Small Balance Credit Card Waiver (Issuers Waive Small Balances)

Did you know that some banks will waive your credit card bill if it just has a very small balance on it?

Small Balance Waiver

With many credit cards, if the balance on your statement is small – usually 99 cents or less – the bank will forgive it; it’s too small to ask you to pay. Usually it shows up on the bill as a “credit adjustment” or something similar.

Here’s the data that we’ve found so far on how much will be forgiven:

Some of this info is based on my own experiences, and some is based on readers comments to this post, on this Reddit thread, and on this FatWallet thread.

How to Use It

This may not sound so easy to make use of, but consider the fact that Amazon allows accounts reloads of as little as 50 cents (here’s a link to thatcontains our affiliate). So after you go through the pain of setting up all your credit cards in your Amazon account, you can just go one-by-one and buy 99 cent e-gift cards on each credit card once a month.

Some people do this actively to net the $.99 or whatever across a bunch of cards. Other people aren’t comfortable with this, but can still use it sporadically when trying to keep a card active or the like. Regardless, it’s good to know why you might see a waiver pop up on your credit card bill for a small amount.

Effect on Credit Score

We know that 30% of the FICO score is based off your credit utilization ratio. We’ve written that anecdotal evidence suggests that the sweet spot for optimizing your utilization ratio is to have zero utilization on all your credit cards, besides for one card which should have a utilization of something under 10% of the credit limit on that card.

How will this $.99 trick effect your credit score? If you leave a $.99 balance on numerous credit cards, will the $.99 balance show up on your credit report and hinder the above mentioned sweet spot?

No. Based on what I see on my own credit report, I believe that for two reasons this will not hinder your credit score at all.

Firstly, in general the balances always get rounded down to the dollar. So if you have a balance of $532.99, it shows up as a $532 balance. In our case, the $.99 balances are showing up as $0 on my credit report, just as all balances are rounded down to the dollar. I would therefore assume that your utilization ratio remains zero.

Additionally, since the credit card issuer is waiving that small balance, they report it as a balance of $0; the waiver is factored into the balance reported. I see this from the balance reported on my Discover card. As mentioned, Discover waives up to $2. On my credit report the balance is showing up as $0, despite the fact that there was actually a $2 balance. Apparently, since they are waiving the $2, they don’t report that balance at all.

Our Verdict

We’re obviously not getting rich on this, but it sounds like a cute way to get $5-$10 in Amazon gift cards per month with minimal effort. Please comment below with any additional (current) info, and we’ll update the post to reflect the additional information.

It’s worth noting that some banks might not take kindly to this, so keep in mind the small risk. Some people aren’t comfortable taking advantage of this; it’s still useful to know which banks have a waiver, for planning purposes.

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slowbrake
slowbrake (@guest_1814300)
March 15, 2024 13:54

US Bank business forgave $1 on 3/14/24

I don’t know if being a business card usually matters – so I tried it. Any input would be welcome because I’m really out of cards to apply for.

c3
c3 (@guest_1812474)
March 12, 2024 11:09

US Bank did not waive $1 for my statement which closed yesterday, and it was not my “annual fee” month.

sg77
sg77 (@guest_1814392)
March 15, 2024 15:41
  c3

c3 which US Bank card do you have that didn’t waive it?

c3
c3 (@guest_1814395)
March 15, 2024 15:44

Cash+

Gadget - Bank Bonus Geek 🔗
March 15, 2024 15:51
  c3

Counter DP: My P2’s $1 charge got waived last week, and P1’s $1 was waived yesterday. USB Cash +

c3
c3 (@guest_1814404)
March 15, 2024 15:56

Thanks. Maybe something else also affects the waiver, not just the balance being <=$1.

Puli H
Puli H (@guest_1799954)
February 19, 2024 13:11

Capitalone reportedly buying Discover. Wonder what happens to 2$ credit from discover 🙂

Eric 🔗
Eric 🔗 (@guest_1799964)
February 19, 2024 13:30

I guess we’ll have to hope that the merger doesn’t go through so we don’t lose our $2 (or $4 for people that have 2 Discover cards) of monthly “free” money.

Eric 🔗
Eric 🔗 (@guest_1799972)
February 19, 2024 13:41

I just noticed that this page states that Capital One forgives $1 so we’ll probably only lose half of the $2. I wasn’t familiar as I don’t have any Capital One credit cards.

Harold
Harold (@guest_1795534)
February 9, 2024 09:05

The First Bank & Trust Ignite Card (formerly Sallie Mae) did not waive 98¢.

Eric 🔗
Eric 🔗 (@guest_1795666)
February 9, 2024 13:17

Thank you for the info. I was planning on testing it for a small amount this month but you just saved me the trouble.

BTW, did you notice that we need to receive a text code every time that we login instead of having login information? That’s annoying.

Harold
Harold (@guest_1796818)
February 12, 2024 16:15

Yup. It has the most convoluted login procedure that I’ve ever encountered. You first enter your phone number. Then the code sent via text. And finally your SSN and DOB.

I need to do this every single time that I log in.

Eric 🔗
Eric 🔗 (@guest_1813145)
March 13, 2024 15:26

Harold,

I just went to login to my Ignite account to check my monthly balance and it unbelievably logged me in without me having to do anything. It obviously remembered my browser but I am very surprised that it doesn’t have better security than that based on what I had to do the last time.

devyanks90
devyanks90 (@guest_1787216)
January 28, 2024 15:42

Sofi Credit Card did not waive a $.59 balance on my 1/2024 statement.

RIsk
RIsk (@guest_1781883)
January 20, 2024 10:02

What is the small risk you mentioned in the Verdict section? Was there a case bank cancelled a credit card?

“It’s worth noting that some banks might not take kindly to this, so keep in mind the small risk.”

Gadget - Bank Bonus Geek
Gadget - Bank Bonus Geek (@guest_1782047)
January 20, 2024 17:07

Probably “that they close your credit card”, or that “they decide to bill you for the past waivers”. However, I’d assume it would be incredibly rare and I’ve never noticed a DP of such vengeance.

Rob B
Rob B (@guest_1781050)
January 19, 2024 04:22

Is there any chance that this could be corrected: “Comenity (Sony card) forgives $1 or even $2.25 or even $3.49″? I posted on December 12, 2022 that my Comenity card didn’t waive one cent, and we’ve seen a full calendar year of 2023 come and go since then. I hope other updates have been faster.

Emilia
Emilia (@guest_1804007)
February 27, 2024 17:53

I am pretty much relying on DPs in comment section, original post has not been updated. Comenity was waiving $1 prior Sep 2021 (sometime between Jun and Sep), and then started waiving $3.99 until Jun 2022, stopped waiving any cent since July 2022.

Curmudgeon
Curmudgeon (@guest_1780997)
January 19, 2024 01:01

Laurel Road visa did NOT waive $1 balance

Ghost
Ghost (@guest_1778678)
January 16, 2024 03:21

Citi Custom Cash — did not waive $0.12 statement balance.

Gadget - Bank Bonus Geek 🔗
January 13, 2024 19:15

I just realized my water/sewer bill accepts payments as low as 0.01, and no CC fee. They use invoicecloud.net for CC/Debit card processing.

Was able to drain the last 7 cents off an MCGC I had lying around from a couple of years ago.

I don’t plan to abuse it (much), but the occasional .99 CC small balance fee waiver will be good. (USAA)