What is a good credit card for beginners?
Why We Like It: The Petal® 2 Visa® Credit Card is a great beginner credit card if you want to earn rewards with out paying an annual fee. It gives at least 1% cash back on all eligible purchases, and the earning rate increases as you prove yourself to be a responsible cardholder.
Consider applying for a secured credit card or a student credit card. If you lack a lengthy credit history, a secured credit card or a student credit card might be a good first credit card option. If you have little to no credit history, a secured credit card can be a great choice for a first credit card.
If you're just starting out, a good credit limit for your first card might be around $1,000. If you have built up a solid credit history, a steady income and a good credit score, your credit limit may increase to $5,000 or $10,000 or more — plenty of credit to ensure you can purchase big ticket items.
Discover it® Student Cash Back: Best first credit card. Discover it® Student Chrome: Best first credit card for students for gas and restaurant spending. Chase Freedom Rise℠ *: Best first credit card with a path to increased approval odds.
The Discover it® Secured Credit Card is our top pick for easiest credit card to get because it's geared toward those with limited/poor credit. It offers great rewards and charges a $0 annual fee. Plus, Discover will conduct monthly account reviews after seven months to see if you qualify to get your deposit refunded.
Best Unsecured Starter Credit Card
A rating of 5 is the best a card can receive. Why We Like It: The best credit card for beginners is the Chase Freedom Rise℠ because it gives you above-average rewards at a below-average cost and keeps things simple as you're just starting out.
Most people's initial credit scores are between 500 and 700 points, depending on the steps taken when establishing credit. However, you won't have a credit score to report if you've never opened a credit account. Read on to learn more about your starting credit score and how to build your credit over time.
If you haven't started using credit yet, you would have no credit history and no credit score — also referred to as unscoreable or credit invisible. Starting from scratch with your credit score isn't a bad thing. It just means the credit bureaus don't have enough information to assign you a score yet.
One rule of thumb for building a strong credit history is to spend no more than 30 percent of your credit limit. If you regularly use your card to cover purchases that you haven't budgeted for, you can burn through your available credit in a hurry.
First Progress Platinum Elite Secured Mastercard: The First Progress Platinum Elite Secured Mastercard requires no credit history or minimum credit score for approval. Your security deposit is refundable, and the card is accepted nationwide.
How to get a credit card with no credit history?
Look for a secured credit card if you can provide a security deposit for the card or see if you're pre-approved for an offer with low eligibility requirements. When you've established credit, you may qualify to get your deposit back.
Unsecured credit cards explained
There are many starter credit cards which allow cardmembers to build up their credit without having to put money down as collateral. These include store credit cards, low-limit credit cards, and student credit cards.
It's generally recommended that you have two to three credit card accounts at a time, in addition to other types of credit. Remember that your total available credit and your debt to credit ratio can impact your credit scores. If you have more than three credit cards, it may be hard to keep track of monthly payments.
The best credit card overall is the Wells Fargo Active Cash® Card because it gives 2% cash rewards on purchases and has a $0 annual fee. For comparison purposes, the average cash rewards card in 2024 gives about 1% back. Cardholders can also earn an initial bonus of $200 cash rewards after spending $500...
Get an instant Credit Card online with ICICI Bank in three easy steps: Check your Pre-Approved Offer. Choose your Card. Generate your Card.
One of the easiest U.S. Bank credit cards you can get is the U.S. Bank Cash+® Visa® Secured Card. This card is available to applicants with bad credit, has a $0 annual fee and requires a minimum deposit of $300 to open the account. The deposit will serve as your credit limit.
Good first credit card for people who are new to credit
You could think of them as a credit card for beginners. Chase offers one called the Freedom Rise℠ credit card. If approved for this card, you could earn 1.5% cash back on every purchase.
The Chase Freedom Rise℠ Credit Card is ideal for beginners and is marketed to students and others new to credit. It offers 1.5% cash back on all purchases and has no annual fee.
Since everyone's credit journey is different, there's no one standard credit score everyone starts with. And you can have different credit scores depending on the credit-scoring model—either FICO or VantageScore.
Many starter credit cards have credit limit ranges between $200 and $1,000. In that case, you could consider a limit of $500 or more to be a fairly good starting limit. However, the best credit limit for your first card is one that you can pay back on time each month as you spend with your card.
What is a good starting amount for a credit card?
Joyce Brown, WalletHub Credit Card Analyst
The usual credit limit for a first credit card is $100 to $500, on average, depending on which card you get. The credit limit could be as low as $100 for store credit cards or up to $500 if your first credit card is issued by a bank or credit union.
Generally speaking, a good credit score is 690 to 719 in the commonly used 300-850 credit score range. Scores 720 and above are considered excellent, while scores 630 to 689 are considered fair. Scores below 630 fall into the bad credit range.
Having no credit history typically means you don't have a credit score at all. This is different from having a low credit score, which can stem from having limited credit history or negative reporting on your credit reports. If you have no credit history at all, building credit from scratch should be one of your goals.
What is Credit? Credit is an agreement you make with a lender that allows you to pay for goods or services now. In return, you agree to pay the lender back, usually with interest. Some common forms of credit are credit cards, mortgages, personal loans, payday loans, student loans, and car loans.
But Capital One's cards are more than hype — they include generous rewards cards as well as excellent products for business owners, students and those with average or poor credit. What won't you find on any Capital One card? Foreign transaction fees.
