How To Pay Your Mortgage or Rent With a Credit Card [2026]

Key Takeaways

• Paying your mortgage or rent with a credit card can help earn rewards or meet minimum spending requirements, but it can involve fees that could outweigh the benefits.
• Bilt allows renters to pay rent with a credit card, with no transaction fees, while earning rewards points that can be transferred to travel partners such as United Airlines, Spirit, and Hyatt.
• Services like Plastiq allow you to pay bills with a credit card, charging a fee that can be justified by taking advantage of promotions.

If you’re a credit card rewards enthusiast, you may have heard it’s possible to pay for your mortgage or rent with a credit card to earn more points. But if you’ve done any significant amount of research into the idea, you might realize that it’s easier said than done.

With the large fees, card restrictions, and bonus structures, the amount of information can become overwhelming very quickly. This guide goes through the key pros and cons that you need to know to pay your mortgage or rent with a credit card.

First, you should about the factors to consider when paying a mortgage or rent with a credit card. Then you can go through how to determine whether it makes sense for your specific situation. Lastly, you’ll learn pay your mortgage or rent with a credit card, including the fees involved with the various options.

Key Considerations

What do you need to consider when you’re figuring out whether or not you should pay your mortgage or rent with a credit card? Here are the 3 biggest factors you need to think about.

Rewards vs. Fees

If you’re paying your mortgage or rent with a credit card, you’re probably looking to accumulate points. After all, if you just pay your mortgage or rent from your bank account every month, that’s thousands of dollars you could be using to amass points. But there’s a caveat.

If you’re paying for a mortgage or rent with a credit card, you’ll almost always be charged a fee as a percentage of the payment amount. For example, if you pay rent online on your apartment complex’s portal, you might see an option to pay by credit card with an additional 3.5% fee.

That means that for every $1,000 you pay in rent, you’d have to pay $35 in fees. Are the points you’re earning from that transaction worth more than the fee you’re paying to earn them?

Mortgage Interest vs. Credit Card Interest

If you’re thinking about paying your mortgage using a credit card, you need to avoid paying interest on your balances. Mortgage interest rates are a tiny fraction of credit card interest rates.

For example, your credit card might have an interest rate of 20%, while your mortgage loan would likely be significantly lower. If you make a mortgage payment on a credit card and end up carrying a balance on your credit card, there are 2 bad outcomes here.

First, you’re spending more money in the long run because of higher interest on your credit card. Second, you may damage your credit score by carrying a balance on your credit card.

The points you’d earn from the transaction aren’t worth either of those. If you’re thinking about paying for your mortgage with a credit card, you need to make absolutely sure to pay off the balance in full every month without accruing interest or late payment fees.

Credit Scores

When you take out a mortgage loan, it shows up on your credit report. As time goes on and you make monthly payments, you’ll see your credit score increase. When you make mortgage payments with a credit card, that amount is essentially moved to a credit card.

If your credit card has a credit limit of $5,000 and you make a $1,500 mortgage payment, your credit utilization ratio — the comparison of your available credit to how much of it you’re using — will shoot up to 30% on that card. This can lower your credit score.

Keep your credit utilization in mind. If you have large credit limits across multiple credit cards and can keep your utilization ratio low, then this probably won’t be an issue.

Hot Tip:

Remember that most business credit cards aren’t reported on your personal credit report, so you can keep your credit utilization ratio lower by making mortgage payments on a business credit card if this is a professional expense.

When To Pay Your Mortgage or Rent With a Credit Card

You’ve learned about the major considerations and trade-offs you’d have to make when paying your mortgage or rent with a credit card. Now it’s time to go through scenarios in which it makes sense to do so.

One of the best ways you can skew the economics in your favor is if you’re pursuing a welcome bonus offer and need to meet a minimum spending requirement on that credit card. For example, if you have a minimum spending requirement of $15,000 over 3 months but your typical monthly nonhousing expenses are only $4,000, you might want to use a credit card to pay your mortgage or rent to meet that minimum.

Because the value of points and miles from a welcome bonus is often huge, paying a small fee on a mortgage or rent payment can make a lot of sense. Speaking in broad strokes, you should pay for a mortgage or rent with credit cards when the rewards you’d earn outweigh the cost of earning those rewards.

For example, The Blue Business^® Plus Credit Card from American Express earns 2 Amex Membership Rewards points per $1 spent on the first $50,000 in purchases per calendar year, then 1x. Earning 2x in Amex Membership Rewards points is approximately a 4.4% return on spending, based on our valuations. What does that mean for your housing payment? As long as the fees you pay are less than 4.4% and you’re under that $50,000 annual threshold, you could put your mortgage and rent payments on this card and earn more (in points value) than the fees incurred.

Consider the opposite: If your card only earns 1% cash-back and the fee for paying a mortgage or rent is 3%, you’d effectively lose 2% on these payments. That’s a bad idea.

Bottom Line:

The best way to figure out if the fee makes sense is to compare the value of the rewards you’re earning with the cost of the associated fees.

Best Payment Services To Use

If you’ve decided that paying your mortgage or rent with a credit card makes a lot of sense, what comes next? You need to compare the best service providers for these payments.

If you’re a renter, your landlord might have a payment portal that accepts credit cards and clearly lists the fees. In that case, all you’d have to do is select that option and make your payments.

Making a mortgage payment is more challenging for several reasons. For example, paying rent with a credit card is more common, while paying a mortgage with a credit card is rarer. Also, your mortgage loan might be sold off numerous times, so figuring out where to even make your payments can be cumbersome if you’re not using auto pay.

In this next section, you can learn how to pay your mortgage or rent with a credit card, starting with the best solution available.

Bilt

Bilt is the best way to pay your rent with a credit card because of its points-earning architecture and lack of transaction fees. The Bilt Rewards program also lets you earn transferable rewards points and has a solid list of transfer partners.

Bilt overhauled its credit card lineup in February 2026, now offering 3 credit cards in partnership with the fintech firm Cardless:

• Bilt Blue Card (rates & fees)
• Bilt Obsidian Card (rates & fees)
• Bilt Palladium Card (rates & fees)

All of these cards allow you to earn points on rent and mortgages without transaction fees. And that applies whether or not you live in a Bilt Rewards Alliance apartment or use a preferred mortgage provider. If your landlord or mortgage provider doesn’t accept credit card payments, Bilt sends a check on your behalf, and you still earn points as normal.

With all 3 cards, you can earn Bilt Cash (offer terms), where up to $100 of Bilt Cash earned rolls over to the next year. You can then use that to unlock your points-earning capabilities on housing payments, up to 1 point per $1 spent. Or you can earn up to 1.25x on housing payments through a second system based on how much spending you put on your credit card. That spending must come from nonhousing expenses, though.

There is also the option to use an unaffiliated credit card to pay rent through Bilt for up to $50,000 in rent per year, but this has a 3% transaction fee. Although you can use any credit card to pay via Bilt, a participating personal United co-branded credit card from Chase or an Atmos Rewards credit card, issued by Bank of America, earns elevated rewards above the 1 mile or point per $1 of spending that is common.

Eligible United credit cards, such as the United℠ Explorer Card, earn 2 miles per $1 spent when rent is paid on time via Bilt, while Atmos Rewards credit cards earn 3 points per $1 spent. Both have a 3% transaction fee.

There aren’t any limits to how many points you can earn from rent or mortgage payments, and there’s no longer a limit to how many housing payments you can make on multiple properties each month. Instead, the limit to your earnings comes from how much you’re spending, whether that’s spending for the fees on non-Bilt cards, spending to earn Bilt Cash, or spending to unlock higher points earning rates.

Made Essential Visa Signature Preferred Card

The Made card is for homeowners who want to earn rewards on their mortgage payment, including taxes, homeowners association fees, and any other escrow payments. Cardholders still pay their mortgage directly to their lender after linking the bank account they use via Plaid in the Made app; they do not use the Made card. And for every $1 they spend on nonmortgage purchases with the card, they earn 1 point per $1 toward their mortgage payment. That is on top of the earnings for the card spending.

For example, the Made card earns 3 points per $1 on gas, EV charging, groceries, and utilities, plus 2 points per $1 on home improvement, home maintenance, and furniture purchases. If you spent $500 on groceries in a month and your mortgage payment is $2,000 monthly, you would earn 1,500 points for the grocery spending at 3 points per $1 and an additional 500 points for the mortgage payment (at 1 point per $1 of card spending). You cannot earn mortgage points on more than what your mortgage is each month. In this example, if you spent $2,800 on the card in a month, you would only earn 2,000 bonus mortgage points.

There is no annual fee for the Made card, and points earned can be redeemed for a statement credit on home expenses, cash-back to your bank account, or gift cards. Benefits of the card include extended warranty protection, return, price, and purchase protection, and travel and emergency assistance.

Plastiq

Plastiq is another way to pay your mortgage or rent with a credit card.

Plastiq is the major player in enabling nontraditional payments with credit cards. Plastiq isn’t just for mortgages and rent. You can also pay utility bills, insurance, and tuition with Plastiq.

If you are making residential rent payments, you can essentially use any payment method, including Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover, Diners Club International, and JCB. However, not all payment methods are accepted for mortgage payments. Visa and Amex are out, leaving Mastercard, Discover, JCB, and Diners Club as the options.

To use Plastiq, all you have to do is create an account and provide the recipient information, payment amount, and your credit card information. Plastiq charges your credit card as a purchase instead of a cash advance and sends your payment.

For payments funded by a bank account, there’s no fee. However, payments made by credit or debit card carry a 2.99% fee. Additionally, Plastiq charges a delivery fee of $1.49 per transaction when sending a check on your behalf.

In the past, Plastiq offered several promotions for waived or reduced fees, but we haven’t seen those in a long time. However, there remains another path to decreasing your Plastiq fees: accumulating Fee-Free Dollars, also known as FFDs.

FFDs are a Plastiq currency you can send on Plastiq without incurring fees. For example, if you have $500 in Fee-Free Dollars and pay a $500 bill, you don’t have to pay any fees.

One of the easiest ways to earn FFDs is to make referrals to family, friends, and business associates.

Bottom Line:

Making mortgage and rent payments on Plastiq is easy thanks to its seamless registration process, simple forms, and intuitive website. On the surface, 2.99% may seem like a lot, but FFDs and promotions can dramatically reduce these fees, making it a no-brainer to put your mortgage and rent payments on a credit card with Plastiq.

Alternatives to Plastiq

Plastiq is not the only player in this space, but it is the most well-known. It also has some of the most reliable technology.

However, other wayt to pay rent with a credit card include PlacePay (2.99% fee for credit cards), RentTrack (2.95% fee for credit cards), RentMoola (2.99% for Visa and Mastercard, 3.99% for Amex), and Venmo (3% fee for credit cards).

The only other major method for making mortgage payments with a credit card is Melio, which is strictly for business purposes, not for any personal transactions.

However, Plastiq almost always beats out these competitors in terms of reliability and breadth of options.

Hot Tip:

Credit card payments made through Venmo are increasingly treated as cash advances, incurring hefty fees. In general, the only credit card issuer still treating Venmo transactions as purchases rather than cash advances is American Express. 

Final Thoughts

Paying for your mortgage or rent with a credit card is a simple concept but a somewhat convoluted practice.

First, you need to figure out the pros and cons of paying your mortgage or rent with a credit card. You should quantify the rewards you earn and compare them to the costs of earning them. Then you should think about whether or not you’d be able to pay off all balances in full to avoid credit card interest. Lastly, you should consider the potential increase in credit utilization ratio and the decrease in your credit score (if applicable).

Once you’ve done that, you should seek out the best card for these purposes. Ideally, you’d always putting these transactions on a card with a welcome bonus offer you’re working on. If you earn a welcome offer bonus in the process, you’ll usually come out ahead.

Our favorite payment provider for mortgages and rent when using Discover or Mastercard is Plastiq. The standard ACH fee is around 2.99%, though you can reduce it with Fee-Free Dollars and promotions. It has competitors, but you seldom see pricing or platform design as good as Plastiq’s.

If you use Venmo, keep in mind that Amex is the only issuer that still treats Venmo payments as purchases rather than cash advances.