USAA Personal Loans: 2025 Review

USAA provides quickly funded personal loans that can be customized for almost any purpose, thanks to flexible amounts and terms. However, you need to be a USAA member to apply.

To be eligible for membership, you must meet one of the following criteria:

• Active duty, guard or reserve military in the U.S. armed forces.

• Veterans who have separated or retired with an honorable discharge.

• Contracted cadets or midshipmen at U.S. service academies, affiliated academy preparatory schools or advanced ROTC programs, and officer or warrant officer candidates within 24 months of commissioning.

• Spouses, widowed and former spouses (who have not remarried) of USAA members who joined USAA before or during the marriage, and children of members.

» MORE: Best personal loans for veterans

Table of Contents

USAA personal loans at a glance

Where USAA personal loans stand out and fall short

How to use USAA personal loans

USAA personal loan customer reviews

Do you qualify for a USAA personal loan?

How to apply for a USAA personal loan

How USAA personal loans compare

How we rate USAA personal loans

USAA personal loans at a glance

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Where USAA personal loans stand out

Wide variety of loan amounts and terms: Members can borrow between $1,000 and $100,000, making USAA a fit for most financing needs. There’s also a wide range of repayment terms — between one and seven years — depending on the amount you borrow.

For 12- to 36-month terms, you must apply for a $1,000 loan or larger. To receive a 48-month term, you must apply for a $5,000 loan or larger. Financing for 60-, 72- and 84-month terms requires a loan amount of at least $10,000, $15,000 or $20,000, respectively.

Fast funding: USAA offers a fully online process and can fund a loan through ACH within one business day after an application is approved. Fast funding is common among lenders, but some of USAA’s competitors may require an in-person visit or take a few days to deposit the funds in your account.

Option to add a co-borrower: USAA borrowers can apply for a joint loan by adding a co-borrower — someone who has access to the loan proceeds and is equally responsible for repayments. A co-borrower can help you qualify for the loan and potentially receive a lower rate.

Autopay discount: USAA offers a discount of 0.25 percentage points on its annual percentage rate to borrowers who set up automatic payments. This discount encourages borrowers to pay on time.

» MORE: Best bank loans

Where USAA personal loans fall short

No soft credit check: Unlike most lenders, USAA does not offer the option to pre-qualify. Pre-qualifying lets you see your potential loan amounts, rates and terms without affecting your credit score.

No direct payment to creditors: If borrowers want to consolidate credit card or other high-interest debt, they’ll need to send the funds themselves. USAA does not send money directly to creditors, which is a feature offered by many of the best debt consolidation lenders.

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How to use USAA personal loans

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USAA personal loan customer reviews

As of September 2024, USAA has 1.2 stars on Trustpilot, a website that collects consumer reviews. The rating encompasses customer reviews about many products the bank offers, including credit cards and auto insurance. Customer service is a focus of many negative reviews on the site. The bank’s mobile app received 4.8 stars across 234,000 reviews on Google Play and 4.8 stars across 1.6 million reviews on the Apple App Store.

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Do you qualify for a USAA personal loan?

USAA does not publicly disclose many of its borrower requirements, but USAA members with good and excellent credit scores (690 credit score or higher) will likely qualify for the lowest rates. USAA also considers debt-to-income ratio when making an approval decision.

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How to apply for a USAA personal loan

Here are the steps to apply for a USAA loan.

1. Apply on USAA’s website. Since USAA doesn’t let you pre-qualify, your first step is to submit a formal personal loan application. This could require documentation, like W-2s, pay stubs and tax documents to confirm your information. USAA will also do a hard credit check when you apply, so your credit score could temporarily dip.

2. Stay on top of your loan payments. USAA reports payments to the three main credit bureaus (Equifax, Experian and TransUnion), so on-time payments will help build your credit, but missed payments will hurt it. Setting up automatic payments and keeping an eye on your budget are two ways to manage your loan payments.

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Compare USAA to other lenders

Personal loan lenders offer different rates, loan amounts and special features, so it pays to weigh your options. The best personal loan is usually the one with the lowest APR.

SoFi and LightStream are two online lenders that offer a wide range loan amounts and repayment terms, similar to USAA.

SoFi

» MORE: Read our review of SoFi

LightStream

» MORE: Read our review of LightStream

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How we rate USAA personal loans

NerdWallet writers rate lenders against a rubric that changes each year based on how personal loan products evolve. Here’s what we prioritized this year:

• Category definitionsCategory definitions

  Affordability (25%)

  An affordable loan has low rates and fees compared to other similar loans and may offer rate discounts.

  Customer experience (20%)

  A good customer experience includes allowing borrowers to choose and change their repayment date, a fully online application process, a mobile app to manage the loan and a customer service team with wide availability.

  Underwriting and eligibility (20%)

  The lender reviews borrowers’ credit reports and credit history and tries to understand their ability to repay a loan. It offers loans in most states and doesn’t restrict eligibility by requiring a pre-existing relationship.

  Application process (20%)

  Borrowers can pre-qualify to check their potential rate, loan amount, repayment term and APR without affecting their credit score. They can easily find answers to questions about the personal loan on the lender’s website. The application process is fast enough to allow funding within a couple of days or less.

  Loan flexibility (15%)

  A flexible loan is one that offers a wide range of loan amounts and repayment term options. It includes common features like additional loan types and direct payment to creditors on debt consolidation loans.

  Discretionary

  A lender’s star rating can be reduced if the lender is sued by a state or federal regulator for unfair consumer practices or has been accused by a reputable source of suspicious business practices.

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