Finding a credit card without high-income requirements can be a challenge. Fortunately, within the three major networks, many cards require no minimum income or an income of $15,000 per year. Even better, they also come with great welcome offers!
Here’s our selection of the best options to help you make an informed choice.
The American Express network provides credit cards to two institutions in Canada: American Express Canada and Scotiabank.
On the Scotiabank side, a minimum income of $12,000 is required to subscribe to American Express cards, including the Scotiabank Gold American Express® Card.
On the other hand, on the American Express Canada side, no minimum income is required to sign up for an American Express credit card. Even for high-end cards like the American Express® Gold Rewards Card or the American Express® Platinum Card®.
Plus, the credit score may be lower than the one required by Mastercard or Visa credit card issuers.
The most popular cards that require no minimum income can earn you cash back, Aeroplan points, Marriott Bonvoy points, AIR MILES Reward Miles or Membership Rewards points.
And these cards are accepted in more places than you might think!
Here is a selection of 7 American Express credit cards with no minimum income required:
The Mastercard and Visa networks supply credit cards to many institutions in Canada, including BMO, NBC, Capital One, Desjardins, MBNA, RBC and Scotia.
Your best chance of finding a credit card with no minimum income required from these institutions will be to look :
For example, the BMO CashBack® Mastercard® for Students or the BMO AIR MILES® Mastercard® for Students have no minimum income requirement. On the other hand, the same non-student credit cards require a minimum income of $15,000.
Here is a selection of Mastercard and Visa credit cards that require no minimum income:
If you have an income of $15,000 or more, there are many credit cards to choose from. Here is our selection of travel credit cards:
And our selection of cash back credit cards:
A common scenario: a tempting welcome offer for a credit card appears, but when you apply, you realize that you don’t meet the minimum income requirement.
You should know that each credit card network (American Express, Mastercard, Visa) imposes a certain number of criteria on their partner institutions (American Express Canada, BMO, NBC, Scotia, etc.) in order to issue credit cards to their customers.
For example, a World Elite Mastercard will require a personal income of $80,000 or a family income of $150,000, regardless of the issuing institution.
This is the case with these popular credit cards:
For example, a Visa Infinite credit card will require a personal income of $60,000 or a family income of $100,000, regardless of the issuing institution.
To summarize quickly, these income criteria are requested by merchants. Every time you make a purchase from a merchant using your credit card, an interchange fee is deducted. You don’t see this fee, but the merchant does (and has already factored it into his selling price)!
And the higher-end the credit card, the higher the interchange fee. So, by asking for a minimum income, merchants want to ensure that purchases are made by customers who are more likely to bring them a higher volume of purchases. This offsets the higher interchange fee for these customers.
While some institutions are more particular about this income criterion, others are less so. Or will offer high-end cards to long-standing customers or those with other products (chequing accounts, mortgages, etc.).
But there are credit cards for which no minimum income is required.
To find your next credit card, you could use our credit card comparator, which has a filter for income criteria.
As you can see, you don’t need a minimum income to start earning Reward Points.
Savings are here:
