Compare our best credit cards for bad credit

APR stands for “Annual Percentage Rate” and is the total cost of borrowing over 12 months. For example, if your APR is 20%, you will be charged 20p for every £1 borrowed over the course of 12 months. If you pay your balance in full and on time, you will not pay interest.

Your credit card balance is the amount of money you owe your credit card provider. In other words, it's the amount you borrowed using your credit card to buy goods and services. It's also sometimes referred to as your credit card debt.

Your credit limit is the amount you can borrow on your credit card at any one time. If you exceed this amount, you can be charged a fee - typically £12 - and it can leave a mark on your credit report.

You won’t usually find out your credit limit until the end of an application process - although you can ask your provider to increase – or decrease – your credit limit at any time.

Credit limits are set based on your credit history and your earnings.

Once you've reached your credit limit, you need to make a payment to bring down your balance before you can use the card again. Find out more in our guide to credit limits.

Your credit report is your history of borrowing and paying bills over the past few years. Lenders send this information to one or more of the three credit reference agencies, which compile reports on UK residents.

Before deciding whether to let someone borrow, lenders check your report from one or more of the agencies. You can request a copy of your credit reports to ensure there are no mistakes on your file, request changes if you spot one and add notes explaining any missed payments.

Your credit score is calculated based on your credit history. Each credit reference agency has its own method of calculating this.

Your credit score will go up for things like making payments on time and down for things like being late or defaulting on a loan. Typically, the higher your score, the more likely you are to be offered a lower rate of interest or higher credit limit.

There is no absolute pass or fail mark attached to a credit score, with each lender making its own decision on what it considers acceptable.

If you miss a few payments, generally between three and six, your credit card provider will send you a default notice, giving you at least 14 days to pay the amount stated on the notice. 

Court action could be used to recover the debt, and if you fail to make the payment, your account will be “defaulted”, meaning you won’t be able to use your credit card anymore. It is possible that your provider may have already blocked spending on your account after the first couple of missed payments. A record of the default will also stay on your credit report for six years, making it harder to get any form of credit throughout this time.

A Direct Debit is when you give a company permission to take payments automatically from your bank account. It decides the amount, but you are free to cancel the arrangement. For example, you can set up a Direct Debit to pay off your credit card. This could be for the minimum amount due, a fixed sum, or the entire balance.

Minimum eligibility criteria define the attributes the provider expects customers to have before offering them a product. They’re designed to help customers understand if they should proceed with an application.

Meeting the minimum eligibility criteria is not a guarantee of approval. Eligibility criteria include factors such as age, salary and sometimes other details, depending on the product.

If you’ve made an application for credit, such as a credit card, loan or mortgage, lenders will carry out an in-depth check of your credit report, known as a hard credit check.

This is a detailed look into your financial history, especially your borrowing history, so a lender can see your track record of repaying money you've previously borrowed.

A hard check will show any negative marks on your credit report, like overdue payments, missed payments, previous credit applications and even bankruptcies.

Every time a hard check is carried out, it leaves a mark on your credit report, which can hurt your credit score.

Interest-free credit cards allow you to either transfer a balance, make purchases or transfer cash to a current account without paying any interest on your balance for a set period. However, you must keep making at least the minimum monthly repayment during this time.

Once the 0% deal is over, you will be charged interest on any remaining debt at your standard APR. With balance transfers and money transfers, you will usually have to pay a transfer fee. 

Credit card introductory offers include bonus reward points, extra cashback, 0% on balance transfers or 0% on purchases.

Introductory offers are used to attract new customers, but once they expire, they revert to the standard offer or rate. When this happens, you should check if you’re still getting the best deal or whether you need to switch to a different credit card.

Every credit card has a minimum monthly repayment amount set out in its rules, which you can find in the summary box.

The minimum payment is calculated by working out what interest you've built up over the past month and then adding a small percentage of your total balance. If you have a small overall balance, there might be a fixed sum instead - for example, £5.

As minimum monthly repayments are set at such low levels, it’s best to pay off more than this each month if you can. You’ll clear your debt faster and pay less interest too.

A soft credit check is a top-level view of your financial history. It lets lenders assess you for their offers and can show you what you could be eligible for.

Although a soft credit check is recorded, it doesn’t leave a mark on your credit file. This means that while you can see soft checks when you look at your own report, lenders can't. A soft credit check won’t impact your credit score, but you’ll be able to see if anyone has checked your credit history.

In certain industries, some employers will perform a soft credit check if you’ve recently applied for a job with them.

You can use a credit card to build your credit history even if you have never borrowed before. Here is how to get your first credit card.

Bad credit is simply a negative assessment of your finances by a credit reference agency or lender. In this case, your credit record might prevent financial companies from lending to you.

A bad credit score is generally a low number, but the exact score range will depend on the credit reference agency. Experian, Equifax and TransUnion all use slightly different scoring systems, but typically the lower the number, the worse your credit score. With Experian, a bad credit score is between 0 and 720, with Equifax it’s between 0 and 438, and with TransUnion it’s between 0 and 565.

Yes, your credit record could get worse if you go over your credit limit, miss repayments, build up too much debt or apply for cards that turn you down.

Your card provider sets your interest rate (APR) based on the details you’ve provided on your application form and your credit report. Here is how interest works.

Your card provider will decide your credit limit by looking at your finances, but credit cards for bad credit usually offer lower limits. Here is how credit limits work and are decided.

Here is how to find a card more likely to accept you even if you have never used one before and what you need to know about using credit cards.