Can You Get a Credit Card With Just a Passport and an I-20?
Not at any major national bank — Chase, Amex, Capital One, Discover, Citi, and Wells Fargo all require an SSN or ITIN, with no passport-and-visa-only route. The confirmed no-SSN document pathways are all with smaller players: Firstcard, Zolve, Stanford FCU, and Nomad's banking partners, and even most of those confirm Form I-20 for F-1 students without separately confirming Form DS-2019 for J-1 exchange visitors.
Last updated 2026-07-22A card that used to work here doesn't anymore
One issuer originally in this research, Deserve's EDU Mastercard, was a well-known no-SSN option for years — it's now discontinued and not accepting new applications. That correction only came from checking its current status directly instead of trusting older marketing copy still indexed online. Treat every row below the same way: a confirmed pathway today, not a permanent one.
See the full matrix →I-20 and DS-2019 are not interchangeable
F-1 students use Form I-20. J-1 exchange visitors ordinarily use Form DS-2019 instead. An issuer's marketing page naming 'I-20 accepted' is answering the F-1 question, not the J-1 one — several of the strongest no-SSN pathways in this space confirm I-20 clearly but never mention DS-2019 at all. If you're on a J-1 visa, that gap matters: contact the issuer directly and ask about your specific document before applying, rather than assuming a J-1 fits wherever an F-1 does.
"No credit check" doesn't mean "no SSN"
Two products in this space market themselves around not checking your credit, and both still require identity documents most international students on a fresh visa won't have. OpenSky's secured card skips the credit pull but its own terms list an invalid SSN as grounds for rejection. Current's Build Card doesn't check credit history either, but opening the underlying Current account requires a U.S. Social Security number. Neither of these is dishonest marketing exactly — 'no credit check' is a true, separate claim from 'no SSN required' — but the two get conflated constantly in card-comparison content, and it's an easy way to waste an application.
Where the real no-SSN document routes are
The issuers that actually let a passport, visa, and school document substitute for an SSN are smaller and less mainstream than the big-bank names people usually search for first: Firstcard (passport, U.S. visa, or ITIN), Zolve (passport, visa, and I-20, confirmed for F-1), Stanford FCU (passport, for eligible Stanford students specifically), and Nomad Credit's banking partner (passport, I-20, and student visa, though this comes from Nomad's own reporting rather than the issuing bank's own page).
Step-by-step
Firstcard and Zolve are the two most clearly confirmed no-SSN document routes for this exact situation. Check the matrix for the specific documents each currently accepts before applying.
Don't assume an issuer's I-20 confirmation extends to you. Contact the issuer directly and ask specifically about DS-2019 before applying — none of the pathways in this matrix independently confirm it.
Skip the specialty no-SSN cards entirely — Chase, Capital One, Discover, Citi, and Wells Fargo all publicly accept an ITIN, and a mainstream card usually comes with better terms and wider acceptance than a fintech-only option.
Verify that directly before applying — OpenSky and Current both skip the credit pull but still require a valid SSN somewhere in the process, which defeats the purpose if you don't have one yet.
Every document requirement and debunk above is sourced to an issuer's own application or FAQ page, or clearly labeled as secondary reporting where the issuer itself couldn't be reached — including one live correction (Deserve) that overturned outdated research.
International Student Document Acceptance Matrix →Frequently asked questions
Will applying to the wrong card hurt my credit before I even have a U.S. file?
It can. A hard inquiry from a rejected application still shows up once you do have a credit file, and some issuers won't tell you in advance whether your specific documents will be accepted. Checking the matrix and, where uncertain, contacting the issuer directly before applying is worth the extra step.
Should I wait until I have an SSN to apply for any card?
Not necessarily — several confirmed no-SSN pathways exist and can start your U.S. credit history months earlier than waiting would. But match the specific document you have (I-20 vs. DS-2019, for instance) against what's actually confirmed for that issuer first.