5 Pre-Qualified Credit Cards For Bad Credit (April 2024)

Pre-qualified credit cards for bad credit can help you get a card, improve your credit score, and build your credit history. Without damaging your credit score, prequalification gives you a reasonable idea of whether you’ll be approved for a credit card.

Let’s take a look at seven cards that offer applicants the ability to see their chances of approval before submitting an application, so they can narrow down their best credit card options.

Cards | FAQs | Methodology

The following cards specialize in providing credit to consumers with poor credit. This group is a mix of secured and unsecured cards.

Credit card companies that issue secured cards can assume the risk of approving bad credit applicants by requiring a cash deposit, whereas unsecured cards must depend on limiting credit lines and charging fees. The cards below prequalify applicants to reduce unnecessary hard credit inquiries that can hurt their credit score.

You can prequalify for the Capital One Platinum Secured Credit Card in about a minute by filling out a short form. Simply fill in your name, address, Social Security number, desired card benefits, and credit level (excellent, average, or rebuilding).

Capital One may then offer you the most appropriate credit cards, including the Capital One Platinum Secured Credit Card. This card requires a security deposit of between $49 and $200 that gets you a minimum credit line of $200. You can make a larger deposit to secure a higher credit line. The card charges no annual fee.

The Surge Mastercard® provides a prequalification form that collects your name, address, Social Security number, monthly income, email address, and phone number. If you pre-qualify, you’ll fill out an application form for this card or for another offer of credit.

This card charges an annual fee, which is typical of unsecured cards for bad credit. But it reports to all three major credit bureaus to help you build credit, and you get access to a free credit score to track your credit-building progress.

The Discover it® Secured Credit Card collects prequalification information that includes your name, address, age, Social Security number, job or student status, annual gross income, housing status and payments, and bank accounts.

Discover will perform a soft pull of your credit report that won’t hurt your credit score. It then may invite you to apply one of its cards, including the Discover it® Secured Credit Card.

4. Reflex® Platinum Mastercard®

at Continental Finance'ssecure website

BAD CREDIT RATING

★★★★★

4.4

OVERALL RATING

3.9/5.0

Our Review »

• Up to $1,000 credit limit doubles up to $2,000! (Simply make your first 6 monthly minimum payments on time)
• See if you’re Pre-Qualified with no impact to your credit score
• All credit types welcome to apply
• Access to your Vantage 3.0 score from Experian (When you sign up for e-statements)
• Initial Credit Limit of $300 – $1,000 (subject to available credit)
• Monthly reporting to the three major credit bureaus

• See application, terms and details.

Intro (Purchases)	Intro (Transfers)	Regular APR	Annual Fee	Credit Needed
N/A	N/A	29.99% APR (Variable)	$75 - $125	Bad, Fair, or No Credit

The Reflex Mastercard® is another unsecured credit card from the same credit card company that issues the Surge® Platinum Mastercard®. As such, the two cards share many of the same features.

One of the biggest draws to this card is the potential for an initial credit limit of $1,000. This is generally reserved for applicants with fair credit, though applicants with bad credit can still be approved with a smaller limit.

5. OpenSky® Secured Visa® Credit Card

at Capital Bank N.A.'ssecure website

BAD CREDIT RATING

★★★★★

4.2

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

The OpenSky® Secured Visa® Credit Card does better than offering prequalification — it eliminates credit checks altogether, so anyone who can pay the deposit and meet its basic eligibility criteria gets approved.

This secured Visa credit card is accepted everywhere and is a great tool for rebuilding credit from past credit mistakes.

Secured credit cards are among the easiest to obtain when you have a bad credit score. That’s only natural since you must deposit cash into a special account to collateralize the card’s credit limit.

The card issuer will use your deposit if you miss a payment or go over your credit limit. It’s a win-win proposition, but only if you have the necessary cash available for a deposit.

In this review, the Capital One Platinum Secured Credit Card is our top choice, and it is a secured card. The required security deposit is $49, $99, or $200 for an initial credit limit of $200. The lower deposit requirements are generally not available to applicants with really bad credit.

We also like the Discover it® Secured Credit Card, which determines your credit line by your income and ability to pay. Your credit line must be secured dollar-for-dollar by your deposit.

Prequalification is a good idea for folks with bad credit, as it lets you know in advance whether you should bother to apply for a specific credit card. Prequalification differs from the application process in at least four ways:

1. The information requested for prequalification is usually a subset of that required for the application.
2. The issuer performs a soft pull of your credit report for prequalification but does a hard pull when you submit your application. Therefore, prequalification does not hurt your credit score whereas submitting an application may.
3. Prequalification does not guarantee your subsequent application will be approved.
4. Many credit cards will offer you alternative cards based on your prequalification information. This is not necessarily standard practice when you apply for a particular card.

If you prequalify for a card, the issuer may transfer the information to its application form and request any additional information it requires. Even if you are prequalified, you are not under obligation to apply for the card, and the issuer is not required to approve your application.

The card issuers in this review provide simple prequalification or preapproval forms for you to complete. The typical information requested deals with your identity and residence.

Some issuers will also ask about your gross income and expenses, while others postpone asking for these data items until you fill out the application form.

When you send in your prequalification form, the issuer will use some information from your credit report that it obtains via a soft pull from one of the major credit bureaus. By requesting prequalification, you authorize the issuer obtaining the information it requires from your credit report and other sources.

You can increase your chances of being prequalified by taking a few steps, including disputing errors on your credit reports, making all payments on time, and reducing your current indebtedness. You can get free copies of your three credit reports from AnnualCreditReport.com.

Many card issuers use a preferred credit bureau. For example, Discover uses Equifax about half the time. Knowing this can help you prioritize which credit report you clean up first.

It may seem obvious to some that preapproval would be better than prequalification, but a lot depends on how the card issuer uses these terms. For example, Discover uses the term “preapprove” the way other issuers use “prequalify.”

The truth is that any “pre” word is not to be confused with “approval,” which can come only when you fill out an application form, not a prequalification or preapproval form.

“Preapproval” is also used in another context — when you receive mailed offers for preapproved credit cards. Generally, this means you can enter a special approval code when you fill out the card application form.

By law, these pre-screened offers must be “firm” and honored if you accept. However, the issuer may review your credit anyway to verify it hasn’t changed since the offer was mailed.

Preapproved offers have some benefits. They use soft inquiries, so you are not penalized when issuers send them out. In addition, these offers may provide you with better product choices, terms, and rates.

Our list of prequalified credit cards for bad credit evaluated the cards designated for credit scores below 579 (the “bad” range under the FICO credit scoring model) that offer prequalification before submitting an official application. This helps prospective applicants get an idea of their chances of approval before undergoing a hard credit pull and possible denial.

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