Forest Referral Code & Free Rides — 30 free minutes (worth up to £9.90)

Forest gives the biggest e-bike referral reward in the UK — 30 free minutes of riding, worth up to £9.90 — which is why it is the first e-bike offer we point London riders to. The two things to know before you bank on it are that Forest is London-only and that the minutes come with a seven-day clock, so it rewards riders who can use them soon, not people stockpiling for later.

What you get, and the seven-day clock

Forest's Help Centre (article 110) sets it out: "When your friend signs up using your referral code and takes their first ride, both of you will receive 30 minutes of free riding time." So once a new rider completes their first trip, 30 free minutes land for each side — check them in the app menu → Account → My Minutes. At Forest's 33p-per-minute rate that is worth up to £9.90 ("up to" because a bike's own free minutes are used first). The minutes apply automatically to your next rides — but "Referral credits are only valid for 7 days", and the £1 unlock fee on each ride is not covered: "While the free minutes cover the cost of riding, unlock fees are not covered by the free minutes." So it is best thought of as a week of nearly-free riding, not a single free journey end to end.

How to claim it

Join through the link or enter code z0e699xY — and crucially, enter it during sign-up, because Forest cannot apply it afterwards. Then download the app, find a bike on the map, and unlock it for £1 to take your first ride. Once that ride is done, the 30 free minutes are credited to both of you and apply automatically to your next rides.

The most common reasons a referral fails are simple: you already had a Forest account, you tried to add the code after registering, or you are outside the London service area. The code is tied to the referrer's account and works as many times as Forest allows — it is not a one-time voucher that "expires".

The '£1 for 30 minutes' deal is the bike, not the code

Forest also gives free minutes on the bike itself — every bike carries 0, 5, 10 or 30 free ride minutes, flagged in the app — so a bike with 30 free minutes costs you just the £1 unlock. People often confuse that with the referral. They are different things, and you get both: a bike's own free minutes are used first, and your 30 referral minutes cover the riding after that.

What riding costs after the free minutes

Forest's pricing (Help Centre article 76) is simple: £1 to unlock each ride (unless you are on a minute bundle), then 33p a minute once any free minutes are used — and pausing costs the same 33p a minute. Park inside the marked zones: leaving a bike outside them carries a minimum £20 fine.

Riding most days? Forest's minute bundles (article 202) include free unlocks: 20 minutes for £2.99, 35 minutes for £4.59, 70 minutes for £7.69 (3 days), 250 minutes for £19.94 (7 days), 500 minutes for £36.99 (30 days), or 24 hours unlimited for £10.99. Use the referral minutes first, then pick a bundle if you are hooked.

Where Forest operates, and why that matters

Forest is a London-only B Corp operator with around 20,000 e-bikes across 18+ boroughs as of late 2025, and it is the only micromobility company globally with Verra validation for its carbon-offset programme — its model is partly ad-supported, which subsidises the free riding. It won the Hounslow (2024) and Richmond (2025) tenders from Lime, so its London footprint is growing. But if you live outside London, the free minutes have nowhere to be spent — which is the one mark against an otherwise excellent offer, and exactly why we weigh Forest's bigger reward against Lime's and Voi's wider reach.

Is there a Forest promo code or discount code?

Not in the way most brands run one. Forest does not operate a public promo-code programme, and there is no voucher-code box at checkout to paste a seasonal discount code into. Forest's own terms are explicit that the referral code "must be entered during the registration process, and cannot be used as a voucher code post-account creation" — so it behaves differently from a retail discount code in two ways: it only works at sign-up, and it credits riding time rather than reducing a price.

What Forest does run alongside it is a tier-based free-minutes system, assigned dynamically by the app. A bike sitting in an over-supplied bay may carry 5, 10 or even 30 free minutes to encourage riders to move it; a bike in a high-demand spot carries none. That is not a code you can claim — it is priced into the bike you happen to pick — but it is why two riders taking identical journeys can pay different amounts.

What people search for	What actually exists
Forest promo code	The referral code, entered at sign-up
Forest discount code	No public discount-code programme
Forest voucher code	Not a voucher — free riding minutes in the app
Forest free ride minutes	0, 5, 10 or 30 per bike, assigned by the app
Forest referral code	30 free minutes (worth up to £9.90) after your first ride

So if you have landed here looking for a Forest promo code, the referral code is the thing you want — it is the only code Forest accepts from a new rider, and at 30 free minutes, worth up to £9.90, it beats a typical percentage discount outright.

What we checked

We verify this against Forest's Help Centre — article 110 (the referral programme), article 76 (pricing) and article 202 (minute bundles) — and the live in-app pricing, re-checking monthly with a daily link test. We publish Forest's own figure — 30 free minutes — with its pound value at the 33p-per-minute rate, and we spell out the seven-day window and the £1 unlock plainly, because both are things first-time riders get caught out by.