Do You Always Have to Open a New Credit Card to Do a Balance Transfer?

Balance transfers can be a great way to repay credit card debt. While the average credit card interest rate was 21.19% as of August 2023 (according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis), a balance transfer card allows you to pay 0% interest on a transferred balance for a set period of time.

While you often pay around a 3% to 5% balance transfer fee to move your debt balance over, dropping your rate down can still save you a lot of money on debt payoff.

Balance transfer offers are usually available when you open a new balance transfer credit card, but what if you don't want to open a brand new card? Can you get a balance transfer offer from your existing creditors?

Sometimes your current card issuer will make a balance transfer offer

In most cases, card companies offer a 0% promotional rate on transferred balances precisely because they want you to become a new customer.

As a result, you'll usually get the best 0% balance transfer offers only if you're a new cardmember and you make the balance transfers shortly after opening your account. For example, the Wells Fargo Active Cash® Card (see rates and fees) offers a 0% APR for 15 months from account opening on qualifying balance transfers. But you are only eligible to get this rate if you do the transfer within 120 days of opening your account. The go-to 20.24%, 25.24%, or 29.99% Variable APR applies at the end of the intro period.

Now, that's not to say that you'll never get a balance transfer offer from an existing card issuer. Sometimes, your card issuer will let you transfer a balance at a lower rate than the standard interest costs it charges. You can find out if that's the case by signing into your online account and checking out any promotions, offers, and deals that are listed on your account page.

Just be aware that you'll usually be restricted from transferring an existing card balance to another card with the same issuer. So, this may not work if you're hoping to transfer the balance from the card company offering you the promotional rate.

Why would you want to get a balance transfer with your existing card?

Since you usually get a better balance transfer offer by opening up a new account, you may be wondering why anyone would ever want to use a card they already have.

There are plenty of reasons, though.

• Sometimes, you may not be eligible to qualify for a new balance transfer card. This could be an issue if you have a lot of debt, a history of missed payments, or you've opened too many other cards recently.
• Sometimes, you may not want a new credit card. It can be a hassle to research card offers and find one that works for your spending. And opening a new card means a hard inquiry on your credit report, which will stay there for two years. Since hard inquiries slightly lower your score, taking this hit may not be a good idea if you're going to be taking out a big loan soon and need your score as high as possible.

Ultimately, you'll need to consider what offer -- if any -- your current card issuer is making. If you can't qualify for a balance transfer at a low rate with the cards you already have, your only choices will be to open a new card (if you can) or not to do the transfer at all.

If it turns out you can't do the transfer, look into other techniques such as using a personal loan for debt consolidation to reduce the cost of debt payoff. Or, work on improving your financial situation and try again in a few months to qualify for the balance transfer card you were hoping for in the first place.