What is the Chase 5/24 Rule?
The rule means that if you have opened 5 new personal credit cards – from any issuer – in the last 24 months (plus any Discover business cards or a Capital One Spark Miles or Capital One Spark Cash Select card as those get reported to your personal credit profile), you will not be approved for a new Chase credit card.
Business cards (other than those mentioned above) you’ve applied for shouldn’t affect 5/24, since they don’t report to your personal credit file.
It does, however, apply to applying for a new Chase business credit card if you are over 5/24, meaning that you can’t get any Chase cards once over 5/24, including their business cards.
As well, if you are an authorized user on any personal card, that will count against you, however, if you have yourself removed as an AU and wait a few weeks, then it won’t count. As well, if you are declined and the AU account is what put you over the count, a reconsideration specialist can remove that and manually approve you (you have to apply online first and be denied to call). The Chase phone number in that case is 1-888-270-2127 for Chase personal card reconsideration or 1-800-453-9719 for Chase business card reconsideration.
Effect on Timing of Applications
Because of this rule, you want to front-load Chase cards. Note that we don’t mean all at once! In fact, you can only get 1 Chase Business credit card and 2 total Chase credit cards every 30 days. But what you don’t want to do is spend your first year at this grabbing Amex and Citi cards, only to realize you are now locked out of Chase cards!
So, long story short, figure out what credit cards you want from Chase and make sure you don’t hit 5 total personal cards before you have all the ones you want. And prioritize business credit cards if you are eligible! Speaking of which, many more of you are eligible for a business credit card than you think! If you have even the smallest side-hustle, read this article.