Secured credit cards can help those with bad credit establish and strengthen their credit profiles.
These cards have low credit limits that are backed by a security deposit, usually $200 or more, which can make them easier to qualify for. But as with traditional unsecured credit cards, issuers of secured cards still typically perform a credit check to determine eligibility.
To help you get a better idea of how you might fare, NerdWallet looked at approval rates for the products on our list of the best secured credit cards among people who registered for NerdWallet and activated their free credit score. (This information does not include people who applied for a card on NerdWallet, but did not register.)
NerdWallet has also previously looked at approval rates for the products on our list of the best 0% APR cards and best balance transfer cards. For these cards, approval rates generally increase with credit scores, meaning applicants with higher scores tend to have better chances. However, this isn’t the case for secured credit cards: Approval rates vary across credit score ranges, so a higher credit score doesn’t necessarily mean a higher chance of approval.
Here’s a closer look at how credit scores compare.
Secured credit card approval rates
Percentage of applicants through NerdWallet who were approved for a secured credit card, by credit score band:
Applicants with the highest credit scores that applied for secured cards — in the 740-759 range, which is considered "very good" by FICO — had the highest approval rates. More than two-thirds of those applicants were approved.
Yet some high credit score ranges had low approval rates. For instance, only around one-third of applicants in the 720-729 range — which are credit scores that are considered “good” — were approved for a secured card.
Conversely, some lower credit score ranges had relatively high approval rates. For example, more than 50% of applicants with credit scores between 460 and 469 — scores referred to as “very poor” — were approved for a secured card. And those with “very poor” scores that were even lower (those between 440 and 449) had about a 40% approval rate.
Our data for secured cards show that approval rates don’t consistently increase as credit scores do, as is typically the case for unsecured credit cards. There could be a few reasons for this.
For starters, it's not surprising that approval rates for secured cards are relatively high among those with lower credit scores. After all, that's precisely the credit profile that secured cards are marketed toward. Because these cards have lower credit limits and are backed by a deposit, even those with very poor credit scores may still qualify.
On the other end of the spectrum, just because an applicant has high credit scores doesn't mean approval is guaranteed. Credit scores certainly play a role, but issuers can also take into account additional factors, like an applicant’s income, debt, how many lines of credit they have and more.
Secured credit cards have varying credit requirements, and of course registered NerdWallet users may not be representative of all card applicants.
In short, even an applicant with good credit scores could still get denied for a card, while an applicant with lower scores could get approved if a lender doesn’t deem them a risky borrower based on non-credit factors.
