Best student credit cards of January 2026

As a student, you likely aren’t starting with a high credit score (or any credit at all) so you’ll want to choose a student credit card with tools that can help you keep track of your credit over time and give you a helping hand at raising your score. Look for features like reporting to all three credit bureaus, offering credit line increases and providing free credit reports. For example, Capital One offers CreditWise, which is a robust credit-building tool that can help you simulate your score, educate you on credit scoring factors and provide you with free access to your FICO score. 

Look for student cards with student-centric perks, like late-fee forgiveness, purchase protections or strong rewards on entertainment, streaming services, groceries or gas purchases. 

Many student cards have a “graduated” version you could upgrade to once you’re ready to move beyond student credit cards. If you upgrade with the same issuer, you could skip putting in a new application and avoid a hit to your score. One of the cards that does this well is the Capital One Quicksilver Student Cash Rewards Credit Card. Capital One reviews your account automatically every six months to determine if you're eligible for a credit limit increase. Plus, after you graduate from school, you can transition your card to the non-student version. 

Issuers typically reserve student credit cards for anyone enrolled in college courses with little or no credit history. However, some may have a minimum credit score or income required for approval. You’ll also need to check for additional requirements, such as part-time or full-time status or if two-year institutions are eligible. 

Less money spent on fees means more money you can spend on other things. Most student credit cards don’t charge an annual fee, but you should keep an eye out for foreign transaction fees, late fees or other hidden fees. If you’re concerned about fees, you may want to consider the Firstcard® Secured Credit Builder Card with Cashback for Students. 

The best student credit cards typically have a welcome offer for new cardholders as long as you meet the stipulations. If you were already planning to spend the amount required to earn the welcome offer, you could use the extra cash back or rewards to offset your purchases. For example, the Discover it® Student Cash Back has a strong welcome offer through its Cashback Match program which matches all the cash back you’ve earned at the end of your first year.

Student credit cards tend to have lighter credit application requirements than other unsecured credit cards, so students with little to no credit history may have better approval odds. Remember that you’ll often have to prove school enrollment when applying.

You should consider getting a credit card when you can manage it responsibly. However, the Credit CARD Act of 2009 restricts credit card issuers from granting new accounts to people younger than 21. You could get a credit card earlier if you can demonstrate a reliable independent income source or have a cosigner, but this ultimately depends on the issuer.

You can continue to use your student credit card after graduation. However, if you’ve used your credit responsibly over the years and have achieved a decent credit score, consider applying for a more traditional credit card that offers better rewards rates on a wider range of spending categories. If you want to maintain your credit history, keep your student card open or upgrade to a more rewarding version of the card.

No, you are not required to have a job to get a credit card, although most issuers will request some proof of income to ensure you can cover your credit card bill.

A credit-building card’s cost has a large influence on its overall score and our decision to include it in our best cards list. This is because cards in this category tend to be much pricier than traditional credit cards designed for people with a good or better credit score. 

We compare a card’s total cost, including any annual fees, account activation fees, monthly fees and more against the total cost of other cards in the credit-building category and assign each card a score based on its affordability. We also factor rewards-earning potential into our assessment of a credit-building card’s total cost, subtracting expected earnings from the sum of its fees. 

To get a sense of a credit-building card’s rewards-earning potential, we estimate its average annual rewards rate and average annual earnings based on the most popular spending categories (as covered in the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics consumer spending report). 

However, we use a slightly lower spending assumption ($300 per month or $3,600 per year) to estimate average earnings, assuming credit-builders will start out with a lower credit limit, will want to keep credit utilization low and will focus primarily on small purchases they can easily pay off.

While low-cost credit-building cards will always be at a major advantage in our scoring system and will likely earn a higher spot on our best cards list, no-annual-fee credit-building cards can be hard to come by, especially if you’re looking for an unsecured card. With this in mind, we may include unsecured cards with high fees in our list if they offer other benefits for credit-builders, like a high starting credit limit or useful perks.

A card’s APR is also a major factor in its credit-building score. Each card’s average APR is compared against the average APR of other cards in the category, and the cards with lower-than-average APRs receive a higher rating. 

Given the many costs students face — from textbooks to laptops — the presence of an introductory APR on purchases or balance transfers also plays a role in a student card’s score and its inclusion on our list. 

Though high APRs are hard to avoid when you’re just starting out or working on your score, credit-builders and students should strive for as low an APR as possible since they’re likely to either be new to managing cards or trying to establish better financial habits and avoid falling into debt.

Along with a credit-building card’s cost, we consider how easy the card makes it to build credit. To assess this, we evaluate its credit limit potential and minimum deposit requirement.

Unsecured cards with a high starting credit limit and secured cards that let you put down a large deposit and get a matching high credit limit will score the highest according to our “Ease of building credit” rubric and are more likely to appear on our list. 

This is because a high credit limit can make it much easier to keep your credit utilization low, a primary credit-building factor that makes up 30 percent of your FICO credit score. 

Secured cards have a slight advantage in this category since the maximum credit limit on a secured card tends to be much higher than the typical starting credit limit on an unsecured card that’s available with a bad or fair credit score. However, unsecured credit-building cards have the upper hand in another key aspect of building credit: accessibility. 

Cards that carry no or a low deposit requirement can also receive a high score according to our “Ease of building credit” rubric since these cards offer a lower barrier to entry than secured cards that require you to put up hundreds of dollars in an upfront deposit. 

Indeed, some users may prefer to pay a non-refundable $50 annual fee while they work on their credit score than tie up hundreds in a refundable security deposit.

We evaluate a student or credit-building card’s benefits based on how useful they are for someone looking to build a positive credit history or save money on everyday spending. 

We consider the inclusion of a rewards program, student-centric perks, access to your credit score or a credit monitoring service of prime importance, along with the ability to prequalify for the card with only a soft credit pull and a clear path to increase your credit limit or graduate to an unsecured or full-fledged rewards card.

Cards that include these benefits are likely to score higher according to our credit-building card and student card scoring rubrics and are more likely to earn a place in our list.