Best Personal Loans of 2025

Your shortcut to the best personal loans for you

Our Nerds researched more than 30 personal loans, narrowing down to just one winner per category.

Find a top personal loan — fast

Click the categories you’re interested in to see the winners.

WHY OUR NERDS LOVE IT

For borrowers with fair credit, Upgrade is a standout personal loan lender. It offers multiple interest rate discounts and accepts joint and secured loan applications — all options that can lower your rate.

Read our methodology ❯

WHY OUR NERDS LOVE IT

Upgrade has a low minimum credit score requirement that gives bad-credit borrowers a better chance of qualifying. It also offers joint and secured loan options that can help borrowers qualify and get an affordable rate.

Read our methodology ❯

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Frequently asked questions

NerdWallet's award winners are chosen through a rigorous evaluation process involving 44 writers and editors. NerdWallet's ratings formulas for credit cards, for example, consider the type of card being reviewed (such as cash back, travel, or balance transfer) and the card's rates, fees, rewards, and other features. For mortgages, we evaluate loan average rates and fees, loan types and products, online rate information, ease of application and other factors. For more info, see our methodologies.

Our team of nerdy experts is composed of writers and editors — based all across the country — who have a combined 546 years of journalistic experience reviewing and writing about personal finance products for consumers.

Yes. Writers and editors use comprehensive scoring formulas that assess each financial product’s key features, weighting them according to their importance to consumers.

Nope. Editorial team members are solely responsible for creating all product reviews and ratings, and these assessments reflect their opinions alone. Only products that meet the editorial team’s standards appear in our Best-Of Awards lists, meaning no company can “buy” an award.

Our Best-Of Awards are given annually to the top financial products on the market. Our other “best” articles may:

• be longer than our Best-Of Awards list
• offer additional consumer choices
• get updated as products change or are discontinued and as new products emerge

This year's Best-Of-Awards list winners were chosen in mid-October 2024.

Frequently asked questions

Yes. Writers and editors use comprehensive scoring formulas that assess each financial product’s key features, weighting them according to their importance to consumers.