP 3 Asset Holding threshold adjustment will take effect, and a 3-month transition arrangement will apply to affiliate commission calculations for existing referrals." Three months from 21 July lands around late October on a plain reading; the FAQ gives no exact end time. The new holding threshold itself isn't in this FAQ, so we don't quote a figure.
The calculation base changed too. From 2026-04-29 for spot and 2026-07-15 for futures, the FAQ says referral commissions are paid on net fees, meaning the fee income left after any applicable market maker rebates are deducted. That doesn't switch the rebate off, but the same volume may pay back less than before, so a smaller payout isn't the same thing as a stopped one.
Three things that are fixed once set
- You can't swap inviters. "No, once the referral relationship has been established, it cannot be changed or removed." When the futures year runs out, signing up under someone new to restart the clock isn't an option. Closing the account and registering again doesn't get around it either: the FAQ says that where an account was closed to open a new one for referral benefits, Binance "reserves the right to terminate all referral commissions from the new account."
- The link's settings are frozen at creation. "Please note that once a Referral link has been successfully created, its settings cannot be modified." Whatever was configured on the link you signed up through was settled the moment the inviter made it.
- A breach cancels it. "Unfortunately, if the invitee's account is in breach of Binance's Terms and Conditions, we are unable to apply the referral."
Taken together, most of what decides how long the rebate lasts was settled before your first trade. The parts you control are your own tier and the day you open a Futures Account.
If the rebate seems to have stopped
Rule out "not arrived yet" first. The FAQ says the amount is "calculated and converted to USDC on an hourly basis" and that "The converted amount will be deposited into the user's Spot Account within 6 hours." A trade from this morning that hasn't paid out by lunchtime hasn't necessarily stopped anything. For anything older than 7 days, the FAQ says to download the detailed records rather than look for it on the page.
After that, three checks, in this order:
- Are you VIP 3 or higher now? If so, the spot and margin line has been crossed. See whether the gap starts around the date you moved up.
- Is it only the futures share that's gone? Take your Futures Account opening date, add 12 months, and compare it with the date payouts stopped. A match means the year ran out; whether it resumes depends on the inviter's evaluation.
- Did those trades carry a fee at all? The FAQ is explicit: "no commission will be generated from your referrals' trading with no trading fee." A fill that was charged nothing has nothing to slice.
If none of the three fits, look at the account itself (the breach rule above) or at whether the terms changed. Comparing the "Updated on" date at the top of the FAQ with the last time you read it is the fastest way to tell.
Missed the code at sign-up? See whether you can still add one later. Where the rebate money comes from and what sets the rate is covered in how the referral rebate works, and entering the code correctly in the first place is in binding a code at sign-up.