Chase 5/24 Rule Explained: What Counts and How to Check Your Status

The Chase 5/24 rule is an unpublished but widely reported Chase policy: if you have opened five or more personal credit cards with any bank in the past 24 months, Chase will usually decline your application for most of its cards. Count your new accounts before applying, and apply for Chase cards first. This guide explains what reportedly counts, how to check your number and what the issuers actually publish.

What is the Chase 5/24 rule?

The 5/24 rule is an approval pattern that applicants have reported for years: Chase tends to decline people whose credit reports show five or more new credit card accounts opened in the previous 24 months, regardless of their score or income. Chase does not publish the rule. What is known comes from applicants comparing their approvals and denials, and from reconsideration calls, collected by card forums and blogs. Treat it as a strong guideline rather than a written policy.

What Chase does publish is narrower. The offer terms for the Chase Sapphire Preferred say the card is unavailable if you already have it open, that the new cardmember bonus may not be available if you held the card before or received its bonus, and that Chase may also consider the number of cards you have opened and closed when deciding bonus eligibility. That last line concerns bonuses, not approval, but it confirms Chase looks at your recent account history.

Which accounts count toward 5/24?

Based on widely reported data points, any personal credit card account that appears on your credit report with an opening date in the last 24 months counts, whichever bank issued it. That includes:

• Personal credit cards from any issuer, including store cards, co-branded cards and secured cards.
• Authorized user accounts that appear on your report. The CFPB notes that issuers usually report authorized users to the credit bureaus, so a card you were added to can show up as a new account.
• Business cards that report to personal credit files. Cards from most major issuers do not, but most Capital One and Discover business cards are widely reported to appear on personal reports.
• Closed accounts, which still count until 24 months after they were opened.

What does not count toward 5/24?

Accounts that are not personal credit cards on your report generally do not count. Commonly reported exclusions are:

• Business cards that do not appear on your personal report, including Chase's own Ink business cards.
• Hard inquiries that did not result in a new account.
• Mortgages, auto loans, student loans and personal loans.
• Product changes, where an existing card is switched to a different card from the same issuer without opening a new account.

How do you check your 5/24 status?

You check it by counting the credit card accounts opened in the last 24 months on your credit reports. It takes about ten minutes:

1. Get your reports. AnnualCreditReport.com is the official site for free reports, and the FTC confirms that the three bureaus now provide them free every week.
2. List every credit card account with an opening date in the last 24 months, including closed accounts and cards on which you are an authorized user.
3. Count them. Four or fewer means you are under 5/24. Five or more means Chase is likely to decline you for now.
4. Note when each account drops off. An account stops counting once it passes two years from its opening date.

Here is a worked example. Assume it is September 2026 and your reports show cards opened in October 2024, March 2025, August 2025, January 2026 and June 2026. That is five accounts in 24 months, so you are at 5/24. The October 2024 card passes its two-year mark in October 2026. If you open nothing else, you drop to 4/24 then, and the next account falls away in March 2027.

Which card issuers have rules like 5/24?

Chase is the only major issuer widely reported to use a hard count of new accounts from all banks, but others publish their own bonus rules or are reported to limit how often you can be approved. The table separates what issuers publish from what is only reported.

In what order should you apply for credit cards?

If you plan to open several cards, apply for the Chase cards you want first, while you are under 5/24, and then move to issuers that do not appear to count new accounts from other banks. In practice that means:

• Chase personal cards first. Cards such as the Sapphire Preferred and Chase Freedom Unlimited are only realistic while you are under five. The Chase issuer page lists the full range.
• Chase business cards while you are still under 5/24. Cards such as the Ink Business Preferred are widely reported to be subject to the rule when you apply, but they reportedly do not add to your count once open. Our guide to the best business credit cards covers the alternatives.
• Then American Express, Citi and Capital One. Their published bonus rules focus on whether you have held a particular card, not on how many accounts you opened elsewhere. See American Express for its current cards.
• Store cards last, if at all. A store card opened for a one-time checkout discount counts toward 5/24 like any other card, and it is the most common way people use up slots without noticing.

Can you get approved for a Chase card if you are over 5/24?

Rarely. Applicants have occasionally reported approvals over 5/24 through targeted pre-approved offers, but there is no reliable way to qualify and Chase does not confirm any exception. If you are declined at exactly five and one of the accounts is an authorized user card, applicants report that calling Chase's reconsideration line and explaining that you are not responsible for that account can sometimes help. Otherwise, the practical answer is to wait until your oldest account passes its two-year mark.

Is the 5/24 rule worth planning around?

It matters if you open more than one or two cards a year and want Chase's cards, and it hardly matters if you do not. For most people, one or two well-chosen cards are enough; our guide to the best two-card combinations shows how pairs cover most spending.

Frequent applications have costs beyond 5/24. The CFPB says each hard inquiry typically has a small negative effect on your scores, and that applying for a lot of credit in a short period may look to lenders like you are dealing with financial setbacks. Rewards also never outweigh interest: if you carry a balance, a low-rate card will save you more than any welcome bonus earns.