The best credit cards for fair credit in Canada
For people with fair credit, the best cards are unsecured cards that approve fair/average scores without a deposit β modest rewards, reasonable terms, and reporting that nudges a middling score toward good so better cards open up. We track 272 Canada cards.
Who this guide is for
- Your score is fair/average, not yet good
- You want an unsecured card without a deposit
- Modest rewards while you build are a bonus
- You're close to qualifying for mainstream cards
Top cards for fair credit in Canada
Neo Mastercard
Likely the single most accessible genuinely-unsecured card in the Canadian market: Neo's own marketing describes guaranteed approval with no hard credit pull and no minimum income, using cash-flow signals from linked bank data instead of a hard score cutoff β exactly the kind of alternative underwriting that helps someone whose fair credit score undersells their actual financial behaviour. Treat 'guaranteed approval' as Neo's own characterization rather than an independently audited claim.
- C$0/yr annual fee
- Credit Building card
- No published flat base rate on general/other purchases outside groceries, gas, and partner offers.
Canadian Tire Triangle Mastercard
Two things to flag.
- C$0/yr annual fee
- Cash Back card
PC Financial Mastercard
- Points card
- No minimum income requirement published by the issuer
Tangerine Money-Back Credit Card
- Earns 2% on categories of your choice
- Cash Back card
- No caps on bonus-category spend
β‘ 4 sources
RBC ION Visa
The other near-graduation reach pick on this list, included for a different reason than Tangerine: it's a genuine entry point into a major bank's points ecosystem rather than just a standalone cash-back tool.
- Entertainment card
How we picked
These picks come from dedicated research for people with fair credit, which drew on issuers' published terms and independent sources β listed under βsourcesβ on each pick. The order is the research's. Every fee, welcome offer and earn rate shown on a pick is the figure our catalogue holds for that card, the same one its card page shows. Nothing here is pay-to-rank. Business cards appear only on business guides, student cards only on student guides, and prepaid cards on none. A figure we do not hold is shown as βNot confirmedβ, never as a zero. Each researched shortlist is marked as pending editorial review until the site's editor approves it.