Business Credit Cards for New Businesses

The best business credit card for startups is the Chase Ink Business Preferred card because it offers 80,000 bonus points for spending $5,000 in the first 3 months. There’s also 3 points per $1 spent on travel and common business expenses. These points are worth 1.25 cents each toward travel through Chase Ultimate Rewards. And the card has a fairly cheap $95 annual fee.

The best business credit cards for startups are the same as the best business credit cards for any company. Approval for a business credit card does not depend on how long the company has been around. Rather, it rests on the owner’s personal credit history. The best cards require good credit (700+ score) or excellent credit (750+).

5 Best Business Credit Cards for Startups:

1. Chase Ink Business Preferred – Best Signup Bonus
2. Capital One Spark Cash for Business – Best Cash Back Rate
3. U.S. Bank Visa Platinum Card – Best 0% Intro APR
4. Wells Fargo Business Secured – Best for Bad Credit
5. Capital One Spark Classic for Business – Best for Limited Credit

Choosing the best business credit card for a startup comes down to finding a card that rewards the business’s biggest spending categories. Focus on purchases that will be paid off within a single billing period. Business credit cards are bad for carrying a balance from month to month because the interest rate can change at any time.

With that background out of the way, let’s take a more in-depth look at some of the top offers in categories popular among entrepreneurs.

Compare the best business credit cards for startups:

• Best Signup Bonus: Ink Business Preferred. This card, issued by Chase, offers 80,000 bonus points for spending $5,000 in the first 3 months. That’s worth $1,000 in travel. There’s also 3 points per $1 on travel and select business categories and 1 on everything else. The only drawbacks are the $95 annual fee and excellent credit requirement. 
• Best Cash Back Rate: Capital One Spark Cash for Business. Spark Cash offers unlimited 2% cash back on all purchases, which can build up quickly for a business. There’s also a $500 initial bonus for spending $5,000 in the first 3 months and another $1,500 for spending $50,000 in the first 6 months. There’s a $95 annual fee, but it’s waived the first year. The card requires good credit.
• Best 0% Intro APR: U.S. Bank Visa Platinum Card. This is technically a personal credit card. But it’s good for startups because entrepreneurs can take advantage of its 0% for 20 months on purchases to buy and pay off everything needed to start a business. And although there are no rewards, there’s also no annual fee. The card requires excellent credit.
• Best for Bad Credit: Wells Fargo Business Secured. For people who want to start a business but whose finances aren’t in the greatest shape, there’s still hope. This card requires a refundable deposit of $500-$25,000, which will serve as the credit line. The card offers 1.5% cash back on all purchases and has a $25 annual fee.
• Best for Limited Credit: Capital One Spark Classic for Business. Spark Classic is available to business owners who have little or no existing credit. It has a annual fee and even gives 1% cash back on all purchases.

There are a lot of great incentives to get a business credit card for a startup. Shop around to see which card fits the needs of the business best. Good luck!

The first thing to ask yourself is whether you need your head examined.  After you answer this question, you can now get more serious Let's start out with whether this is going to be a capital-intensive or labor intensive business.  In other words, are you going to manufacture widgets that will need substantial capital to get started or will you be a consultant where capital may not be the primary consideration but instead the source of where new clients will come from. You need a plan and the plan does not have to be perfect but what it does need is budgetary considerations, goals to be achieved adn a time frame for reaching these goals. Next, assuming you can afford it is some professional advisors. At the start of the business I think the most important advisors probably is the CPA who can help you decide whether the business should be an LLC, an S corporation or C corporation. Regardless, one of these should be selected in order to protect your private assets from claims of business creditors. Once the CPAs is in place, and don't be afraid to ask if they have experience in dealing with new business owners, your next step would be to retain a fee-only financial advisor to help put forth the future in the form of projections of cash flow and tax planning with the advisor working closely with the CPA. These services are not free but in my professional judgment and based on many years of experience without them, it may be difficult to succeed. On the assumption that you may be married, you may need the support of an understanding wife and possibly children as self-employment is not a five day week with eight hour days. Very often it begins with seven working days per week and long hours. One of the early considerations is the preparation of proposed budget and recognizing that it will never be perfect, it will serve as a guideline to measure actual performance against. Your question is incredibly broad and we could probably go on for paragraph after paragraph but hopefully this is enough to get you started. Except my best wishes and hopefully you have the financial resources or can obtain them to get into the business until profits can be generated. Good luck.

A good option to consider for a new LLC looking for credit is the Capital One Spark Classic for Business, as it offers a range of business benefits such as year-end summaries, employee cards at no extra cost and experienced small business customer service.

You can learn more about these benefits from WalletHub’s most recent Business Credit Card Study as well as check your credit score for free on WalletHub.

There are three main business credit reporting agencies: Experian, Equifax and Dun & Bradstreet. They track essentially the same information which they get from banks, credit unions and other lenders (even retailers that offer financing), as well public court documents and business registries.

Practically speaking, there are two different types of business credit scores: business-specific scores and personal credit scores that are used for business lending purposes. The two most popular business credit scores come from Experian and Dun & Bradstreet – Equifax offers business credit reports, but not scores. You can obtain your business credit report and score from these bureaus online, in exchange for payment.

On the other hand, personal credit scores can also be used for business lending purposes. WalletHub can be of help in this aspect, since you can check your personal credit score for free by signing up for an account.

You can also learn more about business credit reports and find some tips on how to build business credit right here on WalletHub. Hope this helps!

There are three major business credit bureaus, Dun & Bradstreet, Equifax and Experian, that provide business credit scores.

Dun & Bradstreet measures a company’s risk using a Paydex score, which ranges from 0 to 100, and mirrors a company’s payment data. Experian offers a CreditScore report, also ranging from 0 to 100, which includes a business credit score, payment trends, public records and account histories. Equifax assigns three different scores to a company. The first is a credit risk score, ranging from 100 to 992, which analyzes your company’s credit history.

The second is a “payment index,” ranging from 0 to 100, which determines the likelihood of your business becoming delinquent on payments. The third is a “business failure score,” ranging from 1,000 to 1,880, which assesses the risk of a company going bankrupt.

As you can see, all of these credit scores rely on the payment history a company has with its previous suppliers, creditors, and lenders. Therefore, having records of timely payments will help establish a good score.