Credit Cards For Bad Credit
Even if you have a bad credit history or limited credit history, there’s no reason to give up hope of regaining control of your credit future. There are credit cards available even to consumers in your circumstances. A credit card is one tool that can help you build your credit history. Ultimately, only you can turn your credit problems around, and each person’s credit situation is different. But always making on-time payments on all of your obligations and keeping your balances low relative to your credit limits are two of the most important things you can do to positively affect your credit profile. We’ve compiled a list of top credit cards for bad credit for those with less than perfect credit, and you are eligible to apply for any of these offers. Below you will find our most popular credit card offers for people with bad credit:
Secured Chime Credit Builder Visa® Credit Card
Secured Chime Credit Builder Visa® Credit Card
Benefits & Key features
- In order to be eligible, you must first open a Chime® Checking account and receive a qualifying direct deposit of $200 or more.
- The qualifying direct deposit must be from your employer, payroll provider, gig economy payer, or benefits payer by Automated Clearing House (ACH) deposit OR Original Credit Transaction (OCT).
- No credit check to apply, no annual fees, and no minimum security deposit1
- Chime is a financial technology company, not a bank. The Chime Visa® Credit Builder Card is issued by Stride Bank pursuant to a license from Visa U.S.A. Inc. and may be used everywhere Visa credit cards are accepted.
- 1Money added to Credit Builder will be held in a secured account as collateral for your Credit Builder Visa card, which means you can spend up to this amount on your card. This is money you can use to pay off your charges at the end of every month.
Poor / Bad
(Purchases)
(Balance Transfer)
Walmart MoneyCard®
Walmart MoneyCard®
Benefits & Key features
- Get a $25 bonus when you direct deposit your federal or state tax refund to your WalMart MoneyCard account and receive a qualifying new direct deposit of $500+ by 6/30/23.*
- Waive your monthly fee when you direct deposit $500+ in previous monthly period. Otherwise, $5.94 a month.*
- Earn 3% cash back at Walmart.com, 2% cash back at Walmart fuel stations, & 1% cash back at Walmart stores, up to $75 each year.*
- Earn 2% interest rate on up to $1,000 balance in your savings account. Plus, get chances to win cash prizes each month!*
- Get peace of mind with three coverage levels, up to $200, for purchase transactions with opt-in & eligible direct deposit.*
*Please see site for full terms and conditions.
Excellent / Good / Fair / Bad
(Purchases)
(Balance Transfer)
Merit Platinum Card
Merit Platinum Card
Benefits & Key features
- Bad Credit, No Credit? No Problem!
- Fast and Easy Application
- No Employment or Credit Check
Fair
(Purchases)
(Balance Transfer)
Petal® 1 "No Annual Fee" Visa® Credit Card
Petal® 1 "No Annual Fee" Visa® Credit Card
Benefits & Key features
- $0 Annual Fee
- Variable APRs range from 24.24% - 33.74%
- $300 - $5,000 credit limits
- Earn a credit limit increase in as little as 6 months. Terms and conditions apply.
- No credit score? No problem. If eligible, we'll create your Cash Score instead.
- 2% - 10% cash back at select merchants
- See if you're pre-approved within minutes without impacting your credit score.
- No annual or foreign transaction fees.
- Build credit alongside hundreds of thousands of Petal card members.
- Petal's mobile app makes it easy to manage your money, track your spending, and automate payments.
- Petal reports to all 3 major credit bureaus
- No deposits required
- Card issued by WebBank
Bad / Fair / Limited
(Purchases)
(Balance Transfer)
Prosper® Card
Prosper® Card
Benefits & Key features
- Annual Percentage Rate (APR) for purchases: 22.74% - 33.74% variable based on Prime Rate
- APR for cash advances: 33.74% variable based on Prime Rate
- Annual Fee: $39 (waived for the first year if you sign up for AutoPay before your first statement)
- Minimum interest charge: no less than $1.00 (ME residents no more than $0.50)
- Foreign transaction fee: 1% of the transaction amount
- Issued by Coastal Community Bank, Member FDIC pursuant to a license by Mastercard® International
- No security deposit required
- Initial credit limit up to $3,000
- We regularly report on your credit card performance to help you establish credit history
- Zero fraud liability (which offers protection against unauthorized purchases)
- While you wait for your Prosper® Card to ship, use a portion of your credit line instantly through Digital Wallet, My Prosper Card App, or Prosper.com
- Choose a monthly payment date that works for you
- Free mobile app--My Prosper Card
- See full terms and conditions here
Excellent / Good / Fair / Bad
(Purchases)
(Balance Transfer)
Loans Under 36 - Personal Loan
Benefits & Key features
- Loans up to $35,000
- Suitable for those with all credit ranges
- APR varies from 4.99% up based on customer information
- Great for consolidating debt
- No obligation fee
- Decision within minutes
Need Advice?
Credit cards can be confusing. We are here to make sure you have all the information you need to get the card that’s best for you. We’ve compiled popular credit cards to bring you all the information you need to select the right card for you.
Credit Score
One of the many factors that credit card issuers think about when deciding to approve or deny an application is your credit score. This is one of the most important factors in the approval process, so it is important to know your credit score. Your score will fall into one of the following categories:
- Excellent Credit: 720 – 850
- Good Credit: 680 – 719
- Fair Credit: 620 – 679
- Poor Credit: 500 – 619
- Limited Credit: 300 – 549
The lower your credit score, the more limited your credit card options are. Many of the cards with big bonuses and rewards require Good or Excellent credit, while the cards available for Fair and Poor credit don’t offer quite as many perks, but give you the opportunity to build your credit over time. The higher your credit score, the more likely you are to be approved for different credit cards.
Choosing a card
We can help you choose a card to get you the best possible deals that fit your budget and lifestyle. We’ve already done all the work to put together the best selection of cards with all their advantages and disadvantages so you always know what to expect from a particular credit card.
Deciding on a Card
There are many things to consider when applying for a new credit card. You need to be aware of the many different offers, your credit score, and your personal financial situation.
We highly recommend that you keep your credit score in mind when choosing a card, since that is often the biggest factor that card issuers look at when deciding to approve your application.
With your credit score in mind, you can then focus your search on the cards you are most likely to be approved for. If you don’t think you have a high enough credit score for a certain card, you may need to select a different card with a lower credit requirement and come back to the other card once you have built up your credit score.
We don’t recommend applying for cards with high credit requirements if you know that you have a low credit score. Keep in mind: having too many credit inquiries in a short period of time can lower your credit score. Because of this, we don’t recommend you keep applying for credit card offers that probably won’t approve your application.
How to Improve Credit
If your credit score is really low or you don’t have a long enough credit history to get approved for a certain card, you may want to get a secured credit card to improve your score and establish a credit history. Secured credit cards require a security deposit ahead of time, but they allow you to access a line of credit that you may not be able to get otherwise with a low credit score.
There are many unsecured credit cards that will approve applicants with low or fair credit scores. These cards don’t offer very many perks or benefits, but they are perfect to use while you are building your credit. Sometimes these cards have monthly fees or high APR, but as long as you manage your spending wisely, you will be able to quickly build credit and move on to a better card.
A good way to improve your credit score is to check what factors are negatively impacting your score and try to fix them. You can check your score and see what is impacting it for free at https://membership.moneytips.com/membership-essential-signup.fhtml
Final Summary
It’s good to be aware of what you are looking for in a credit card. We also recommend that you keep your credit score in mind so that you can select the card that is most likely to approve your application.