Best Personal Loans for Fair Credit to Consider in 2024

If you have a fair credit score, you're going to want to consider applying for a fair credit personal loan. Doing so will vastly increase your chances of being approved. Still, you don’t just want to apply for any fair credit personal loan either. You'll want to consider a variety of factors. In light of that, our team of financial experts reviewed and ranked more than 30 online lenders in order to help you get funded.

Because personal loans can have a big impact on your finances, it’s important to spend a little time reviewing your options to make sure you’re not overpaying. Also, it’s usually worth comparing your rates across multiple lenders to ensure you’re getting the best deal for your credit history and financial situation.

Our team of financial experts ranked lenders based on our ratings methodology for personal loans and found the best personal loans for fair vredit. This ratings methodology evaluates lenders based on loan length, APR, repayment terms, user experience, customer service, credit score history, banking and credit union use, and additional features.

Best Personal Loans for Fair Credit in 2024 - Full Overview

How to Choose the Best Personal Loan for Fair Credit?

To give you a better idea of what to expect from the selection process, we've taken a closer look at those parameters below. Read them over carefully so that you have a better idea of how the selection process worked from start to finish.

• Loan Features: To start, our experts looked at features like loan terms, loan amounts, and loan use limitations.
• Interest rates and fees: Then, they also considered the different types of fees charged by the lenders and their minimum/maximum interest rates.
• Application process: Next, they looked at the invasiveness of the application information requirements, whether the lender performs a hard-pull or soft-pull on your credit, and overall funding time.
• Qualification process: The experts also considered qualification requirements, including minimum credit score, income requirements, co-signer or joint application optionality, and membership requirements.
• Customer support: Additionally, they look at the level of accessibility to a live CSR representative, the degree of multi-channel support, and the availability of supplemental information and tools.
• Online user reviews: They also read reviews on independent review sites like Trustpilot.
• Perks and Bonuses: Finally, they considered specified service offerings like payment flexibility, advertising transparency, and advanced technology.

Main Features of The Best Personal Loans for Fair Credit

Now that you have a better idea of what each individual lender has to offer, here is a side-by-side comparison for your review. Take a closer look to see which lender might be the best fit for you.

What is a Fair Credit Loan?

At their core, fair credit loans are personal loans for people with fair credit scores. For those who may note be aware, a fair credit score Is any score that falls between 580 and 669.

However, other than the score range, it’s important to note that fair credit loans are typically very similar to other personal loan options meant for borrowers with higher or lower credit scores.

How Does Fair Credit Affect Your Personal Loan?

Having a fair credit score is most likely going to affect the interest rate that you’ll recieve on your personal loan.

Since personal loans are usually unsecured, meaning that they don't require any type of collateral, lenders depend heavily on your credit score for approval. While it's still possible to get approved for a loan with a 600 credit score, it's unlikely that you will receive as good of an interest rate as another borrower with a good or an excellent credit score.

Ultimately, this means that you can expect to pay more over time for the privilege of borrowing money from your lender. However, keep in mind that there may be ways to offset a higher interest rate, such as signing up for auto-pay discounts or applying for the loan with a cosigner.

How to Qualify for a Personal Loan With Fair Credit

In order to qualify for a personal loan with fair credit, you’ll absolutely need to have a credit score that at least falls in the range of 580 and 620. If your credit score is lower than that, you're going to want to look into the best personal loan options for bad credit instead.

In addition, you're going to need to be able to show enough income to be able to make the payments on your loan. You’ll also need to show a decent payment history and debt-to-income ratio. Your payment history tells lenders how likely you are to repay their loan and your debt-to-income ratio shows how well you'll be able to handle another payment in addition to your current debts.

How to Get a Personal Loans for Fair Credit

Truthfully, there are a few separate steps to applying for fair credit personal loans. Wee’ve outlined them below for your consideration:

• Check your credit score: Before taking steps to apply for a loan, it's important to check your credit and see where you stand. You're entitled to one free copy of your credit report per year from each of the three credit bureaus. You can access them by visiting AnnualCreditReport.com.
• Confirm your eligibility: Next, it’s a good idea to visit lender websites and verify your eligibility. Often, lender websites will list the specific criteria that makes you eligible for a loan through them. You can give yourself the best chance of receiving approval by making sure that you apply with a lender where you know you meet their guidelines.
• Get prequalified: Once you’ve found a good match or two, the next step is to get pre-qualified. Pre-qualification typically involves filling out a basic form and submitting to a soft credit check. It is not a guarantee of approval, but it does mean that you have a decent shot at getting a loan.
• Read the fine print: After you've been pre-approved, you'll want to take the time to carefully read any information given to by the lender This information will likely include the terms of conditions of the loan, as well as info on any applicable rates and fees. It’s a good idea to make sure that you understand all of this information and ask the lender any questions that you have before moving forward.
• Apply for the loan: Finally, your pre-approval should also tell you what documentation you need to apply for the loan. At that point, it's a matter of filling out the form and uploading any relevant documents. Once that's done, all you need to do is sit back and wait for a decision.

How to Improve Your Fair Credit Score?

If you don't want to be limited to personal loans for a 620 credit score, you may want to consider improving your credit before applying for a loan. With that in mind, we’ve brought you some tips on how to improve your credit score, including:

• Make your payments on time: According to MyFICO, payment history accounts for 35% of your overall credit score, making it the weightiest category. To That end, it is absolutely crucial that you make your payment on time every month.
• Pay off as much as you can: In addition, pay as far above the minimum payment as possible. On the one hand, paying down your debts will help reduce your credit utilization rate, which accounts for another 30% of your overall score. However, on the other hand, it will also help reduce your debt to income ratio, which can also help you be approved at a lower rate.
• Apply with one lender at a time: Too often, people make the mistake of applying with multiple lenders in hopes of being approved. However, having too many hard credit pulls on your credit history at once can actually hurt your score. If you're going to apply with multiple lenders, make sure to submit all your applications in the same 14-day period. This is known as “rate shopping” and will ensure that all your applications are counted as one.

Other Loan Options for Fair Credit

While there are plenty of legit personal loans for fair credit on the market, you don't necessarily have to go that route when you need financing. There are other options available to you and we've laid them out below.

• Home equity loan: If you own your own home, you can leverage the equity you've built up from making your mortgage payments to get access to a lump sum payment of the funds you need. What’s more, you can often do so at a lower interest rate than a personal loan.
• Balance transfer credit card: If you’re Thinking about taking out a personal loan to pay off debt, consider a balance transfer credit card. As the name suggests, balance transfer credit cards allow you to transfer an existing balance from one credit card to another. Often, the new credit card also allows for a 0% APR intro period, which can give you the opportunity to pay off your balance without paying any more interest.

Conclusion

When you have a fair credit score, getting a personal loan can be more challenging than if you had good or excellent credit. Still, that doesn't mean it's impossible. You just need to do a little extra legwork to ensure that the lenders you're applying with are appropriate for you. With that in mind, use this list of the best personal loans for fair credit to help you get started with your search.