Best cash back credit cards for December 2023

Flat-rate cash back cards offer the same rewards rate for each eligible purchase. These cards are great for those who prefer not to keep activating and tracking bonus categories each quarter.

Top examples include:

• Wells Fargo Active Cash Card (earns cash rewards)
• Citi Double Cash Card
• Capital One Quicksilver Cash Rewards Credit Card

Tiered cash back cards offer different rates of cash back for different types of purchases. For example, a tiered card may offer a boosted cash back rate of 3 percent on restaurant purchases, while all other purchases earn 1 percent cash back. To maximize your cash back earnings, carry multiple tiered cards that reward your most common purchases at a high rate.

Top examples include:

• Blue Cash Everyday^® Card from American Express
• Capital One SavorOne Cash Rewards Credit Card

Some credit cards offer bonus categories that change based on your preferences, your spending habits or the time of year. This can be an advantageous structure for those who don’t want to commit to specific bonus categories. Here are a few of the most common bonus category structures.

• Quarterly rotating bonus categories: These cards rotate or change their bonus category every quarter, and typically require you enroll or activate to receive the bonus rate.
• Choose your own category: Some cards let you choose your cash back category every month, so you can optimize your spending based on the category and plan out your year based on the cash back potential. For example, for the holiday months, you can opt into a category that will reward online purchases or department store purchases.
• Auto-optimizing bonus categories: This setup is a lot like the “choose your own category” structure. However, instead of choosing your bonus category every month, these cards will do the work for you. Usually, the card will retroactively apply the bonus rate to purchases within your top eligible category each month.

Top examples include:

• Discover it® Cash Back - quarterly rotating categories
• Bank of America Customized Cash Rewards - choose your own category
• Citi Custom Cash® Card - auto-optimizing bonus category 

Some cash back credit cards require a membership, which often can be quite lucrative. Co-branded credit cards generally let you earn rewards and extra perks at specific stores or service providers. They often skip the annual fee, given you’ll need to pay for annual membership to enjoy the card’s benefits.

Some credit unions also offer cash back card options to their members. Since credit unions are controlled and financed by members themselves, these members will often reap the benefits of more favorable interest rates and fewer banking and penalty fees than a not-for-profit institution. Membership requirements vary by credit union.

• Prime Visa (requires an Amazon Prime membership, $139 a year)
• Costco Anywhere Visa Card by Citi (requires a Costco membership, at least $60 a year)
• Sam’s Club® Mastercard® (requires a Sam’s Club membership,  starting at $50 per year)
• Alliant Cashback Visa Signature Credit Card (requires Alliant Credit Union membership)

With gas prices soaring to record highs, a cash back credit card can help minimize the pain at the gas pump. You could earn up to 3 percent back typically, but some customizable category cards offer 5 percent cash back at gas stations. If you use public transport or rideshares instead, you may want a card that offers elevated cash back rates on transit. Our pick for you: Citi Custom Cash card

Cards with a restaurant category may reward your favorite fast food and fine dining meals. Some include food delivery service orders. And if your card earns grocery rewards, your bonus category may include some specialty food stores like bakeries and butcher shops. Our pick for you: Capital One SavorOne Cash Rewards Credit Card

Some of the most popular cards on the market include a generous rewards rate on groceries. Though most cardholders can benefit from this category, families that need to feed a household — and most likely have large grocery spending needs — have the greatest opportunity to maximize the value of these cards. Our pick for you: The Blue Cash Preferred® Card from American Express

Even people who prefer the utmost simplicity — we’re talking longtime debit users — can find lots to love in a cash back card. A flat-rate, no-annual-fee cash back card is terrific for someone who wants to earn rewards without much hassle. Some cards even let you set up automatic bill payments and rewards redemptions for the ultimate “set and forget” rewards strategy. Our pick for you: Citi Double Cash card

Students can get ahead on building their credit history with a student card. Then, by the time you graduate and need a home or auto loan, you’ve spent years building an excellent credit score and earning cash rewards.

Anyone new to credit, such as immigrants, can also use a cash back card to help build credit. Though it might be harder to get a cash back card with no credit history, a few options are available. Our pick for you: Capital One SavorOne Student card and Discover it® Secured Credit Card

A cash back card that fits your spending habits can help put more money back in your wallet. To maximize your cash back earnings, consider carrying a credit card that rewards you at a high rate for your largest and most frequent purchases, as well as a good flat-rate card for everything else. Our picks for you: Chase Freedom Unlimited and Wells Fargo Active Cash card

There are several cash back cards on the market that cater to those looking to earn rewards on good times. For example, categories like streaming services, entertainment like sporting or movie tickets, and even gym memberships are available on select cards. These cards may also earn on dining and groceries, which can make them good candidates for “do it all” cards for your wallet. Our pick for you: Capital One SavorOne Cash Rewards credit card 

People who don't travel enough to justify getting a premium travel card but still want to enjoy discounted travel can benefit from a cash back card. Since you have more flexibility in how you redeem, you can use your cash back to help book a plane ticket or hotel stay. Our pick for you: Bank of America® Customized Cash Rewards credit card

We also score cards based on how much it costs to keep them in your wallet or carry a balance. 

To start, each card is scored based on whether it offers an intro APR and how its ongoing APR compares to the rates available on other rewards cards. However, the latter rating only has a slight influence on the card’s score and whether the card is included in our list, since rewards card users generally try to avoid carrying a balance.

More important to both a card’s score and its inclusion in our list is how its annual fee influences its overall value. We consider a card’s annual fee in two ways — how it ranks relative to the fees you’ll find on other cards in the category and how it impacts a card’s overall rewards value. 

Cards with an annual fee will always be at a slight disadvantage in our scoring system since annual fees inherently cut into your rewards value. However, if a card offers terrific value via its ongoing rewards and perks, it can earn a high score and a spot in our list even if it carries a high annual fee. After all, the highest rewards rates and most valuable perks are often found on cards with annual fees. 

With this in mind, we rate a card based primarily on how its ongoing rewards value and ongoing perk value (such as annual credits or bonuses) stack up against those of other cards in the category when you subtract annual fees.

That said, we strive to include as many no-annual-fee options in our list as possible since many people would rather not worry about offsetting fees, even if a card carries impressive rewards and perks.

Rewards cards may make it easy to earn a lot of points, miles or cash back, but how easy is it to use those rewards? After all, if it takes a ton of effort to redeem rewards or you can only redeem rewards in a couple of ways, a card may be more trouble than it’s worth. 

As such, we rate each card’s flexibility based on the restrictions it imposes on earning and redeeming rewards. We factor this rating into a card’s overall score and consider it when deciding on a card’s inclusion in our list. 

Flexibility factors include whether a card only allows you to earn a high rewards rate on only a small amount of spending or requires you to meet a certain earning threshold before you can redeem rewards. We also examine whether your points are worth less when you opt for some redemption options over others and whether a card gives you the flexibility to transfer rewards to travel partners.

The right credit card for you will depend on your spending habits and the perks that matter most to you. Travel cards are great for people who know they want to redeem rewards for travel expenses like airline and hotel bookings. Travel cards also make sense if you want perks like hotel or airline elite status, free checked bags, free hotel stays or airport lounge access.

But even some of the best travel credit cards for beginners charge an annual fee, and the fee for premium travel cards that offer luxury perks can be quite high. Cash back cards can be simpler to use and offer more flexibility in how you can earn and redeem rewards, with some allowing you to use rewards for cash back, travel spending and more. If you don’t travel often enough to justify an annual fee or want more redemption flexibility, a cash back credit card may be a better option.

You may not receive cold, hard cash, but issuers offer redemption options like a direct deposit into a checking account, mailed checks, statement credits or gift cards.

Perhaps the closest you can get to redeeming rewards for physical cash is through a Wells Fargo card that allows you to redeem for cash withdrawals at eligible ATMs.

It depends on how you plan to redeem your rewards. If you plan to deposit your cash rewards into a high-yield savings account, it's best to redeem often so that you don't lose out on interest. However, if you prefer to use your rewards for travel, you might save up your rewards to help cut future travel costs. In fact, your cash back might be worth more if you redeem through an issuer's travel portal, like Chase Ultimate Rewards. To maximize your earnings, check your issuer's redemption options and be strategic in how and when you redeem.