Best Chase credit cards for September 2025

The best Chase credit card will be the one that best fits your personal needs. However, in terms of reward earnings, perks and benefits, the top contenders for the best Chase cards are the Chase Sapphire Preferred and the Chase Sapphire Reserve.

Most Chase credit cards require a good to excellent credit score. This means you’ll need a FICO score of 670 or higher to apply and be feasibly approved.

The only other major Chase credit card that is more easily accessible with a lower credit score is the credit-building Chase Freedom Rise.

As the issuer’s only credit-building card, the Chase Freedom Rise may be the easiest to be approved for, as it can be available with no credit history. However, based on the issuer’s card webpage, the Freedom Rise is intended for students and applicants with no credit history who want to establish credit, so it might be harder to get approved if you have a bad credit score. Fortunately, Chase also mentions that you can improve your approval odds if you already have a Chase checking account with at least a $250 balance before applying.

No. You will automatically start earning rewards when you spend with a Chase rewards card. But if your card has rotating bonus reward categories, activation may be required to access bonus rates.

The quickest way to close a Chase account is to call Chase and request a cancellation. You can also send the cancellation request through your online account or by mail.

For cards that put earning rewards front and center, a key criterion for their inclusion in our list of the best credit cards is whether they offer impressive rewards value. This includes a card’s average rewards rate, estimated annual rewards earnings, sign-up bonus value and reward redemption value.

To estimate a card’s average annual rewards earnings, we calculate its average rewards rate based on how much it earns in different bonus categories, as well as how closely those categories match the average person’s spending habits. In other words: Does the card earn rewards at a high rate in the most popular spending categories?

We use consumer spending data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) to get a reliable third-party measure of people’s spending habits. The most recent BLS data estimates that the average total spending in 2023 was $77,280 per consumer. We then narrow our focus to which purchases are likely to be put on a credit card and earn rewards, subtracting expenditures like housing, vehicle purchases and education. This gives us a total “chargeable” annual spend of around $22,500.

This includes the following spending by category:

• Groceries: $6,000
• Dining out: $3,900
• Entertainment: $2,500
• Gas: $2,400
• Apparel and services: $2,000

Using this data, we assign a weighting to each of a card’s bonus categories. For example, a card’s grocery rewards rate receives a 26 percent weighting based on how much of the average person’s budget is spent on groceries. We also estimate the redemption value of points or miles from various issuer, airline and hotel rewards programs.

This weighting and rewards valuation allows us to estimate a card’s average annual rewards earnings — how many points or miles you’d earn with a given card if your spending was about average and you used the card for all of your purchases — as well as what those points are worth. We also use point valuations to determine a card’s sign-up bonus value.

With these calculations complete, we assign each card a score based on how its average rewards earnings, sign-up bonus value, rewards rate and redemption value stack up against other rewards cards.

The better these values, the higher its score will be, making it more worthy of inclusion in our list and increasing its potential ranking, particularly in the Rewards and Cash Back categories.

Here’s a deeper look at the factors considered as part of a rewards card’s “Value” rating:

We also score cards based on how much it costs to keep them in your wallet or carry a balance. 

We rate all cards based on how their ongoing average APR compares to the average APR you’ll find on other cards in their primary category. However, the impact of an especially high or low APR on a card’s overall score depends on its primary category.

For rewards-earning cards, this factor has only a minor influence on the card’s score and whether the card is included in our list, since rewards card users generally try to avoid carrying a balance. That said, rewards-earning cards may get a solid boost in score if they also offer an intro APR on balance transfers or new purchases, since such offers aren’t always present on these cards.

More important to these cards’ scores and their inclusion in our list is how their annual fees influence their overall value. We consider a card’s annual fee in two ways — how it ranks relative to the fees you’ll find on other cards in the category and how it impacts a card’s overall rewards value. 

Cards with an annual fee will always be at a slight disadvantage in our scoring system since annual fees inherently cut into your rewards value. However, if a card offers terrific value via its ongoing rewards and perks, it can earn a high score and a spot in our list even if it carries a high annual fee. After all, the highest rewards rates and most valuable perks are often found on cards with annual fees. 

Interest rates and intro APR offers play a much larger role in a card’s score and whether it’s included in our list when the card is designed specifically for users looking to save on interest charges. This could include cards in the Balance Transfer and Low Interest categories, as well as those designed for people new to credit or working to rebuild their score (the Credit-Building category). 

We strive to feature cards with the most generous intro APR offers and lower balance transfer fees or ongoing APRs in our Balance Transfer and 0% Intro APR card categories. In these categories, factors like intro APR period length, ongoing APR and balance transfer fee make up a large portion of a card’s overall score and influence our decision to include it in our best cards list.

Along with rewards value and cost, we consider other factors that could give cards great long-term value, like flexible rewards redemption, unique and valuable perks or the ability to switch to another card with the same issuer after you’ve paid off debt or improved your credit score.

We rate rewards-earning cards based on the restrictions they impose on earning and redeeming rewards and consider this when deciding on a card’s inclusion in our list. 

These restrictions could include only allowing users to earn a high rewards rate on a small amount of spending or requiring users to meet a certain earning threshold before they can redeem rewards. We also examine whether points are worth less when you opt for some redemption options over others and whether a card gives you the flexibility to transfer rewards to airline and hotel partners. 

We also evaluate each card’s perks based on their value, usefulness and uniqueness. Cards that offer top-tier benefits like airport lounge access or travel credits are likely to stand out in the Rewards and Travel categories, but we also aim to highlight cards that offer valuable under-the-radar perks, like the ability to graduate from a secured to an unsecured card with responsible use.

For low-interest, balance transfer and credit-building cards, we factor in the presence of a rewards program (as this could give the card better long-term value) and perks designed to help cardholders protect their credit score (like free credit monitoring or the ability to prequalify with no impact to your score).