Many or all of the products featured here are from our partners who compensate us. This influences which products we write about and where and how the product appears on a page. However, this does not influence our evaluations. Our opinions are our own. Here is a list of our partners and here's how we make money.
Having fair credit won’t stop you from getting a business credit card. While a less-than-perfect score may limit your choices, cards are still available that will let you earn rewards and build business credit.
The following cards are options for business owners with fair or average credit (a score from 630 to 689), though some have high annual revenue requirements. If you're a sole proprietor, you can also consider a personal credit card — just aim to use it exclusively for business purchases.
Some of our selections for the best business credit cards for fair credit can be applied for through NerdWallet, and some cannot. Below, you'll find application links for the business credit cards from our partners that are available through NerdWallet, followed by the full list of our picks.
Many or all of the products featured here are from our partners who compensate us. This influences which products we write about and where and how the product appears on a page. However, this does not influence our evaluations. Our opinions are our own. Here is a list of our partners and here's how we make money.
Having fair credit won’t stop you from getting a business credit card. While a less-than-perfect score may limit your choices, cards are still available that will let you earn rewards and build business credit.
The following cards are options for business owners with fair or average credit (a score from 630 to 689), though some have high annual revenue requirements. If you're a sole proprietor, you can also consider a personal credit card — just aim to use it exclusively for business purchases.
Some of our selections for the best business credit cards for fair credit can be applied for through NerdWallet, and some cannot. Below, you'll find application links for the business credit cards from our partners that are available through NerdWallet, followed by the full list of our picks.
Here are the best business credit cards for fair credit from our partners
| Credit card▼ | NerdWallet rating▼ | Annual fee▼ | Rewards rate | Intro offer | Learn more |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Capital on Tap Business Credit Card Apply now on Capital on Tap's website | 3.8/5 Best for Overall business card for fair credit | $0 | 1.5% | $200 | Apply now on Capital on Tap's website |
Ramp Card Apply now on Ramp's website | 4.0/5 Best for Corporate card for business owners with fair credit | $0 | 1.5% Cashback | N/A | Apply now on Ramp's website |
Brex Card Apply now on Brex's website | 3.2/5 Best for Businesses with professional investors | $0 | 1x-7x Points | 10,000 Points | Apply now on Brex's website |
Capital One QuicksilverOne Cash Rewards Credit Card Apply now on Capital One's website | 4.7/5 Best for Personal card for sole proprietors with fair credit | $39 | 1.5%-5% Cashback | N/A | Apply now on Capital One's website Rates & Fees |
Our pick for
Overall business card for fair credit
Capital on Tap Business Credit Card
Read Review
Apply now
on Capital on Tap's website
Annual fee
$0
Rewards rate
1.5%
Intro offer
$200
The Capital on Tap Card offers 1.5% cash back on all purchases, no annual fee and the potential for a big sign-up bonus. Best of all, it’s available to business owners with a personal FICO score of 670 or higher, provided you meet other requirements. Note: This business card is not available to sole proprietors.
Annual fee
$0
Rewards rate
1.5%
Intro offer
$200
The Capital on Tap Card offers 1.5% cash back on all purchases, no annual fee and the potential for a big sign-up bonus. Best of all, it’s available to business owners with a personal FICO score of 670 or higher, provided you meet other requirements. Note: This business card is not available to sole proprietors.
Pros
- Earn unlimited 1.5% cash back on all purchases
- Apply without a hard credit check
- 24/7 customer service
Cons
- Not available to sole proprietors, charities or nonprofits
- Must enroll in automatic payments
- 1.5% rewards on all spend, no caps or restrictions
- Earn $200 cashback when you spend $15,000 in the first 3 months.
- $0 annual fee
- No foreign exchange fees
- Applying has no impact on credit score
- APRs range from 17.74% to 35.99% variable
- Unlimited cards for your employees
- Capital on Tap Business Credit Cards are issued by WebBank
Our pick for
Corporate card for business owners with fair credit
Ramp Card
Read Review
Apply now
on Ramp's website
Annual fee
$0
Rewards rate
1.5% Cashback
Intro offer
N/A
The Ramp Card comes with a lot of perks: unlimited cash back, spending controls, forecasting tools and automatic receipt matching. Plus, there's no credit check or personal guarantee, making it a good option for business owners with fair credit but ample business cash reserves. But since it’s a corporate card, it’s only available to businesses registered as corporations, LLCs and limited partnerships.
Annual fee
$0
Rewards rate
1.5% Cashback
Intro offer
N/A
The Ramp Card comes with a lot of perks: unlimited cash back, spending controls, forecasting tools and automatic receipt matching. Plus, there's no credit check or personal guarantee, making it a good option for business owners with fair credit but ample business cash reserves. But since it’s a corporate card, it’s only available to businesses registered as corporations, LLCs and limited partnerships.
Pros
- No annual fee or foreign transaction fees
- Simple, straightforward rewards
- No personal guarantee or credit check
- Direct integrations with popular tools and card-level spending controls and alerts
Cons
- Balance must be paid in full each month
- Not available to sole proprietors or unincorporated businesses
- Earn unlimited 1.5% cash back on all purchases, no minimum spend required.
- No annual fee or foreign transaction fees.
- No personal credit check or personal guarantee required.
- Issue unlimited virtual cards and physical cards for each employee.
- Prevent out-of-policy spending with built-in controls, including spend restrictions by category or merchant.
- Ramp is a corporate charge card powered by Visa. Businesses are required to pay the monthly balance in full by each statement period.
- Must have at least $75,000 in cash in any U.S. business bank account to qualify.
- Must have most of your operations and corporate spend in the US (although Ramp does support international transactions and will waive all related transaction fees).
- Ramp is only available to corporations, LLCs and limited partnerships. Individuals, sole proprietorships and unregistered businesses are not eligible.
Our pick for
Businesses with professional investors
Brex Card
Read Review
Apply now
on Brex's website
Annual fee
$0
Rewards rate
1x-7x Points
Intro offer
10,000 Points
The Brex Card doesn't require a personal credit check, making it a good option for those with fair or average credit. You can earn a welcome bonus and ongoing rewards with bonus categories. Monthly repayment terms are reserved for business owners with professional funding and a healthy bank balance, though, and this charge card isn’t an option for sole proprietors.
Annual fee
$0
Rewards rate
1x-7x Points
Intro offer
10,000 Points
The Brex Card doesn't require a personal credit check, making it a good option for those with fair or average credit. You can earn a welcome bonus and ongoing rewards with bonus categories. Monthly repayment terms are reserved for business owners with professional funding and a healthy bank balance, though, and this charge card isn’t an option for sole proprietors.
Pros
- No annual fee
- New cardholder bonus offer
- Qualify with limited/bad credit
- Bonus categories
- No foreign transaction fees
- No personal guarantee
Cons
- Complicated rewards structure
- High capital requirement for approval
- Daily repayment may be required
- Get 10,000 points when you spend $3,000 on a Brex Card within your first 3 months.
- No personal guarantee needed – Brex does not ask for a personal credit check or security deposit during the application.
- Credit limits 10-20x higher than traditional small business corporate cards.
- Minimum bank balance of $50,000 from professional investors may be required to qualify for Brex.
- Exclusive signup offers from the best products and tools for your business (e.g. AWS, Google Ads, WeWork, Salesforce) worth up to $150,000 in value.
- Earn points on every dollar spent with industry-leading multipliers: 7x on rideshare, 4x on Brex Travel, 3x on restaurants, 2x on software subscriptions and 1x on all other transactions.
- Earn 3x Brex Rewards points on all eligible Apple purchases through the link or your Brex dashboard.
- Miles transfer program to 7 airlines (including Singapore Airlines, Qantas, Air France, and more) and their loyalty programs, giving Brex customers access to book travel across all of the major global airline alliances - Star Alliance, Oneworld, and SkyTeam.
- 30-day charge card running on the Mastercard network. Enjoy global acceptance with no foreign transaction fees.
- Build business credit: Brex partners with Dun & Bradstreet and Experian to report your on-time payments.
- Make employee expenses seamless - automated receipt-capture and expense matching and reconciliation via text, email, and mobile app. Instantly add new users and set spending limits.
- Contactless pay with Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Samsung Pay.
- Simplify reconciliation with built-in integrations with QuickBooks, Xero, NetSuite, and more.
Our pick for
Personal card for sole proprietors with fair credit
Capital One QuicksilverOne Cash Rewards Credit Card
Annual fee
$39
Rewards rate
1.5%-5% Cashback
Intro offer
N/A
Sole proprietors can use a personal card like the
Capital One QuicksilverOne Cash Rewards Credit Card
to build credit and earn rewards before upgrading to a business card with better perks.Annual fee
$39
Rewards rate
1.5%-5% Cashback
Intro offer
N/A
Sole proprietors can use a personal card like the
Capital One QuicksilverOne Cash Rewards Credit Card
to build credit and earn rewards before upgrading to a business card with better perks.Pros
- Qualify with average credit
- High rewards rate
- No foreign transaction fees
Cons
- Has annual fee
- High APR
- Earn unlimited 1.5% cash back on every purchase, every day
- No rotating categories or limits to how much you can earn, and cash back doesn't expire for the life of the account. It's that simple
- Be automatically considered for a higher credit line in as little as 6 months
- Enjoy peace of mind with $0 Fraud Liability so that you won't be responsible for unauthorized charges
- Help strengthen your credit for the future with responsible card use
- Enjoy up to 6 months of complimentary Uber One membership statement credits through 11/14/2024
- Earn unlimited 5% cash back on hotels and rental cars booked through Capital One Travel, where you'll get Capital One's best prices on thousands of trip options. Terms apply
- Monitor your credit score with CreditWise from Capital One. It's free for everyone
- Check out quickly and securely with a contactless card, without touching a terminal or handing your card to a cashier. Just hover your card over a contactless reader, wait for the confirmation, and you're all set
- View Rates & Fees
NerdWallet's editorial picks: Best business credit cards for fair credit
Select the card name to read our review. Before applying, confirm details on the issuer’s website.
Our pick for: Best overall business card for fair credit
The
Capital on Tap Business Credit Card
offers 1.5%
cash back on all purchases, no annual fee and the potential for a low APR. And while it's available to business owners with fair credit, Capital on Tap Card says applicants with a FICO score of 670 or higher have the best chance of approval. One important note: This card is not available to sole proprietors, which excludes the majority of businesses. Read our review.Our pick for: Best corporate card for business owners with fair credit
The Ramp Card is a corporate charge card available to incorporated businesses that have strong revenue and at least $75,000 in a business bank account. There's no personal guarantee or credit check. Plus, Ramp offers unlimited cash-back rewards and card-level spending controls with no annual fee. Read our review.
Our pick for: Businesses with professional investors
Unlike most cards designed for entrepreneurs, the
Brex Card
doesn't require the cardholder to personally guarantee the debt on the card. Instead, Brex determines creditworthiness by evaluating a company's cash balance, spending patterns and investors. It's a good option when a business owner has a thin credit file but is well-capitalized. The card earns rewards, too. Read our review.Our pick for: Business card for sole proprietors with fair credit
The Capital One® Spark® Classic for Business is one of the few business credit cards available to sole proprietors with fair credit. There aren’t many perks to speak of, but the card has no annual fee and can be a useful tool to build your business credit score. Read our review.
Our pick for: Personal card for sole proprietors with fair credit
Sole proprietors with fair credit lack business card options. But this personal card is a suitable alternative, assuming you don’t need employee cards. The Capital One QuicksilverOne Cash Rewards Credit Card is for people with fair or "average" credit but it pays the same cash-back rate as the regular Quicksilver card, which targets people with excellent credit. The key difference is that this version charges an annual fee while the regular one does not. Read our review.
Bank of America® Business Advantage Unlimited Cash Rewards Mastercard® Secured credit card
Our pick for: Secured business credit card
The Bank of America® Business Advantage Unlimited Cash Rewards Mastercard® Secured credit card can help you build your business credit profile while earning 1.5% cash back on all purchases. The card has a minimum security deposit of $1,000, which is equal to your credit limit and subject to credit approval. Bank of America® will periodically review your secured card and may upgrade you to an unsecured card if and when you qualify. This card has no annual fee.
How to choose a business credit card for fair credit
Make sure to consider these factors when comparing business credit cards that cater to owners with fair or average credit.
Eligibility: Your business structure and annual revenue will determine eligibility for many of the business card options for fair credit. Corporate cards like Ramp and Brex, for example, are not available to sole proprietors.
APR: A lower credit score often translates to a higher interest rate, which can make carrying a balance quite costly. Take care to compare APR ranges for available cards to determine your best option.
Repayment terms: Many of the business cards available to owners with fair credit are charge cards, meaning they don’t let you carry a balance. This can have advantages. For starters, you won’t pay interest. Paying bills on time and in full can build your business credit score. But automatic monthly payments (or daily payments, in the case of Brex) can strain your cash flow if you aren’t diligent about expenses.
Should fair credit business owners consider a personal card?
Sole proprietors with fair credit will have more options if they add personal credit cards into the mix. These cards report to consumer credit bureaus and can be used to build your personal credit score, assuming you practice good credit card hygiene. A higher personal credit score will help you qualify for a better business credit card — with more perks and better bonuses — down the road.
Personal cards aren’t an option for other business entities, though. If you run an LLC, partnership or corporation, you’ll need to build your personal credit separately. Alternatively, there are a few card issuers that report to both business and consumer credit bureaus.
Last updated on September 12, 2023
Frequently Asked Questions
Business owners with poor personal credit (a score below 630) will have a hard time qualifying for a standard business card. Instead, consider a secured card while you work to build your credit score. A secured personal card can help you build your personal FICO score, assuming you use it responsibly. A secured business credit card, on the other hand, can help you build your business credit.
While most business credit cards are geared toward people with good-to-excellent credit (a score of 690 or higher), a few cards are offered for those with fair or average credit. Your options include the Capital One Spark Classic or, if you have strong business revenue, a corporate card like Ramp or Brex. The Capital One QuicksilverOne Cash Rewards Credit Card is another good option for sole proprietors who don’t need employee cards. This personal credit card offers flat-rate rewards for a small annual fee.