A few thousand dollars for signing paperwork you were going to sign anyway is a genuinely good deal. It is also the most effective way lenders have found to get borrowers to stop looking at the interest rate.
Both things are true, and the difference between them is arithmetic.
Which lenders are paying refinance cashback in August 2026
Conditions below were published in August 2026. Cashback offers move constantly, so treat this as a starting point, not a quote.
| Lender | Cashback | Minimum loan | Max LVR | Key conditions |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| IMB Bank | $2,000 to $4,000, tiered | $250,000 | 80% | $2,000 for $250k to $499,999, $3,000 for $500k to $749,999, $4,000 for $750k and above. Settle within 120 days of application. Paid within 60 days of settlement. Excludes refinances of existing IMB loans. |
| BankVic | $4,000 police, $3,000 other members | $350,000 | 80% | Membership is restricted to police, health, emergency services and government workers and their families. Paid within eight weeks of settlement. |
| ME Bank | $3,000 | $700,000 | 80% | Applications between 1 May and 28 August 2026. Settle within 120 days of application. |
| Reduce Home Loans | $3,000 on the EconoME loan | Confirm with lender | Confirm with lender | Applications between 1 May and 28 August 2026, settle within 120 days. Owner-occupiers and investors, but excludes owner-occupier interest-only. |
| Greater Bank | $2,500 to $3,000 online, $2,000 to $2,500 via a lender | $250,000 | 80% | Higher amounts apply through the digital application channel. Excludes refinances from Greater Bank or Newcastle Permanent. Lending is largely restricted to NSW, the ACT and Queensland. |
| Newcastle Permanent | $2,500 to $3,000, tiered | $250,000 | 80% | $2,500 for $250k to $499k, $3,000 for $500k and above. Same banking group as Greater Bank, so intra-group refinances are excluded. |
| BOQ | $2,000 | $400,000 as published | 80% | Offer closes to new applications on 28 August 2026 and requires settlement within 120 days. Owner-occupier and investor principal and interest only. |
| Queensland Country Bank | $2,000 | Confirm with lender | Confirm with lender | Available on new home loans and on refinances from another lender. |
| Tiimely Home | $1,000 to $3,000, tiered | $500,000 | Confirm with lender | $1,000 for $500k to $1.249m, $2,000 for $1.25m to $1.74m, $3,000 above $1.75m. Two or three year fixed products through Tiimely brokers. |
Why the big four are not on this list
At one point more than 30 lenders were running some form of cashback. That era ended.
Westpac, NAB and CommBank all withdrew their cashback offers as the 2023 financial year closed. ANZ held out longest but scrapped its $2,000 refinance cashback from October 2025, and its remaining cashback is directed at first home buyers rather than refinancers.
This matters for how you search. If you have landed here after typing "Westpac refinance cashback" or "NAB refinance rebate" into Google, the honest answer is that those offers are not running. What the majors do still have is discretionary pricing. A retention discount from your existing big four lender has no clawback, no application, and no switching cost, and it is frequently worth more over three years than a $3,000 cheque from a lender with a higher rate.
The maths: cashback versus a lower rate over three years
This is the whole ball game, and it takes about two minutes.
Take a $600,000 loan with 25 years remaining, owner-occupier, principal and interest.
| Option A: cashback | Option B: lower rate | |
|---|---|---|
| Interest rate | 6.24% p.a. | 5.84% p.a. |
| Cashback | $3,000 | $0 |
| Monthly repayment | $3,954 | $3,808 |
| Extra cost per month | $147 | $0 |
| Cost over 3 years | about $5,300 | $0 |
| Net position after 3 years | $2,300 worse off | $2,300 better off |
Both rates are market reference points drawn from advertised owner-occupier variable rates in August 2026, not offers from the lenders in the table above.
The cashback keeps Option A in front for roughly the first 20 months. After that the rate gap overtakes it and keeps widening for the remaining 23 years of the loan.
Here is the shortcut worth memorising. On a $600,000 loan, every 0.10% of extra interest rate costs you about $36 a month, roughly $1,300 over three years. So a $3,000 cashback is completely wiped out by a rate that is about 0.23% higher, held for three years. Anything above that and the cashback is costing you money.
Scale it to your own balance and run it through our loan repayment calculator. If you are also weighing whether an offset account changes the comparison, our offset calculator will show you the interest saved.
Clawback and the other traps in the fine print
The cashback is not unconditional money. These are the clauses that catch people.
Clawback if you leave early. Most offers require you to keep the loan open for at least 12 months. IMB Bank, for example, makes 50% of the cashback repayable if the loan is discharged within 12 months of settlement. Plan on being unable to move again for a year, and do not take a cashback if you might sell the property inside that window.
Settlement deadlines. The common structure is apply by a set date, settle within 120 days. Your existing lender's discharge process alone routinely takes ten to fifteen business days, so a slow file can miss the window and lose the cashback entirely. Lodge the discharge authority the day your new loan is approved.
Minimum loan sizes. These range from $250,000 up to $700,000 at ME Bank. If your balance sits below the threshold you are ineligible, and the largest cashbacks are reserved for the largest loans.
LVR caps. Almost every offer caps out at 80% LVR. Above that you are looking at Lenders Mortgage Insurance, which will cost far more than any cashback pays.
Excluded product types. Several offers exclude owner-occupier interest-only loans, and most exclude construction, bridging and commercial lending. Some are restricted to specific products, such as Reduce Home Loans limiting its offer to the EconoME loan.
Intra-group exclusions. You cannot usually refinance within the same banking group and still collect. Greater Bank and Newcastle Permanent are the same group, so moving between them does not qualify.
Membership eligibility. BankVic pays its top rate to serving and retired police, with membership open to police, health, emergency services and government workers and their families. Excellent if you qualify. Irrelevant if you do not.
Where the money lands. Most lenders pay into a transaction account with them, which often has to be open before settlement, and payment typically arrives 60 days after settlement rather than on the day.
When a cashback is actually the right call
Cashbacks are not a trap by default. They are a tiebreaker.
Take the cashback when the lender you would have chosen anyway happens to be running one. If two lenders are within 0.10% of each other on rate and both suit your file, and one hands you $3,000, that is free money. Take it.
It also stacks up when the rate gap is genuinely small and your balance is large. On a $900,000 loan, a $4,000 cashback from a lender priced within 0.10% of the market leader is a clear win, because 0.10% costs about $54 a month and the cashback covers six years of that difference.
And it works when you are certain you are staying put. If you have no plans to sell or refinance again inside 12 months, the clawback risk is theoretical.
Do not take the cashback when it is the only reason the lender is on your shortlist, when the rate is more than about 0.20% above what you could get elsewhere, when your loan is small enough that the higher rate is not offset, or when you may sell within the year.
The last point that gets missed: the cashback should be compared against your total switching cost, not treated as pure profit. Our breakdown of what it costs to refinance puts that figure at $500 to $2,000 for most borrowers. A $3,000 cashback that leaves you $1,200 ahead after costs is a good outcome. It is just a smaller one than the headline suggests.
If you are still working out whether now is the moment to move at all, our guide to when to refinance your home loan covers the seven triggers worth watching.
Get the offer checked before you chase it
Cashback offers are designed to be compared on the headline number. The number that decides whether you are better off is the interest rate, three years from now.
We are accredited with the lenders in the table above and plenty that are not. We will tell you what the cashback is actually worth against your balance, what rate sits behind it, whether the clawback matters for your plans, and whether your existing lender would simply match the rate and save you the whole exercise.
Have a look at how our refinancing service works, browse our wider home loan options, or book a free strategy call. We work with borrowers right across Sydney and the review costs nothing.
Quick answers
Frequently asked questions
As at August 2026, IMB Bank, BankVic, ME Bank, Reduce Home Loans, Greater Bank, Newcastle Permanent, BOQ, Queensland Country Bank and Tiimely Home are all running cashback or rebate offers, generally between $2,000 and $4,000. CommBank, Westpac and NAB do not offer refinance cashback. ANZ is the only major bank still paying a cashback and it is aimed at first home buyers. Offers change frequently, so confirm current terms before applying.
No. Westpac withdrew its refinance cashback as the 2023 financial year closed, alongside NAB and CommBank. If you bank with Westpac and want a better deal, the productive move is a repricing request rather than waiting for a cashback to return. A retention discount has no clawback and costs nothing to ask for.
Only if the interest rate stacks up. On a $600,000 loan, every 0.10% of extra rate costs about $36 a month, so a $3,000 cashback is fully cancelled out by a rate roughly 0.23% higher held for three years. Use the cashback as a tiebreaker between lenders you would be happy with anyway, never as the reason to pick one.
A clause requiring you to repay part or all of the cashback if you discharge the loan too soon. Twelve months is the standard period. IMB Bank makes 50% repayable if the loan is discharged within 12 months of settlement. If there is any chance you will sell or refinance again inside a year, the cashback is not worth taking.
Most lenders pay within 60 days of settlement, and BankVic quotes eight weeks. Almost all pay into a transaction account held with them, which usually needs to be open before the payment is made. Do not budget the cashback for a cost you have to meet at settlement, because it will not have arrived yet.
The largest offers in August 2026 are $4,000, available from IMB Bank on refinances of $750,000 and above, and from BankVic for serving or retired police members on loans of at least $350,000. Both cap LVR at 80%. Larger headline figures usually attach to loans well above $1 million.
Rarely. Most offers set a minimum loan size of $250,000, and some go much higher, with ME Bank requiring $700,000 of new lending. On smaller balances the practical alternative is a lender running a fee-free refinance, which removes the application and valuation fees instead of paying you a lump sum.
Yes, once the clawback period has passed, which is typically 12 months from settlement. Leaving earlier can mean repaying some or all of the cashback. Most lenders also limit you to one cashback per 12-month period, and several exclude refinances from within their own banking group, so serial cashback hopping runs out of road quickly.
