Federal Bank Imperio
KeepA free card you hold for eight lounge doors — and for nothing else it does.
What it's worth to you — net annual value
Welcome: ₹400 Amazon Pay e-voucher on ₹5,000 spend in the first 30 days
How these numbers are computed →
Spend tiers, milestones and fee waivers included, at our house ₹/point. Portal and category multipliers can push higher — run your exact number →
The take
Imperio is what happens when a bank gives away lounge access and pays you in confetti. The card is lifetime free — Federal's published ₹1,500 joining and ₹1,500 annual fees have been switched off since the 3-Apr-2023 offer — and it opens eight domestic lounge doors a year, two a quarter, provided you pushed ₹40,000 through it the quarter before. That is the whole case. The rewards are the thinnest in this index: 1 point per ₹150 at ₹0.25 a point is 0.17% back, rising to a still invisible 0.5% on healthcare and groceries, redeemable only on Federal's own portal for a ₹99 fee, with no airline or hotel partner anywhere. And unlike its sibling Celesta — also lifetime free — Imperio charges the full 3.5% abroad and opens no international lounge at all. Keep it in the drawer for the quarterly lounge run; swipe literally anything else.
What's good
- Lifetime free — ₹0 joining, ₹0 annual under Federal's offer running since 3-Apr-2023
- 8 domestic lounge visits a year (2 a quarter, gated on ₹40,000 of previous-quarter spend)
- ₹400 Amazon Pay welcome voucher on ₹5,000 in the first 30 days
- 3X on healthcare and groceries, 2X on utility bills; ₹300 BigBasket voucher every ₹50,000 quarter
- 1% fuel surcharge waiver and a quarterly INOX buy-one-get-one
Watch out
- 0.17% base earn — the thinnest reward rate in this index (1 point per ₹150 at ₹0.25 a point)
- Federal reward points are closed-loop: portal catalogue only, ₹99 a redemption request, no transfer partners
- 3.5% forex — Celesta, the other lifetime-free Federal card, charges 2% and adds international lounges
- No international lounge access at all
- Domestic lounge access needs ₹40,000 of spend in the previous quarter — miss it and the card does nothing
- Points expire 3 years from accrual
Lounge access
Gate: ₹40k spend in the previous calendar quarter
Opens 72 of 746 tracked lounge doors across 40 airports — see the full map →
Can you get it?
The cutoffs and the actual route in — not the "apply now" button, the door that opens.
Direct application — no invite list, no banking relationship required.
Federal Bank publishes no income or age cutoffs for this card. Blank means blank — we don't invent numbers to fill a grid.
per the official Federal Bank MITC — figures marked (community) aren't in the PDF; the issuer won't say · filter the ranking by what you can get →
The fine print
What the MITC actually says — the rates, fees and cutoffs the brochure skips.
Published fee is ₹1,500 joining / ₹1,500 annual (waived at ₹1.5L annual spend), but Federal has run the card lifetime free since 3-Apr-2023 — the MITC's waiver wording applies to pre-April-2023 customers. Earn is 1 Point per ₹150 at ₹0.25 a point (Celesta earns 1 per ₹100 and charges 2% forex). Points expire 3 years from accrual (community).
per the official Federal Bank MITC · reviewed 10 Jul 2026
What's changed for this card
Full tracker →Devaluations and buffs that touch this card directly, its issuer, or the points and programs it earns and transfers to.
- 27 Feb 2026Scapia doubles the lounge bar and kills its easiest earnUnlimited domestic lounges at ₹10k prior-month spend; insurance and utility payments earned coins and counted → Lounge gate doubled to ₹20k/month; insurance, utility, rent and fuel earn nothing and don't count toward the gate
Scapia's first real devaluation lands on both sides of the same trade: the unlimited-lounge threshold doubles to ₹20,000 a month just as the insurance and utility spends that most easily cleared it stop earning or counting at all. The card is still lifetime-free with 0% forex — but the era of paying your electricity bill for a lounge pass is over.
- 20 Jun 2023Scapia launches: 0% forex and unlimited lounges, for freeZero-forex travel cards were a paid, premium privilege → Lifetime-free Federal Bank co-brand: 0% forex, unlimited domestic lounges, 10–20% coins on spends
A fintech co-brand on Federal Bank rails resets the entry price of the zero-forex trade to nothing: no joining fee, no annual fee, 0% markup abroad and unlimited domestic lounge access. The 10% 'rewards' headline is really 2% in coins that only spend inside Scapia's own travel app — but as a free forex-and-lounge tool, nothing at launch came close, and half the fintech card industry spent the next two years copying it.
- 3 Sept 2021Federal Bank deals its first own cards — Celesta on topFederal customers had no in-house credit card → Celesta, Imperio and Signet launch on Visa with 3-click digital issuance; Celesta brings 2 international + 8 domestic lounge visits
Federal Bank's September-2021 entry put three Visa cards in front of its existing customers, with Celesta as the HNI flagship — instant issuance inside FedMobile, dynamic interest from 0.49% a month, and lounge access rare at the price. The rewards were an afterthought then and remain one now (1 point per ₹100 at ₹0.25), but the free international lounge visits and 2% forex gave Celesta a reason to exist that the points never did.
Go deeper
Sources
Every fact on this page is checked against these documents — the issuer's own paperwork first. Spot something stale? The PDF wins, and we re-verify.
- official Credit-cards MITC — Imperio 1 Point per ₹150 spend, point valued ₹0.25, 3.5% foreign-currency markup, ₹99 redemption fee, ₹1,500 joining / ₹1,500 annual behind the lifetime-free offer, cash advance 2.5% (min ₹500) checked 25 Jul 2026
- official Mastercard Imperio product page — lifetime free (limited-period offer w.e.f. 3-Apr-2023), 3-2-1 rewards (3X healthcare/grocery, 2X utilities, 1X other), 2 domestic lounge visits a quarter on ₹40,000 prior-quarter spend, ₹400 Amazon Pay welcome, 1% fuel surcharge waiver, quarterly INOX BOGO, BigBasket vouchers at ₹50,000/quarter checked 25 Jul 2026
- official Visa Imperio product page — the twin variant, identical benefit sheet checked 25 Jul 2026
- community CardInsider review — 1X RP/₹150 base, ₹0.25 a point, 3.5% forex, ₹99 redemption fee, ₹300 BigBasket voucher at ₹50,000 quarterly spend, 3-year point expiry, Visa and Mastercard variants checked 25 Jul 2026
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