If you’ve opened at least five personal credit cards with any bank over the last two years, Chase will likely deny your Ink business card application under its unofficial 5/24 rule. Count yours first, closed and authorized-user cards included, and get the Chase cards you want before opening personal cards elsewhere.
Chase doesn’t publish the rule, but applicants’ reported approvals and denials show that it counts cards from your personal credit report. That means the personal cards you’ve opened decide whether you get a business one.
Chase counts every credit card your report shows as opened in the past 24 months, from any bank, even one you’ve since closed. That includes cards someone else added you to as an authorized user, because they appear on your report even though you aren’t responsible for the bill. Most business cards don’t count, since they don’t appear on personal reports, and that includes the Ink card you’re applying for. The exceptions are business cards from Discover and TD Bank, plus most of Capital One’s, which do appear and count.
To check where you stand, pull your free reports from all three credit bureaus at AnnualCreditReport.com and list each card’s open date. Plan on a card counting until the first of the month after it turns two, so one opened March 10 stops counting on April 1 two years later. If an authorized-user card is what puts you at five, Chase’s reconsideration line, which reviews denied applications, may agree to leave it out of the count.
Your count also decides which card to apply for first. Say you’ve opened four personal cards in the past 24 months, so you’re at 4/24, and you want an Ink card plus a personal card from another bank. Apply for the Ink first, and you’re still at 4/24 afterward. Open the other card first, and you’re at 5/24, so Chase will likely decline the Ink until your oldest card stops counting.
When you do apply, the Ink application asks for your business’s legal structure, start date, and annual revenue, and the card makes you personally liable for the balance along with your business.
Check your count before every card application while a Chase card is still on your list, since a fifth personal card from any bank can put Chase off-limits for months.
Editorial & Advertiser Disclosure: The editorial content on this page is not provided, commissioned, reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed by any advertiser. Opinions expressed here are ours alone, not those of any advertiser. The offers that appear on this site are from companies that compensate us. That compensation may influence which products we cover and where and how they appear on a page – including the order in which they appear – but it does not influence our evaluations, ratings, or opinions. We do not include every company or offer available in the marketplace.
Related:
