Splitting the dinner bill with your friends could soon earn you a little extra cash.
Venmo is overhauling its credit card rewards with a new perk designed specifically for splitting the bill. Starting October 15, new Venmo Credit Card customers can earn up to 4% cash back on eligible dining and entertainment purchases, but there’s a catch: To get the full 4%, you’ll need to make your friends pay you back.
Cardholders will automatically earn 3% cash back on eligible dining and entertainment purchases, including restaurants, food delivery, streaming services, and event tickets. If you then split that purchase with a friend through Venmo and get paid back within 30 days, you’ll earn another 1% cash back. Venmo is calling the new feature “split-to-earn” and says it’s an industry first.
“Venmo users have always been social spenders. They go out together, they split the bill, and they settle up in the app,” Alexis Sowa, general manager of Venmo, said in announcing the changes. “We built split-to-earn around how customers actually live and spend with friends, and it delivers on something we believe in deeply: the more you do with Venmo, the more you should get back.”
How Venmo’s new 4% cash back works
Say you go out for a $200 dinner with three friends and put the whole thing on your Venmo Credit Card. That purchase would automatically earn 3% cash back.
After dinner, you can find the transaction inside the Venmo app and send your friends requests for their shares of the check. If they pay you back within 30 days, the purchase qualifies for the additional 1%, bringing the total cash-back rate to 4%.
The idea is that Venmo is effectively rewarding cardholders for doing something millions of people already use the app to do, or at least try to do. There is an important distinction: Just sending a request asking for cash isn’t enough. Your friends actually have to pay you back within that 30-day window in order for you to earn that extra cash back. And whether your friends settle up or not, you’re still responsible for paying your credit card bill.
Venmo is changing the rest of its rewards, too
The 4% perk is just one part of a larger overhaul of the Venmo Credit Card. New cardholders will also earn 3% cash back when they use Venmo to pay for purchases. That can include selecting Venmo at checkout with participating online retailers, paying a business with a Venmo profile, or paying someone for a good or service through the app. All other purchases earn 1% cash back.
That’s a significant departure from the card’s previous rewards system. Previously, the Venmo Credit Card automatically adjusted its rewards based on where a cardholder spent the most money each month. Users earned 3% cash back on their top eligible spending category, 2% on their second-highest category, and 1% everywhere else. Eligible categories included groceries, travel, gas, transportation, bills and utilities, health and beauty, dining and entertainment.
Under the new system, that automatic customization goes away for new applicants in favor of rewards that heavily favor dining, entertainment, and spending through Venmo itself.
That means the changes won’t necessarily be an upgrade for everyone. For example, someone who previously used the card mainly for groceries, gas, or travel could earn less under the new structure. For someone who regularly picks up the dinner bill or buys concert tickets for the group and then spends the next few days sending Venmo requests, the math could look considerably better.
Existing Venmo Credit Card holders can continue using the old rewards structure or opt into the new system in early 2027 without applying for a new card, according to NerdWallet.
Venmo wants more of your spending to happen inside Venmo
The rewards overhaul also gives Venmo another reason to keep users inside its app. Venmo says more than 100 million Americans use the service, which has grown well beyond its original purpose of sending money between friends. It now offers credit and debit cards, merchant checkout, business profiles, and other financial services.
The new credit card structure pushes that strategy even further. The best rewards aren’t simply based on what you buy. They’re increasingly tied to what you do afterward inside Venmo.
And if you’re the friend who always puts dinner on your card, that could be good news. Just make sure your friends actually pay you back.
