Guide: How To Get U.S. Credit Cards?

How to Get U.S. Credit Cards

In this article, you will find out more about my experience that started in July-August 2017. As of January 2024, I am on my 7th U.S. credit card, and my U.S. credit score is 780.

Among the most sought-after cards, the Chase Sapphire Preferred offers up to 100,000 welcome points.

Before You Start

How does credit work in the United States?

Whether in Canada or the United States, your credit history is generally linked to your Social Insurance Number (SIN in Canada, SSN in the United States), as well as other information such as your first and last name, your past and current residential addresses, or past and current employment.

SIN and SSN both have nine digits. But a very important reminder: please do not use your Canadian Social Insurance Number (SIN) instead of your U.S. Social Security Number (SSN) when applying for credit cards.

In fact, if your SIN matches an existing SSN of a U.S. resident, you’ll be committing identity theft that can be dramatic for the person whose SSN you’re « borrowing »!

If you do not have an SSN for your U.S. credit card applications, you will eventually need an ITIN: the Individual Taxpayer Identification Number, as we will see later. This is what will allow you to apply for credit cards from institutions other than American Express and can greatly simplify the process.

The main rules to know in the United States

Choose your first U.S. credit cards wisely. Do not forget that you will be starting from scratch in terms of your credit file.

Therefore, it is advisable to start with a credit card that you will keep for many years to improve your credit history. While the natural choice might be a no-annual-fee credit card, you’ll see below that it’s also possible to start differently.

Also, note that one issuer closely monitors the number of credit cards on your credit file: Chase. A rule has even been established: 5/24. This means you will not be able to get credit cards from Chase if you have opened more than 5 credit cards in the past 24 months, across all issuers.

One way to avoid this: corporate credit cards. Most of these cards don’t appear on your credit file, so they don’t fall under the 5/24 rule.

Hold at least one American Express card in Canada

The key to starting U.S. credit card applications is to have held an American Express card in Canada for at least 90 days.

If that is not the case, make your selection on this page to find the best American Express credit card that may meet your needs.

A U.S. address

Before submitting your first U.S. credit card application, you will need to have a mailing address in the United States.

Two solutions:

• A residence in the United States (yours or that of friends or family members)
• A Mail Forwarding Service

A residence in the United States

This is by far the simplest and safest solution. Have a residence in the United States (as Snowbirds often do).

Failing that, if your friends or family agree, use their mailing address as your U.S. address. Even better: ask them to add you to their electricity account so you have a document proving this residency!

Your credit card envelopes will arrive directly at that address, and you can ask them to forward them to you in Canada (while also asking them to take photos of the cards so you can use them immediately online or via Apple Pay).

This is the solution I chose with friends in San Francisco after experimenting with mail forwarding services for a while.

A Mail Forwarding Service

In 2017, there were several mail forwarding services such as Mymallbox or 24/7 Parcel. But since then, most of these services have been excluded by credit card companies and reported as a Commercial Mail Receiving Agency to the USPS.

These mail forwarding services that are not registered as such with USPS and that agree to forward credit cards are difficult to find, but they do exist. We invite you to do your research.

A U.S. bank account

You also need a U.S. bank account in U.S. dollars.

The 3 main banks that provide cross-border services are RBC, CIBC and TD. Desjardins also offers the option to open an account at a Florida branch of Desjardins Bank; the process is done only in-branch (in Canada or in Florida).

Having most of my accounts at TD, it made sense for me to deal through TD. Note that you do not need to already be a TD customer in Canada to open an account with TD Bank USA, but it will greatly simplify the process.

A Currency Transfer Service From Canada to the United States

To be able to pay your credit card bills, you will need to use your new U.S. bank account.

You may very well choose to use your Canadian bank account to fund this U.S. bank account. However, in general, the fees (transfer and conversion) will be significantly less advantageous than those offered by other providers (as you will see below).

After also reviewing the various services and the rates/fees offered, I chose Wise.

Look at the example of a transfer of $1,000 CAD. Once the fees charged by Wise are deducted ($9.90 CAD for this transfer amount), you will receive $770.50 USD. Note that this rate is locked in for 48 hours!

Look at what the market rate was at the time this article was written (checked using the xe.com reference):

We really appreciate the transparency of Wise: the rate displayed is indeed the market rate, and the fees charged for the service provided are clear!

And, for the record, what rate was offered by TD for a transfer from my Canadian account?

You will notice that here the rate displayed by TD includes the fee charged by the bank. In the end, compared to Wise, you lose about $13 by trading via TD! Imagine for a larger amount!

Making Your First Request

Nova Credit

Once your mailing address and bank account are set up and you have your American Express Canada credit card in hand, you can finally apply for your first credit card in the United States!

The first option available to you is the Nova Credit process with American Express.

Once you have chosen an American Express credit card (see recommended cards section), and started your subscription, open the Social Security Number field.

It will be possible to tick the box I’ve had a credit card or loan in the UK, India, Mexico, Canada or Australia.

The Social Security Number will then become optional!

Once all the fields have been filled in, you can proceed. After a few seconds, you will arrive on this page:

This is where the search for your Canadian credit file begins via the service chosen by American Express: Nova Credit.

You will need to choose the country where you have a credit file. Let us choose Canada :

Then, fill in the requested information. Even if the Canadian social insurance number is optional, I advise you to indicate it so that your information can be easily retrieved by Nova.

Then provide your most recent Canadian address.

Then you give Nova authorization to query TransUnion Canada.

If everything goes well, Nova will have found a credit file at TransUnion Canada!

To ensure it is the correct credit file, Nova will ask you 3 questions, as when you apply for credit in Canada.

Once you have correctly answered the three questions, the file is then transferred to American Express USA, which will contact you again!

The best part: once this step is completed, you will receive, by email and free of charge, your entire TransUnion credit file!

You will need to download it within 72 hours on Nova’s website.

Audrey’s application, for example, was 45 pages long, with an annotation for American Express USA: « The risk profile of this applicant is very low« .

It has recently decreased from 800 to 763, after 3 applications last month. Don’t worry, in 3 months it will be back in the 790-810 range.

There are several possible outcomes:

• either you are immediately approved – or within 24-48 hours
• or you will receive a letter indicating that additional documents must be provided

I advise you to call American Express USA and switch to the Global Transfer procedure described below.

American Express Global Transfer

Details of the American Express Global Transfer can be found on this page or in the screenshot below.

Please note that American Express USA requires information on:

• Your current (Canadian) American Express card number
• Your U.S. address
• Your U.S. phone number (a Canadian number works)
• Your U.S. bank account
• Your passport, SSN or ITIN
• Your job information

You now understand why we needed to complete all the previous steps related to the U.S. address and the bank account located in the United States.

American Express USA will verify all information, including banking information (by calling your bank in the United States).

Regarding employment information, it is sufficient to mention that you will be transferred to the United States by your employer. Personally, I provided my Canadian employment information and had no issues.

The process is very simple:

1. On the American Express USA website, choose the card you want
2. You apply for it. In the application process, you indicate the American Express card you already hold (in this case, any Canadian American Express card with at least 3 months of transaction history).
3. You complete the application

Once the application is submitted, you might be lucky and have it immediately approved. Either it is put on hold (or worse, declined); in that case, you will need to call the special American Express Global Transfer service at 1-877-621-2639.

Personally, I had to call and the process only took 5 minutes: it was a verification of your Canadian credit file information, linked to your American Express Canada card.

This process will be done only once: afterward, once established, it is your U.S. credit score that will allow you to obtain other cards from American Express!

Which Credit Card Should I Apply for First?

I advise you to start with a card that will be free of charge from year to year. You will then be able to keep it and build your credit history in the United States with it.

That is what I did by applying for the American Express EveryDay Card. It is a card that is part of the Membership Rewards program (the equivalent of our Membership Rewards program). It’s free year after year and offers you a nice little welcome bonus to get you started.

Once you have reached the required spending, you will receive the bonus on the following statement.

What Second Credit Card Should I Apply For?

After a few months, you will be able to apply for other American Express cards. It is important to continue to spend regularly on your American Express Credit cards or you will not be able to apply for new cards!

The choice is vast; here are the two favourites I plan to keep even though their fees are high: the benefits provided with Hilton Honors and Marriott Bonvoy more than make up for them, every year.

• Hilton Honors American Express Aspire Card
• Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant^™ American Express^® Card

After 2 to 3 American Express cards, it will be time to move on to cards from other issuers, including Chase (in particular to avoid violating the 5/24 rule mentioned in the introduction).

My advice is to go with the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card, which is much less expensive than the Chase Sapphire Reserve Card. These two Chase cards will give you the ability to transfer points to partners that are inaccessible to Canadians, such as World of Hyatt, JetBlue TrueBlue, or Emirates Skywards.

Or you could opt for the Chase Aeroplan^® Card, which offers unique benefits compared to the Aeroplan credit cards available in Canada. And it is a Mastercard credit card!

For this new step, you will absolutely need an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN). We recommend opening a Chase bank account at a Chase branch.

Get an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN)

The Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) is a 9-digit number like the Social Security Number (SSN).

It allows the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to identify individuals who cannot have a SSN.

Thus, any non-U.S. citizen can still sell products in the United States and earn income that will then be taxable in the eyes of the IRS. Hence the need to issue an ITIN for these people.

To obtain an ITIN, you can either take the necessary steps yourself or call on the services of a specialist.

By Yourself

You will need to provide 3 documents to the IRS in order to be issued an ITIN:

• A W-7 Form
• Proof of identity
• A signed letter from a withholding agent: this is the intermediary who will validate that you do indeed need an ITIN to proceed through them.

W-7 Form

The W-7 Form will allow you to submit an ITIN claim for the IRS. You can download it from this address.

Here’s how to fill it in:

• Check « Apply for a New ITIN« .
• Check the reason « h » with: Exception 1(d) – Royalty Income
• Enter the treaty: TIA 11087
• Fill in the other personal information
• Then date and sign with your phone number.
• Save it and print it

This is what it looks like:

Proof of Identity

There are a few ways to proceed:

• Send your passport with your W-7 form
• Send a certified copy of your passport issued by a U.S. embassy or consulate in Canada
• Send your original driver’s license or birth certificate

And finally, if you do not wish to mail these documents, you can submit your application in person at an IRS Taxpayer Assistance Center in the United States.

A signed letter from an intermediary/withholding agent

When I did my paperwork in 2017, I went through Smashwords. This method no longer works.

If you prefer to be certain and not waste time on steps that could prove unsuccessful, you will need to choose a paid service to help you obtain an ITIN, such as US Tax Ressources.

By a Specialized Service

You could use the services of US Tax Resources. Although I haven’t had to test this myself, I know several people who have gotten good service from this company.

For $249.99 + tax, you get:

• A completed W-7 form (with no risk of errors that could cost you time with the IRS)
• A U.S. notice of assessment
• Instructions for all procedures

Send ITIN application to IRS

Once you have your documents, you can submit your ITIN application to the IRS at the following address:

Internal Revenue Service
ITIN Operation
P.O Box 149342
Austin, TX 78714-9342

It should take about 2 months before you receive your ITIN in the mail from the IRS.

Conclusion

Don’t hesitate to join the Facebook group to discuss your efforts in obtaining U.S. credit cards!