You are driving for a food delivery app like DoorDash or Instacart or a transportation app like Uber or Lyft. You may also engage in freelance writing or graphic design work. In your leisure time, you teach English online. These are some of the most common side jobs and freelance jobs that people do to make additional money. 8 Best Credit Cards
These solopreneurs are technically small-business owners and are self-employed. Most of the time, they can get a lot of small-business credit cards. Even if you don’t want to develop your side company into a full-time job, this advice is still true.
Here is a list of the best credit cards for freelancers and those with side jobs who want to receive rewards for business expenditures and improve their business credit score at the same time.
Best Credit Cards for Freelancers & Side Hustles (8 Best Credit Cards)
The best small-business credit cards for freelancers, sole proprietors, and side hustlers pair modest annual fees—if they have any at all—with generous rewards programs whose bonus categories favour general spending or a broad range of everyday business expenses.
Many also have attractive sign-up bonuses— also known as welcome offers, welcome bonuses, or early spend bonuses, depending on the issuer. And all accept personal guarantees from applicants, which means you can apply using your personal credit score. This option is very useful if you don’t have any business credit history (or you haven’t formally incorporated your freelance business at all).
Methodology: How We Choose the Best Credit Cards for Freelancers & Side Hustlers
If you’re a freelancer or sole proprietor in the market for a credit card to cover professional expenses, you need to consider many of the same factors owners of (slightly) larger enterprises do when shopping for small-business credit cards. These are the most important criteria that we use to separate the best freelancer-friendly credit cards from the rest.
Personal Guarantee Requirement (8 Best Credit Cards)
Many freelancers and side hustlers aren’t formally incorporated and have no desire to be. Because they have no “business” in the technical sense, they have no business credit. They can only get approved for business credit cards that accept personal guarantees.
Therefore, the absence of a personal guarantee requirement poses a significant obstacle. All the cards on this list accept personal guarantees or offer ways around them, like guarantees based entirely on business revenue rather than credit.
Credit & Income Qualification Requirements
Most credit card issuers require applicants to back up their personal guarantee (or business guarantee) by meeting certain credit and income standards. For premium business credit cards, these standards can be high — effectively out of reach of the typical freelancer or side hustler.
So we look for freelancer-friendly credit cards with more relaxed qualification standards. Most of the credit cards on this list set minimum FICO scores near 700, are more lenient than top-shelf business cards, and don’t require applicants to prove they’re pulling in tens of thousands of dollars a month on top of that.
Rewards Program
Every card on this list has an above-average reward program. When evaluating these programs, we look for cards that do one or two things:
- Earn higher returns on common business purchases, such as office supplies and telecommunications
- Earn an above-average flat rate of return (1.5% or above) on most or all eligible purchases
We exclude cards that only offer rewards on specific purchases or require excessive steps, such as activating your cashback before each purchase.
Welcome Offers for New Cardholders (8 Best Credit Cards)
Most of the cards on this list have spending-based welcome offers (aka sign-up bonuses) that increase their rewards programs’ appeal. We intentionally exclude cards with uncomfortably high spending requirements — a $3,000-per-month pace or above. The remaining offers’ spending requirements are realistic for many, if not most, freelancers.
Other Business Benefits
While freelancers tend not to utilise common business credit card benefits such as Amazon Web Services credits and Salesforce integrations, we still favour cards that provide these options. And some credit card benefits for businesses are legitimately freelancer-friendly, like discounts on popular bookkeeping software.
Interest Rate & Introductory APR Promotions
We advise everyone to avoid carrying a credit card balance if possible, but business owners — including sole proprietors — sometimes have no other option. With that in mind, we look for freelancer-friendly cards with low ongoing interest rates and long 0% APR introductory promotions.
Annual Fee (8 Best Credit Cards)
Generally, we favour professional credit cards that do not impose annual fees. However, committed freelancers can offset more modest annual fees (under $100) without too much trouble, so this list isn’t entirely annual-fee-free.
Credit Card FAQs for Freelancers & Side Hustlers
Finding and applying for a freelancer-friendly credit card isn’t too much different from the process for consumer cards. Once in your hands, these cards work more or less the same as consumer cards too. But if it’s your first time, you might still have questions as you work through the process.
Do You Need to Incorporate to Get a Professional Credit Card? (8 Best Credit Cards)
Not necessarily. Freelancer-friendly credit cards generally don’t ask applicants to prove they’ve formally incorporated their business. This is a good thing for part-time freelancers who don’t want the headache (and added cost) of managing a legal business entity.
By contrast, some small-business credit cards do require formal incorporation. Those cards don’t make this list.
How Much Can You Spend on a Professional Credit Card?
It depends on two factors: whether the card has a preset spending limit, and if so, the limit’s dollar value.
Some business credit cards have no preset spending limits, including some we consider freelancer-friendly. To prevent runaway spending, these cards usually have a pay-in-full requirement, so you can’t charge more than you can afford to repay (for long, anyway). If your freelance business is thriving, these no-limit, pay-in-full cards usually offer better spending power.
Other business credit cards base spending limits on revenue. This is more common for cards that underwrite based on business credit, but if you’ve been freelancing for a while and can show consistent income, you might qualify for a generous credit limit without a business credit score.
Do Freelancer-Friendly Credit Cards Allow Personal Guarantees? (8 Best Credit Cards)
If they want to be on this list, they should. Some freelancers have incorporated business entities of their own, but many don’t. This means they can only get business credit cards that require personal guarantees.
Does Your Professional Credit Card Affect Your Personal Credit Score?
If you qualified using your personal credit and income, yes.
This effect can be positive, negative, or both at different times. If you use your professional credit card responsibly, your personal credit score could increase over time. If you bump up against your credit limit or miss payments on your professional credit card, your personal credit score could suffer.
What’s a Good Annual Fee for a Professional Credit Card? (8 Best Credit Cards)
The most freelancer-friendly credit cards waive annual fees altogether. However, cards with unusually generous reward programs or perks generally charge annual fees. If you spend enough to offset these fees by earning rewards and net more than you would have with a no-annual-fee alternative, it’s worth the cost.
Final Word (8 Best Credit Cards)
Freelancers and side hustlers are eligible for many credit cards that are traditionally marketed to small-business owners with employees or contractors on the payroll, so this list overlaps considerably with our overall list of the best credit cards for small-business owners.
The lists aren’t identical, however.
Some of the top cards for small businesses, such as the Chase Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card and the Amex Business Platinum Card, aren’t ideal for part-time entrepreneurship or freelance work due to some combination of high annual fees, strict credit underwriting requirements, and welcome offers that require heavier spending than most side hustlers can manage.
Those cards can appeal to unusually prolific side hustlers.
If you’re fortunate enough to be able to scale your side business into a full-time enterprise with a balance sheet to match, you might find yourself in search of a credit card with a credit limit to meet your spending needs. When that day comes, you’ll be only too happy to trade up.
