8 best cash back credit cards for September 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

If you prefer tiered category cards over flat-rate cards, make sure all your spend categories are covered. If you aren’t, a 2 percent flat-rate card could fill gaps in your rewards strategy, though there may be times where it might make more sense to get a card offering 1.5% cash back.

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. With quarterly rotating categories, you typically must enroll or activate your bonus pick each quarter, so if you are a big spender or can't take advantage of a bonus category one quarter, a flat-rate card might be a better fit.
• 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)

You can earn rewards shopping at your local supermarket, with some card categories also including online grocery orders or grocery delivery. Unfortunately, groceries at wholesale clubs and superstores like Walmart and Target usually aren’t included, unless the card offers a specific “wholesale club” category.

This category typically includes restaurants, fast food chains, bars, cafes and more. Some cards also include food delivery services like Uber Eats.

Gas purchases at automated pumps and major gas stations like Shell, Exxon Mobil and Chevron are usually in this category. Depending on the card category, snacks and certain products in the gas station convenience store may also earn cash back. However, gas bought at grocery store and wholesale club gas stations typically don’t count for this category.

General travel categories typically include flights, hotel stays, car rentals, cruises and campgrounds. Some cards only reward travel booked through the issuer’s travel portal, while others reward travel purchases more broadly. Tourist attractions, discount travel sites and vacation rental services (like Airbnb or VRBO) vary by card. 

Travel categories might also include rideshares and other transit purchases, but these could also fall under a separate transit category.

This category is most often found on rotating cash back cards, but it can be remarkably valuable since any online purchase is typically eligible. So this category can often cover purchases that normally aren’t included in card categories, like Walmart or specialty store purchases. The “digital wallet” category (including payment methods like PayPal and Apple Pay) can also help you maximize rewards earnings.

Eligible services and subscriptions vary by card, but this category generally includes popular video services like Netflix, Hulu, Max and Disney+. Music streaming services are usually also included, such as Spotify and Apple Music.

This category generally includes popular home improvement, hardware and appliance stores like Lowe’s or Home Depot, as well as upholstery shops and smaller stores specializing in building materials. Depending on the card, this category may also include furniture stores, antique stores, landscaping, eligible contractors, repair and restoration services and more.

While entertainment purchases like tourist attractions and museums may be covered by some travel card categories, a dedicated entertainment category is broader. This category may include movie theaters, live entertainment, professional sporting events, amusement parks, bowling alleys, aquariums and zoos. However, collegiate sports, golfing and streaming services typically aren’t eligible.

Purchases at major drugstores like CVS and Walgreens would be eligible, but may also include pharmacy purchases at grocery stores, wholesale clubs and other eligible stores. However, some drugstore categories may not cover prescription purchases.

This category is usually found on rotating bonus category cards, and it typically includes memberships at gyms, athletic facilities and similar recreation complexes. However, it generally doesn’t include virtual fitness services or home fitness equipment.

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

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

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 card that earns you the most cash back overall will depend on a number of factors, including your spending habits, the card's annual fees and the bonus categories offered.

For example, if you have good-to-excellent credit and spend heavily on groceries, the Blue Cash Preferred will likely earn the most cash back, thanks to its best-in-class cash back rate at U.S. supermarkets. 

But if you have fair credit or prefer the prices at superstores, the Capital One Walmart Rewards® Mastercard® may be a solid pick thanks to its impressive 5% cash back rate on Walmart.com purchases, including grocery pickup and delivery orders.

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. 

Yes, there are cash back cards available for people with bad or fair credit (both secured and unsecured). For example, with the Aspire Mastercard you can earn 3 percent cash back on gas, groceries and utilities plus 1 percent  on all other eligible purchases. 

However, typically, cash back cards for bad or fair credit carry higher APRs, so if you can't pay the balance in full every month then you should consider a low-interest card or a credit-builder card to work toward a positive credit history.