Easiest Credit Cards to Get Approved For

One of the easiest credit cards to get with bad credit is the OpenSky® Secured Visa® Credit Card because there's no credit check required for approval. As long as you have a U.S. mailing address, proof of your identity and some income, you can get an OpenSky. This card has an annual fee of $35 and requires a refundable deposit of at least $200 to “secure” the credit line. The deposit amount becomes your credit limit.

If you're looking for an unsecured credit card for bad credit, one of the easiest to get is the Credit One Bank® Platinum Visa® for Rebuilding Credit. This card gives you 1% cash back on gas and grocery purchases, as well as 1% back on mobile phone, internet, cable and satellite TV services. The card has an annual fee of $75 intro 1st yr, $99 after.

Easiest Credit Cards to Get with Bad Credit

You should be wary of credit card companies that offer unsecured credit cards to people with bad credit, though. They can give you an unsecured line of credit, but most come with big fees and high interest rates. Unless you need an emergency loan, it's better to get a secured credit card and build up your score enough to qualify for a good unsecured card. 

One of the easiest credit cards to get with fair credit is the Petal® 1 Visa® Credit Card. This credit card is available to people with limited credit or better, reports monthly to the three main credit bureaus, and gives cardholders 2% to 10% cash back on purchases from select merchants. It also has a $0 annual fee. And if you're lucky, you may even get approved for the Petal® 2 Visa® Credit Card instead, since you'll be considered for both cards when you apply.

In general, the easiest type of credit card to get is a secured card or an unsecured card for bad credit. 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.

Easy Credit Cards to Get With Fair Credit

• Best Overall: Petal® 1 Visa® Credit Card
• Best for Rewards: Capital One QuicksilverOne Cash Rewards Credit Card
• Best for No Annual Fee: Capital One Platinum Credit Card
• Best for a Low Deposit: Capital One Platinum Secured Credit Card
• Best for No Credit Check: OpenSky® Secured Visa® Credit Card

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

One of the easiest unsecured cards to get approved for is the Credit One Bank® Platinum Visa® for Rebuilding Credit. You can get approved for it even with bad (300) credit. It offers a $300 starting spending limit. And you can use it wherever Visa is accepted.

This isn't your only option, though. WalletHub's editors compared all of the unsecured credit cards in our database of 1,500+ offers. And we selected our favorite easy-to-get offers.

Here are some of the easiest unsecured credit cards to get approved for:

• Rewards: Credit One Visa.
• Small businesses: Capital One Spark Classic for Business​.
• No credit: Capital One Platinum Credit Card
• No annual fee: Petal® 2 Visa® Credit Card.
• Easiest store card: Fingerhut Credit Account.
• Students: Journey Student Rewards from Capital One.

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 Visa® 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® Secured Visa® Credit Card has a $35 annual fee.

The easiest unsecured credit card to get with limited credit is the Capital One Platinum Credit Card. The major upsides to this credit card are its $0 annual fee and its possibility of a credit line increase after only 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.

Bottom Line

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

Ultimately, you can check out or editors' latest picks for the easiest credit cards to get approved for on the market and weigh your options.

The easiest credit card to get with no annual fee is the Capital One Platinum Secured card 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 Platinum Secured card 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 Platinum 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 credit standing, and Capital One Platinum 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, 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. Capital One Quicksilver is on the easy end of credit cards with good credit, because 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. This card requires good credit or better for approval, and it offers 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.

The easiest business credit card to get is the Wells Fargo Business Secured Credit Card because it accepts applicants with bad credit. The Wells Fargo Business Secured Credit Card also has a $0 annual fee and rewards cardholders with 1.5% cash back on all purchases. A minimum security deposit of $500 is required, though.

In general, the easiest credit cards for a business to get require bad-to-fair credit for approval. It's also worth noting that while you must have a business to get most of these cards, your personal credit history matters a lot more than your company's credit standing.

The easiest Capital One credit cards to get are the Capital One Platinum Secured Credit Card and the Capital One Quicksilver Secured Cash Rewards Credit Card. Both cards are available to applicants with bad credit and require a refundable security deposit, making them easier to get approved for than Capital One's unsecured credit card offers.

Easiest Capital One Credit Cards to Get

Your credit score isn't the only thing that will affect your ability to get approved for a Capital One credit card. Your income and debt will play a big role, too. But figuring out which Capital One credit card to apply for doesn't have to be a guessing game. Capital One lets you check which of its cards you pre-qualify for, without hurting your credit score. Pre-qualifying for a card means your odds of approval are very high, should you decide to submit an official application.

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 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 (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.

Easiest Student Credit Cards to Get

In general, student credit cards 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 Quicksilver Secured Cash Rewards Credit Card and the Bank of America® Unlimited Cash Rewards Secured Credit Card. Neither charges an annual fee, and both offer pretty good rewards.