Easiest Credit Cards to Get Approved For

First do yourself a favor and stay away from Fingerhut. I purchased a couple overpriced items from them and then when my first bill was due I used my checking account to pay the whole amount. They took my payment and then 2 weeks later they tried billing me again for the whole amount so I disputed the charge and proved to them that I paid it but they continued to demand the money so I closed the account. Now it's on my credit report as a bad debt and nothing that I've done to prove it was paid has taken it off my report. If you really want an easy card that isn't too bad and not a secured card apply with Capital One. As long as you haven't burned them before they will give you a couple hundred dollars credit limit, usually $300.

Easy credit cards for fair credit are cards that even people with limited credit or bad credit can get. There are plenty of credit cards that require fair credit, at a minimum. But if easy approval is what you're after, you'll want to exceed the card's requirements rather than just meeting them.

Checking for pre-approval will give you a good idea of which credit cards will be easiest to get with your fair credit score. If you get pre-approved for a credit card, you have about a 90% chance of a successful application. Most major credit card companies let you check for pre-approval, including Bank of America, Capital One, Chase, Citi, Discover, and Wells Fargo.

That said, I'll highlight a handful of specific cards that offer great terms and tend to be pretty easy for people with fair credit to get.

Easy Credit Cards for Fair Credit:

• QuicksilverOne Cash Rewards Credit Card. The annual fee is $39. You'll get 1.5% cash back on all purchases. The card requires limited credit.
• Capital One Platinum Credit Card. There's no annual fee or rewards. You can get the card with limited history.
• Capital One Secured Mastercard. This card doesn't charge an annual fee. The initial deposit will be $49, $99 or $200, depending on your credit worthiness. There are no rewards, and you can get approved with bad credit.
• Discover it Secured Card. There's a $0 annual fee and the minimum security deposit is $200. You'll get 2% cash back on your first $1,000 spent per quarter on gas and at restaurants. You get 1% everywhere else. You can get this card with bad credit.
• Target Credit Card. There's a $0 annual fee. You save 5% on Target and Target.com purchases. Free shipping on most Target.com purchases. This card requires fair credit.

It's not hard to find easy credit cards for fair credit, even ones with rewards. But it is hard to find 0% intro rates for financing. So it's probably best to pay off your balance in full each month. And if you pay it on time consistently, you should see your credit score start moving up toward the good credit range.

The easiest unsecured card to get is the Fingerhut Credit Account. But it won't suit everyone's needs. Fingerhut is an online marketplace, and its card can only be used to make purchases on the site. So while it will give you an unsecured line of credit, it won't really help you cover emergency expenses.

If you're looking for a card that can be used for anything, the Credit One Bank® Visa® Credit Card is your best bet. You can get approved for it with bad credit. It offers a $300 starting spending limit. And you can use it wherever Visa is accepted.

Those aren't your only options, though. WalletHub's editors compared all of the unsecured credit cards in our database of 1,000+ offers. And we selected our favorite easy-to-get offers.

Easiest Unsecured Credit Card to Get Approved For

• Fingerhut Credit Account: Overall
• Credit One Bank® Visa® Credit Card: Rewards
• Capital One® Spark® Classic for Business: Small Business
• Petal® 2 Visa® Credit Card: Limited Credit
• Deserve® EDU Mastercard for Students: Students

The easiest unsecured credit cards to get generally work best for minor emergencies. You will only receive a small amount of spending power, after all.

Unsecured credit cards for people with bad credit also tend to be very expensive, charging lots of fees and high interest rates. So if you don't need a small emergency loan, the best course of action is to improve your credit inexpensively with a secured card. Secured cards are cheaper than unsecured cards, build credit just as effectively, and offer the closest thing you'll find to guaranteed approval.

To learn more, check out WalletHub's complete list of the year's easiest credit cards to get approved for​.

The easiest credit card to get with no credit is the OpenSky Secured Credit Card because there's no credit check when you apply. As long as you're 18 or older, can afford at least a $200 deposit, and can make monthly bill payments, you'll probably get approved. With secured credit cards, your limit is usually the amount of your initial deposit. The OpenSky Credit Card has a $35 annual fee.

The easiest unsecured credit card to get with no credit is the Capital One Platinum Credit Card. The major upsides to this credit card are its $0 annual fee and its minimum credit limit of $300, which Capital One may increase after your first 6 months. However, the regular APR is a steep one at 26.99% (V), so it's best not to carry a balance on this card.

The bottom line is there's a number of good starter credit cards and credit cards for people with no credit that easily can help you start building a great credit score. You just have to use the one you pick responsibly.

The easiest credit card to get with no annual fee is the Capital One Secured Mastercard or the Fingerhut Credit Account, because neither has an annual fee and both will approve people with bad credit. The difference between these two credit cards is the Capital One Secured Mastercard is a secured credit card, meaning that you have to put down a deposit to open the account, and that deposit becomes your credit limit in most cases. With Capital One Secured, however, your deposit could be $49, $99, or $200 in exchange for a $200 credit limit. The deposit amount will depend on your overall creditworthiness, and Capital One Secured has a regular APR of 26.99% (V).

The Fingerhut Credit Account, on the other hand, is unsecured, meaning there's no deposit required. But it's a store credit card, which means you can only use it to buy merchandise from the Fingerhut online store. It's easy to get approved for this card, but it's not a good card to carry a balance with - the regular APR is 29.99%.

The easiest credit cards to get with good credit are credit cards for fair, limited or bad credit. The Capital One Platinum Credit Card, the Petal Visa Credit Card, the Discover it Secured Credit Card, and the Target Credit Card should all be very easy to get with good credit, for example.

On the other hand, people with good credit can also have an easy time getting certain credit cards that require good credit or better. Discover it Cash Back and Capital One Quicksilver are on the easy end of credit cards with good credit, because Discover and Capital One credit cards are rumored to be easier to get than other credit cards - even when the cards have the same approval requirements on paper. Both of these cards require good credit or better for approval, and both offer great rewards for spending.

People with good credit have a lot of credit card options to choose from. Every major credit card company offers credit cards for people with good credit. And many of them are great cards for rewards and travel. While no credit card company is really known as the “easiest” to get a credit card from, reports online suggest it's more difficult to get approved for a Chase credit card than cards from some other major issuers.

There are several easy approval business credit cards. That's because the easiest business credit cards to get only require fair or bad credit. They include Capital One Spark Classic for Business,  the Staples Business Credit Card, and the Wells Fargo Business Secured Credit Card. It's also worth noting that while you must have a business to get one of these cards, your personal credit history matters a lot more than your company's.

Here are your options for easy approval business credit cards:

• Limited Credit: Capital One Spark Classic for Business
  You'll get 1% cash back on all purchases. There's no annual fee, and the purchase APR is 24.24%.
• Fair Credit: Staples Business Credit Card
  You'll save $50 on a purchase of $150 or more made within 45 days of opening your account. You'll also get 5% back in Staples credit for each purchase. There's no annual fee. Your APR will be somewhere between 14.99% and 23.99%, depending on credit worthiness.
  
• Bad Credit: Wells Fargo Business Secured Credit Card
  You'll get 1.5% cash back on purchases. The annual fee is $25. The minimum security deposit is $500. And the APR is 16.40%. The BBVA Compass Business Secured Card is another good option.
  
• Personal Option: Discover it Secured Credit Card

You'll get 2% cash back on the first $1,000 you spend at gas stations and restaurants each quarter. You'll get 1% cash back on all other purchases. Discover matches the cash back you earn the first year. There's no annual fee, the APR is 24.24%, and the minimum deposit is $200.

There are a few easy approval business credit cards, so you shouldn't let limited or damaged credit prevent you from getting the card your business needs. And remember, if you pay your bills on time and keep your credit utilization ratio low, your credit should steadily improve over time.

The easiest store credit cards to get are the Fingerhut Credit Account, the Montgomery Ward Credit Account, and the Walmart Store Card. None of these cards require more than “fair” credit for approval, and they all have $0 annual fees. Some applicants might even be able to get approved with bad credit.

The Fingerhut Credit Account is the easiest store credit card to get because you can get approved with bad credit in some situations. Things you can buy with the Fingerhut Credit Account include clothing, shoes, electronics, garden supplies, tools, and more. And this card will build your credit - it reports to major credit bureaus monthly.

The Montgomery Ward Credit Account is available to people with limited credit or better. This credit card doesn't report to credit bureaus, so it won't build your credit. But it does allow you to buy Montgomery Ward merchandise at special discounts. And there's opportunity for a credit limit increase.

The Walmart Store Card is available for people with fair credit or better, but reports online suggest you can get approved with bad credit. It gives 5% back at Walmart.com and in-app, including grocery pickup and delivery, and 2% back at Walmart stores.

Although store credit cards usually can't be used anywhere except for the store they're branded with, they are a great way to save on some of your biggest purchases. They're also much easier to get than most rewards cards. And if the card reports to the major credit bureaus every month, you can build up your credit score.

The easiest credit cards for students to get are student credit cards for applicants with limited or no credit history and secured credit cards, which are available to people with no credit or even bad credit. Since college students tend to have higher incomes in the long term, issuers are willing to extend them better offers than most people without established credit could get. Think of it as an investment in a student's future financial needs, which could prove quite profitable for a bank that gets in on the ground floor.

The best student credit cards, including Journey Student Rewards from Capital One and the Bank of America® Travel Rewards Credit Card for Students, will be easy to get as long as you're enrolled in school and have at least a small income as well as a credit score that's anything but bad. In fact, you can get them even if you don't have a credit score yet because you've never had a loan or line of credit before. And if you do have bad credit, a secured card will still be pretty easy to get.

Easy Credit Cards for Students to Get

• Journey Student Rewards from Capital One – Pay-On-Time Bonus
• Discover it® Student chrome – Good-Student Bonus
• Bank of America® Cash Rewards Credit Card for Students – Best for Cash Back
• Bank of America® Travel Rewards Credit Card for Students – Best for Travel Rewards
• Secured Mastercard® from Capital One – Best Partially Secured Card
• Discover it® Secured Credit Card – Best for High Approval Odds

The easiest credit cards for students to get allow young people to begin building credit before entering the real world. If you use your card responsibly and pay your bills on time, you should be able to get a better deal once you graduate. And that's true whether you're starting with a student credit card or a secured card.

Secured credit card approval is pretty easy to come by, no matter which card you apply for. A secured card is the easiest type of credit card to get simply because you have to place a refundable security deposit, the amount of which usually becomes your spending limit. As a result, secured cards prevent you from spending more than you put down, making it less risky for credit card companies to approve people with damaged credit. And since you pretty much pre-pay for your purchases with a secured card, past payment problems should not keep you from getting approved.

Given their safeguards, you might assume that secured credit cards offer guaranteed approval. But that's not the case. There are certain requirements that anyone must satisfy to get a credit card.

Here are the basic secured credit card approval requirements:

• 18+ years old
• $200+ for a refundable security deposit
• Enough income for monthly bill payments
• U.S. mailing address
• Social Security number (ITIN or passport accepted in some cases)

Some secured credit cards are harder to get than others, though. Requirements vary by credit card company. And some issuers won't approve anyone with a non-discharged bankruptcy, a tax lien or certain other types of negative records on their credit report. 

But there's a flip side to that, too. Secured credit card approval is very easy to get if you choose the right offer. A handful of cards don't even do a credit check when you apply.

Here are the best easy approval secured credit cards:

• First Progress Platinum Select Secured Credit Card: No credit check. $200 minimum deposit. $39 annual fee. Reports to all 3 bureaus.
• OpenSky Secured Visa Credit Card: No credit check. $200 minimum deposit. $35 annual fee. Reports to all 3 bureaus.
• Applied Bank Secured Visa Gold Preferred Card: No credit check. $48 annual fee. Reports to all 3 bureaus.
• First Progress Platinum Prestige Secured Credit Card: No credit check. $49 annual fee. $200 minimum deposit. Reports to all 3 bureaus.

If you're less concerned with easy approval than getting the best terms, you should also consider the Capital One Secured Mastercard and the Discover it Secured Card. Neither charges an annual fee, and Discover it offers pretty good rewards.