8 Best Credit Cards with No Employment Check (April 2024)

Most lenders want some sort of proof that you can pay back any loan that you receive. That goes for credit cards, banks, or a cousin who floats you a few bucks until payday.

While most credit card applications just want proof of income, some still require proof of employment. We’ve done the work for you and found credit cards with no employment check so you can avoid those applications if you so choose.

Also, keep in mind that no-employment-check credit cards aren’t just for consumers with questionable credit histories. In fact, your options only increase if you have fair, good, or excellent credit, so be sure to check out our options in these categories, as well.

Bad Credit | Student | Secured | Prepaid | FAQs

If you’re near the bottom of the credit spectrum, you can still find plenty of options to fit your income and credit range. Our best choices, listed below, feature a mix of secured and unsecured cards, and some don’t even require income verification.

While most secured credit cards require you to place a refundable security deposit that matches your credit limit (for example, a $300 deposit yields a $300 credit limit), the Capital One Platinum Secured Credit Card may require a smaller deposit for qualified applicants. Plus, Capital One could increase your credit limit — with no added deposit — after you make your first six payments on time.

2. Surge® Platinum Mastercard®

at Continental Finance'ssecure website

BAD CREDIT RATING

★★★★★

4.5

OVERALL RATING

4.1/5.0

Our Review »

• Up to $1,000 credit limit doubles up to $2,000! (Simply make your first 6 monthly minimum payments on time)
• All credit types welcome to apply!
• Monthly Credit Score – Sign up for electronic statements, and get your Vantage 3.0 Score Credit Score From Experian
• Initial Credit Limit of $300 – $1,000 (subject to available credit)
• Monthly reporting to the three major credit bureaus
• See if you’re Pre-Qualified without impacting your credit score

• See application, terms and details.

See Rates & Fees

Intro (Purchases)	Intro (Transfers)	Regular APR	Annual Fee	Credit Needed
See website for Details	See website for Details	29.99% APR (Variable)	$75 - $125	See website for Details*

The Surge® Platinum Mastercard® doesn’t require an employment check, and, if eligible, you won’t be on the hook for monthly maintenance fees. The card lets you prequalify on its website before applying. You may be offered a different card from Continental Finance depending on your qualifications.

Not only does the Milestone® Mastercard® not require an employment or income check, but the issuer welcomes applications from those with poor credit. Since Milestone® offers a few different credit cards, the application pairs qualified applicants with the card that best suits their needs and credit background.

Most student credit cards have strict requirements for applicants, including enrollment in a certain number of credit hours or classes. Many issuers also require proof of income to get approved for a student credit card, but there’s generally no minimum income requirement.

You can get approved for a student credit card with little income, but the card issuer needs to see that you can afford to make the minimum payment each month.

The Discover it® Student Cash Back offers rich cash back rewards for qualified student applicants. It is a great choice for any student seeking their first credit card. Discover is a reputable credit card company with a solid product that can live in your wallet for years to come.

The Discover it® Student Chrome is another card from Discover that offers cash back for students, but this one has a simpler rewards structure that doesn’t require quarterly activation. As is the case with its sister card, students with no income who are applying for a Discover it® Student Chrome card will need a co-signer to qualify.

If you’re working to rebuild poor credit after making a few mistakes, you may have to turn to a secured credit card to get back on track. These cards typically require a refundable security deposit that matches your credit limit. Other than that, a secured card works exactly like its unsecured brethren.

Qualified Capital One Platinum Secured Credit Card applicants may not need to place a full deposit to match their new credit limit. That’s because all new Capital One Platinum Secured Credit Card cards start with a $200 limit. You may earn a credit limit increase after making your first six payments on time — and that increase won’t require an additional deposit.

The Discover it® Secured Credit Card is a rare secured card offering that provides cash back opportunities. Discover also checks your account after an introductory period to see if you qualify for an upgrade to an unsecured card. This card requires a minimum refundable security deposit to open the account, with the amount of your deposit determining your credit limit.

Not only does the OpenSky® Secured Visa® Credit Card not require an employment check, but it’s one of the rare secured cards that doesn’t even require a credit check. OpenSky® will set your credit limit equal to your refundable deposit. It comes with a competitive interest rate but does charge a small annual fee.

Prepaid cards operate on credit card networks, but not every card includes a line of credit. Depending on your credit history, a lender might limit you to a debit card that allows you to make direct deposits of your paycheck or another source of income.

You won’t pay any monthly fees with a Brink’s Prepaid Mastercard® pay-as-you-go plan, as long as you keep your account active. Instead, you’ll pay a flat $1 fee for each signature transaction and $2 per PIN transaction.

The PayPal Prepaid Mastercard® lets you easily make transfers from your PayPal account to your prepaid card. It has a convenient mobile app for easily managing your account, and monthly fees are waived with qualifying direct deposits.

The Pink Netspend® Visa® Prepaid Card has two cardholder plan types: monthly and pay-as-you-go. With a pay-as-you-go plan, you pay $1.95 every time you use your card. The monthly plan charges a varying fee that can be waived with qualifying direct deposits.

There’s no set rule saying that you must have employment to apply for a credit card — but a job will certainly help your chances of getting approved. The only things credit card issuers truly require on an application are a legal name, address, Social Security number, phone number, and date of birth.

Almost every application will ask for your employment status and total income. While lenders will heavily weigh their decision on your answers to those two questions, they aren’t the only factors taken into consideration.

Many people who don’t have traditional employment still have a credit history and positive income to warrant credit approval. Take, for example, a retiree who wants to apply for a credit card.

You may also be a student, a freelancer, an independent contractor, or self-employed — which most banks don’t consider traditional employment but can still yield an income.

As long as you can provide the personal identification questions, you can submit an application for credit. But keep in mind that multiple applications can damage your credit score.

That’s because every time you apply for credit, the lender submits an inquiry to one or all three of the major credit reporting bureaus to view your credit history. Most credit scoring agencies allow around three inquiries on your credit report for every two-year period.

Your credit score can take a hit once you go beyond that number. Excessive applications tell a lender that you may be currently over your head with debt and need credit to stay afloat. That may make you look like a high risk and make it less likely that they’ll accept your application.

But showing active employment and gainful income goes a long way to prove to the lender that you can honor your debts and pay your bills on time.

The answer to this question depends solely on the type of credit card you apply for — a secured or unsecured credit card.

A secured credit card often requires a refundable deposit that secures your account against default and determines your credit limit. For example, an issuer may require you to pay a $500 deposit to receive a credit card with a $500 limit.

Some secured credit cards still require income verification for approval. But since your account contains the security deposit, several card options won’t require income, employment, or even a credit check.

Unsecured credit cards, on the other hand, don’t require a deposit. But banks that extend this type of credit often want proof that you can repay your debt. That means proof of income — either from employment, a retirement account, investment, or another traceable source.

You may find exceptions to this rule if you include a cosigner on your application. A co-signer acts as a guarantor to your account should you default on your payments. Lenders typically require that your co-signer have an established credit history and proof of income.

While this path could net you approval, it doesn’t come without great responsibility. If you miss a payment or default on your loan, you and your co-signer take the credit score hit, and your co-signer could be on the hook to pay the debt for you. That can quickly ruin a relationship, a family bond, or a friendship.

Another option is to become an authorized user on an existing credit card. When this happens, a friend or family member with a credit card adds your name to the account, and the lender issues a card in your name that draws from the original credit line.

When you use a credit card as an authorized user, you’re tapping into the main user’s available credit, and the main user retains responsibility for any debt you incur. Not paying the bill makes the main cardholder responsible for your charges. Like cosigning, that can have bad consequences.

Finally, if you’re married and 21 years or older, some credit card issuers allow you to use your spouse’s income on your application. This becomes tricky if your spouse already has credit cards issued in his or her name that depend on that income.

Credit card issuers have worked for years to make it easy to apply for credit. Most online applications take less than five minutes to complete, and credit decisions often take less than a minute to receive.

But while applying may come easy, approval is a whole different ball game.

Your acceptance will likely depend on a mix of your income, credit history, and current debt. If you can meet the requirements on all three, you’ll likely find multiple issuers that will easily approve you. If you have one or more issues with those three, the options become limited.

If that’s the case, you’re best to start with a secured credit card. The OpenSky® Secured Visa® Credit Card has one of the highest approval rates because the card doesn’t require an income or employment check and doesn’t even ask for a credit check.

OpenSky® Secured Visa® Credit Card

at Capital Bank N.A.'ssecure website

SECURED RATING

★★★★★

4.8

OVERALL RATING

4.0/5.0

Our Review »

• New feature! Earn up to 10% cash back* on everyday purchases
• No credit check to apply. Zero credit risk to apply!
• Looking to build or rebuild your credit? 2 out of 3 OpenSky cardholders increase their credit score by an average of 41 points in just 3 months
• Get free monthly access to your FICO score in our mobile application
• Build your credit history across 3 major credit reporting agencies: Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion
• Add to your mobile wallet and make purchases using Apple Pay, Samsung Pay and Google Pay
• Fund your card with a low $200 refundable security deposit to get a $200 credit line
• Apply in less than 5 minutes with our mobile first application
• Choose the due date that fits your schedule with flexible payment dates
• Fund your security deposit over 60 days with the option to make partial payments
• Over 1.4 Million Cardholders Have Used OpenSky Secured Credit Card To Improve Their Credit
• *See Rewards Terms and Conditions for more information

• See application, terms and details.

Intro (Purchases)	Intro (Transfers)	Regular APR	Annual Fee	Credit Needed
N/A	N/A	25.64% (variable)	$35	Poor

As with most secured credit cards, you’ll still have to submit a refundable security deposit to get your card.

Both secured credit cards and credit accounts can still help improve your credit score if you make your payments on time. That’s because both types of accounts report your payment history to at least one credit bureau monthly.

On the flip side, missing a payment or defaulting on your debt can result in the loss of your deposit and a big hit to your credit score.

Lying on a credit card application is considered fraud. Because an application is a legal document, you would be committing loan application fraud.

Your application is likely to be denied, and you may be required to pay fines and, worst-case scenario, serve jail time. If you are tried and convicted, the fine is up to $1 million and jail time is up to 30 years!

MyBankTracker provides the following examples of people who have been convicted of loan application fraud:

• In 2015, Solomon Gordon Raymond of San Diego was sentenced to nearly five years in prison and ordered to pay $729,192 for committing loan application fraud.
• Also in 2015, a woman from Raleigh, North Carolina was sentenced to five years in prison for loan application fraud.
• In 2014, an Ohio woman was sentenced to fourteen years in prison and to pay $73,554 for her role in loan application fraud.

As you can see, lying on a credit card application is not just a bad idea, it’s a crime.

They say money makes the world go ‘round — but it also makes paying your bills a whole lot easier. That’s why it’s important that you never take out a loan or open a credit card account that you know you cannot pay back.

A single payment that’s 30 or more days late can cause your credit score to drop by more than 100 points, which seriously hurts your chances of getting credit approvals in the future.

Even if you can make the minimum payment, credit card debt can result in constant interest charges and years of unnecessary payments that lead to a vicious debt cycle.

If your income isn’t what you’d like it to be, but you still want to rebuild your credit score, consider a secured credit card that can pull your credit rating out of the doldrums and have you ready for an upgraded card when your income and credit score improve.