An EIN-only corporate card approves your LLC or corporation on the company’s own cash and revenue, so you sign no personal guarantee and your personal credit isn’t checked. Before you apply, check the company’s bank balance and revenue against the card’s requirements, and plan to pay in full every billing cycle.
If you formed an LLC or corporation to keep the company’s debts apart from yours, a standard small-business credit card undoes part of that. Most of these cards require a personal guarantee, a promise to repay the balance yourself if the company can’t, and many issuers check your personal credit before they approve you.
Corporate cards from Brex and Ramp skip both and judge the company instead, by its bank balance, its revenue, and for a startup, the money investors have put in. Both say their cards won’t affect your personal credit score.
To qualify, the company must be a registered U.S. business, such as an LLC or corporation, with an employer identification number (EIN), the federal tax ID number the IRS assigns. Ramp turns away sole proprietors, EIN or not, and asks for at least $25,000 in a U.S. business bank account. Brex looks for either annual revenue above $500,000 or outside investment of any size, from an accelerator, angel investors, or a venture capital firm. Each company can change these requirements, so confirm them when you apply.
Know the terms before you move the company’s spending onto one of these cards.
- Both are charge cards, so the full balance is due at the end of every statement period. Brex collects it automatically, every business day or once a month, whichever the company qualifies for.
- Your limit rises and falls with the company’s cash. Ramp can set it as a percentage of the money in your linked bank accounts, and Brex’s daily-payment card bases it on what you keep in a Brex business account.
- Ramp pays cash back on every purchase. Brex pays points and adds an extra point per dollar when you also keep a Brex business account and pay daily.
The best fit is a company that keeps more in the bank than it charges in a month, since that cash pays every statement and sets the limit too.
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