A worked example: exactly where the referral link needs to be, minute by minute
Referral benefit — not a coupon
Your Tesla Referral Link
There is no code to type at Tesla, so Copy link copies the whole URL. Open it before you order and the 650 free Supercharging miles apply automatically at checkout (new Model 3 / Model Y).
Programme reviewed: 2026-07-13 · re-verify at tesla.com/en_gb
People searching for where to "enter" a Tesla referral code are picturing a box at checkout that doesn't exist. What actually happens is quieter than that — and the timing matters more than the mechanics. Here's a worked, hypothetical UK order from start to finish, so you can see exactly where the link needs to sit.
The timeline (illustrative, not a real order)
| Step | What happens | Still open to a referral link? |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Open the link | Click "Open at Tesla" (the button above rotates a real one) before touching the configurator. | Yes — this step has to happen first. |
| 2. Configure the car | Choose model, colour, wheels and any options on tesla.com/en_gb, in the same session. | Yes — still fine, the link is already attached. |
| 3. Review the order summary | The order summary is where the referral benefit is acknowledged before you pay — no separate code field appears anywhere. | Yes — last chance to check it's recognised. |
| 4. Submit payment | You confirm and pay the order deposit. | No — this is the moment the window closes. |
| 5. Order confirmed | You receive order confirmation; production and delivery scheduling follow. | No — nothing after step 4 can add or change it. |
The practical caution most guides skip
Do steps 1 and 2 in the same browser session, on the same device, without clearing cookies in between. There's no official guidance suggesting the tag survives a switch of device or browser mid-configuration, so the safest approach is to open the link and finish configuring in one sitting rather than starting on your phone and finishing on a laptop days later.
The row the timeline can't show you
A clean step-by-step implies each row either succeeds or fails visibly. In practice there is a state the table has no column for: the link was opened, but the session stopped carrying it partway through.
That path looks identical to a correct one at every step except the last. You did step 1, so you believe the benefit is attached; nothing in the configurator contradicts you, because nothing in the configurator ever confirms it either. The divergence only surfaces at the order summary. Sessions break for ordinary reasons — moving from phone to laptop, resuming a build saved days earlier, a private window, strict tracking protection — and none of them produces an error message.
Which is why the timing this page is about matters more than the mechanics: step 1 is the only step that can attach the benefit, and the order summary is the only step that can prove it did. Everything between them is unobservable.
What happens after the last row
The timeline ends at payment, and one thing worth knowing sits past it. The 650 miles are credited after delivery, to the Tesla account behind the order rather than to the car — so they are not attached to the vehicle, and selling or changing the car later does not move them.
Two practical consequences of that:
- There is a gap between confirming and receiving. The benefit shows on the order summary weeks or months before it appears in the account. Nothing is wrong during that gap, but it is the reason we suggest keeping a dated screenshot of the summary — it is the only record of that moment that belongs to you.
- What governs the credit afterwards is account terms, not order terms. Whatever expiry or spending rules apply, they attach to the balance in your account, so that is where to read them — not on this page, and not on the order paperwork.
None of it changes the instruction that matters, which remains the shortest one on the site: open the link before you configure, and look at the summary before you pay.
Why this catches people out
The most common version of this mistake is browsing and building the car first, out of pure curiosity, then coming back later to "add" a referral — by which point the order may already be placed. See the mistakes that break the timing → for the other ways buyers get this wrong.
Get the order right and the reward is the same regardless of which real code you used to get there: 650 free Supercharging miles on a new Model 3 or Model Y. Full UK detail: the real UK saving →.