LLC Credit Cards: The Best Options for Small Business Owners

1. Best for Ecommerce Businesses: Chase Ink Preferred
2. Best for Freelance Businesses: American Express Plum Card
3. Best for New Businesses: American Express Blue Business Cash
4. Best for Restaurants: Capital One Spark Cash
5. Best for Startups: Brex Card for Startups

There are many factors that determine what type of business credit card is right for you. One of them is your business’s legal entity. Among the most popular legal entity types is an LLC, or limited liability company. When you become a limited liability company, you’ll get the limited liability protections of a corporation, without all of the complicated paperwork and ongoing requirements. Once you’ve chosen the best legal entity for your small business, it’s time to decide on your LLC credit card.

When you’re spending on your business, you’ll want to make sure you’re doing so with the best LLC credit card possible. Even though all LLCs will adhere to the same legal structure, their needs and preferences will certainly vary widely within that legal structure. As a result, there’s really no one best LLC credit card. That’s why we’re breaking all of the best LLC credit card options down by which industry they suit best.

As you look through your options for your best LLC business credit card, what you’ll notice is that you have a lot of options. That’s a good problem. But too much of a good thing is, well, a bad thing.

In order to make certain that you’re choosing the best LLC credit card—aka the card that benefits your business the most—you’ll want to evaluate each business credit card based on certain factors. We’ve used those same factors to guide us to this list of the best LLC credit cards.

A note: If we don’t cover your industry on our list of the best LLC credit cards, then use these same main features—and how important each is to you in a business credit card—to narrow down your best LLC credit card option on your own.

If your LLC credit card offers a 0% intro APR period, then you’ll be able to carry an interest-free balance for a certain amount of months right when you sign on as a cardmember. You think of it, in a way, as a free-money loan.

As long as you’re making your minimum monthly payments on time, every time, then you’ll have up to 15 months (depending on the card you choose) to pay down your balance without gaining any interest on what you owe. You can use that whole period to plan how to pay down your balance.

Different LLC credit cards will offer different lengths of 0% intro APR, and once the intro APR period is up, your LLC credit card will start charging you interest at a rate that will depend on your creditworthiness and the market Prime Rate. That said, if you’re expecting your LLC to face larger investments in the near future, then a 0% intro APR period might be just what you need in an LLC credit card.

Additionally, many LLC credit cards will offer your business a lump sum of rewards if you spend a certain amount within a certain span of time when you first sign on with the card.

And, sometimes, LLC credit cards will come with welcome offers that are worth upwards of $1,000. If you’re not planning on carrying any balances on your LLC credit card in the near future, then a welcome offer could prove to be much more lucrative than a 0% intro APR period.

You’ll also want to check in on which spending categories any of your LLC credit card options will reward you the most for.

If your business is doing most of its spending on office supplies, then your best LLC credit card option certainly won’t be one that only offers top rewards for travel purchases. If you have erratic spending patterns, then you don’t want to pick a card that’s basically made for business owners who are spending lots on, say, gas. You get it.

Luckily, you’ll more than likely be able to find an LLC credit card that offers top rewards for the purchases that you spend the most on. And if you can’t, you’ll be able to opt for a flat-rate card that rewards all of your spending equally (for you erratic spenders out there).

Perhaps most importantly, you’ll need to make sure that your LLC credit card will reward your spending in a form that’s actually useful for you.

While some business owners want to access valuable rewards points that will have more value when they redeem them as travel, other business owners will prefer cash back rewards that they can redeem as straightforward statement credits.

Finally, you’ll need to keep an eye on the fees that a potential LLC credit card comes with.

Most importantly, you’ll need to see if your LLC credit card comes with an annual fee. Some of the most beneficial LLC credit cards will. As a result, you’ll need to make sure that the rewards you earn from any given LLC credit card option will make up for the amount you’ll have to pay each year for the card.

Even if you choose a no annual fee business credit card, you’ll also need to keep an eye out for balance transfer fees and foreign transaction fees, among other miscellaneous processing fees. With balance transfer fees, an LLC credit card issuer will charge you a percentage of any pre-existing debt you move to your new card. And if you’re doing a lot of spending abroad, you’ll want to avoid LLC credit cards with foreign transaction fees, which will cost you up to 3% of every dollar you spend overseas.

Now that you know exactly what to look for in an LLC credit card, let’s break down the best options based on industry type. Depending on the type of small business you operate, there should be a card here for you:

If you’re running an online retail LLC, then you should seriously consider putting your spending on the Chase Ink Preferred credit card for two main reasons—its welcome bonus and its top spending categories.

Plus, all that shipping and traveling you’re doing for your online retail LLC certainly won’t do unrewarded—you’ll get 3x points for the first $150,000 you spend annual on travel, shipping, search engine and social media advertising, and communication services purchases you make on this LLC credit card.

Be sure to note that this LLC credit card will come with an annual fee of $95, which is certainly not ideal. But, if you’re confident that you’ll spend enough to access the welcome offer, then you’ll more than recoup this value.

Being a freelancer is tough.

Even if you’re able to establish your freelance services as an LLC, you’ll still have to deal with customers who drag out overdue payments and miss their invoice due dates. As a result, you’re going to want to look for an LLC credit card that will provide you with as much payment flexibility as possible.

So, ironically enough, the best LLC credit card that will give you this payment flexibility isn’t even an LLC credit card at all—it’s a charge card. Even though most charge cards are notoriously stringent on paying your balance in full, on time, the American Express Plum charge card offers incomparable payment flexibility with a 60-day grace period for each of your monthly payments.

Of course, because the Plum Card is a charge card, you’ll have to make sure that you can pay off your balance in full by the end of the grace period. Otherwise, you’ll get hit with steep late fees.

Alternatively, the Plum Card will also reward you if you’re able to pull off early payments. If you’re able to pay off your balance in full within 10 days of your statement closing date, then you’ll earn an unlimited 1.5% cash back on all that you pay down.

The Plum Card will come with an arguably steep annual fee of $250. But when you measure that annual fee against the potential savings—and earnings—you could access through the Plum Card, it seems like small change.

If you’re just starting up your LLC—no matter which industry you’re breaking into—then one of the very best LLC credit cards for your situation is the American Express Blue Business Cash.

This LLC credit card offers a long 0% intro APR period. You’ll be able to access 12 whole months of 0% APR on purchases if you opt for the Blue Business Cash. After those 12 months, your APR will set in at a rate that will depend on your creditworthiness and the market Prime Rate, so check in with the issuer’s terms and conditions to get the latest APR information.

So, as you’re covering costly startup expenses—no matter what they might be—you’ll be able to access 12 months of interest-free financing with this LLC credit card. But even after those 12 months are up, you’ll be able to access cash back for the spending you do with the Blue Business Cash. You’ll earn 2% back on all eligible purchases on the first $50,000 each calendar year, then 1% back on all purchases after.

To top it off, there’s no annual fee—which makes the Blue Business Cash card one of your best bets for your startup LLC.

If you’re looking for an LLC credit card for your restaurant and café, then your best bet will be the Capital One Spark Cash.

Because very few LLC credit cards will allow you to access top rewards for groceries or dry goods—most will reward you for spending more characteristic of office-based LLCs—you’re best off searching for LLC credit cards that offer flat-rate rewards.

And the Spark Cash is the best of them.

This LLC credit card will reward you 2% cash back for every single dollar you spend with it—no matter what you’re spending on, with no limit to how much you can earn.

So, if you’re doing most of your spending on expenses that aren’t your typical office expenses—as most restaurants and cafés are—you’ll be earning as much as possible with the Spark Cash.

Be sure to note that the Spark Cash will come with a $95 annual fee that will set in for your second year with the card.

If you’re an LLC that’s also a venture-backed startup, the Brex Card for Startups is a great choice for your LLC card. This is because Brex approves applications based on your business’s finances instead of your personal finances—meaning you don’t have to provide a personal guarantee. This could be a game-changer for business owners who are running a promising startup but don’t want to risk their personal finances or rely on a personal credit score. What’s more, for a limited time, Fundera readers can get 75,000 in Brex Rewards points upon signup and waived card fees for life.

Brex also gears their rewards program toward tech entrepreneurs by offering points on things they spend on most often. Account holders can get 7x points back on rideshare purchases, 4x points back on travel, 3x points back on restaurants, and 2x points back on recurring software usage.

Brex cards also operate on the Mastercard® network, so you can use them in 200 countries with no foreign transaction fees or travel alerts needed. In addition, Brex does not place a limit on the number of cards your business can use at any one time, and account holders can set spending limits on individual cards via the online dashboard.

However, like the American Express Plum Card, the Brex Card for Startups is a charge card, meaning you cannot carry a balance on the card from month to month. If you fail to pay off your card in full at the end of each payment period, Brex will cancel your card.

Now that you’ve made it through this guide to finding the best LLC credit card for your business, you’re walking away with a wealth of information. Not only do you know which LLC credit cards are the best for your industry—you also know how to confirm it all for yourself.

With the process of finding the best LLC credit cards laid out in front of you, along with all of the details on the best LLC credit cards, you’re well on your way to finding your business’s perfect way to spend.