Credit cards on a ₹15,000–₹30,000 salary: what banks print
Every Indian credit card whose bank publishes a salary bar of ₹30,000 a month or less: the bar, the fee, what it earns, and which to pick first.
In this guide 3 sections
1 words below are dotted: tap one for its meaning in the glossary.
On a ₹25,000 monthly salary you clear the published income bar of 30 Indian credit cards, and the best first pick among them is Tata Neu Plus HDFC Bank: HDFC prints ₹25,000 a month as the bar, the fee is ₹499 a year and is waived at ₹1 lakh of spend, and it returns about 1% at our value. At ₹20,000 a month the free pick is ICICI Platinum Chip. At ₹15,000, Indian Overseas Bank’s RuPay cards are the floor. With no salary slip at all, a fixed-deposit card needs no income check.
The table below lists every card whose bank publishes a salaried income bar of ₹30,000 a month or less, lowest bar first. The bar is the bank’s own figure from its product page, eligibility block or MITC — never an aggregator’s guess. We left out any figure that only a third-party site reports.
Every card with a bar of ₹30,000 a month or less
| Card | Salary bar (net, a month) | Fee | Reward rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kotak811 Dream Different | none — secured on a fixed deposit from ₹10,000 | ₹424 once | not published |
| HDFC PIXEL Go | ₹12,000 | ₹250 a year, waived at ₹50,000 spend | 1% |
| HDFC Bank Freedom | ₹12,000 | ₹500 a year, waived at ₹50,000 | under 0.1% |
| IOB RuPay Classic | ₹15,000 | lifetime free | 0.17% |
| IOB RuPay Platinum | ₹15,000 | ₹250 a year, waived at ₹1 lakh | 0.25% |
| IOB RuPay Select | ₹15,000 | ₹500 a year, waived at ₹1 lakh | 0.25% |
| IOB VISA Platinum | ₹15,000 | ₹250 a year, waived at ₹60,000 | not published |
| IOB VISA Signature | ₹15,000 | ₹750 a year, waived at ₹1 lakh | not published |
| TMB Titanium | ₹16,667 (₹2 lakh a year, gross) | ₹250 a year | not published |
| ICICI Platinum Chip | ₹20,000 | lifetime free | 0.5% |
| Amazon Pay ICICI | ₹20,000 | lifetime free | 1% (more on Amazon) |
| MakeMyTrip ICICI Platinum | ₹20,000 | ₹500 once | 0.5% |
| HDFC MoneyBack+ | ₹20,000 | ₹500 a year, waived at ₹50,000 | 0.25% |
| Swiggy Ornge HDFC | ₹20,000 | ₹500 a year, waived at ₹1.5 lakh | 1% |
| ICICI HPCL Super Saver | ₹20,000 | ₹500 a year, waived at ₹1.5 lakh | 0.5% |
| Adani One ICICI Platinum | ₹20,000 | ₹750 a year, waived at ₹3 lakh | 1% |
| YES Bank Wellness Plus | ₹20,000 | ₹1,499 a year | 0.75% |
| PNB Kiwi | ₹20,833 (₹2.5 lakh a year, gross) | lifetime free | 0.5% |
| Tata Neu Plus HDFC | ₹25,000 | ₹499 a year, waived at ₹1 lakh | 1% |
| IRCTC HDFC | ₹25,000 | ₹500 a year, waived at ₹1.5 lakh | 1% |
| HDFC PIXEL Play | ₹25,000 | ₹500 a year, waived at ₹1 lakh | 1% |
| Paytm HDFC | ₹25,000 | ₹500 a year, waived at ₹50,000 | 1% |
| YES Bank Zagg | ₹25,000 | lifetime free | 0.75% |
| YES Bank BYOC | ₹25,000 | ₹588 a year | 1% |
| IDFC FIRST Millennia | ₹25,000 (₹3 lakh a year) | lifetime free | 0.38% |
| IDFC FIRST Classic | ₹25,000 (₹3 lakh a year) | lifetime free | 0.38% |
| IDFC FIRST HPCL Power | ₹25,000 (₹3 lakh a year) | ₹199 a year, waived at ₹50,000 | 0.33% (3.5% at HPCL pumps) |
| PhonePe HDFC Bank Uno | ₹25,000 (gross) | ₹499 a year, waived at ₹1 lakh | none outside its PhonePe categories |
| PhonePe HDFC Bank Ultimo | ₹25,000 (gross) | ₹999 a year, waived at ₹2 lakh | none outside its PhonePe categories |
| TMB Wings (RuPay) | ₹25,000 (₹3 lakh a year, with a TMB savings account a year old, 2 years of tax returns and a CIBIL score of 700) | ₹250 a year, waived at ₹50,000 | not published |
| TMB Phoenix (RuPay) | ₹25,000 (₹3 lakh a year, with a TMB current account a year old, 2 years of tax returns and a CIBIL score of 700) | ₹500 a year, waived at ₹1 lakh | not published |
| Paytm HDFC Select | ₹30,000 | ₹1,000 a year, waived at ₹1.5 lakh | 1% |
| YES Essence | ₹30,000 | ₹799 a year, waived at ₹1 lakh | 0.5% |
| HPCL ENERGIE BOBCARD | ₹30,000 (₹3.6 lakh a year; ₹3 lakh for Bank of Baroda customers) | ₹499 a year, waived at ₹50,000 | 0.33% |
PhonePe HDFC Uno and Ultimo earn points only in the merchant categories HDFC names for them; HDFC’s own FAQ says nothing outside those categories earns, so their rate on ordinary spend is zero. The reward rate is what a rupee of ordinary spend earns back at our value of the card’s points, before any category bonus — the same figure on each card page. Amazon Pay ICICI is issued only on a pre-approved offer, whatever your salary.
What the bar does and does not mean
Clearing the bar is not an approval. The income figure is the minimum the bank will consider. Your credit score, your employer and your existing debt decide the rest. A first-time applicant with no credit history is often approved on a lower limit, or asked for a deposit.
A card that is not in this table is not one you cannot get. Only 119 of the 481 personal cards that banks issue today carry a salaried income bar in our data at all, and some of those come from community reports rather than the bank. Many banks, including some of the biggest, decide case by case and print nothing. Those cards may well approve you at ₹25,000; the bank just has not said so in writing.
No salary? Use a deposit. A fixed-deposit card ties your limit to a deposit you open with the bank, so there is no income check at all. Kotak811 Dream Different starts at a ₹10,000 deposit. The novio cards from IOB and DCB are lifetime free and include airport lounge visits at a ₹25,000 deposit — see lifetime-free cards with lounge access.
Which one to pick first
- You spend on one app. Pick the card built for it: Swiggy Ornge HDFC for food delivery, Amazon Pay ICICI if you have been offered it, Tata Neu Plus for Tata’s apps. The Amazon and Flipkart board ranks the shopping cards.
- You want no fee, ever. ICICI Platinum Chip at ₹20,000, PNB Kiwi at ₹2.5 lakh a year, or YES Bank Zagg at ₹25,000, which also gives 2 domestic lounge visits a quarter once you spend ₹50,000 in a quarter. The lifetime-free board ranks every free card by what it pays back.
- You are self-employed. Banks judge you on your tax return instead; see credit cards for the self-employed.
- You want your first travel card. None of the cards above earns airline miles at a rate worth using. Build a year of clean history on one of them, then move up. The first travel card board is where to look next.
Method: the salary bar is the incomeSalaried line of our MITC table for each card, the bank’s own figure from its product page, eligibility block or MITC. Rows marked as community-reported, or quoting an aggregator’s or a partner site’s figure, were left out. An annual figure is shown as its monthly equivalent. Cards counted are personal (not business) cards still issued on the day this page was built. Reward rates and fees come from each card’s own record and match its card page.
Related guides
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Credit cards for the self-employed in India: the published income bars
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Every Indian credit card whose bank publishes an income bar for the self-employed: the yearly ITR figure, the fee, and the cards that need no income proof.
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Credit card forex markup in India, bank by bank
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What every Indian bank charges on a foreign-currency swipe: the standard rate, the cards that pay less, and the IDFC zero-markup catch, read off each MITC.
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Lifetime-free credit cards with lounge access in India
Long read
Which lifetime-free Indian cards give free lounge visits, and the ₹20,000–₹75,000 of spend most ask first. Every card, its visits and its condition.
Sources
Every figure in the boxes and tables above is read from our own data on each build . The writing was last checked against it on ; where the two disagree, the data wins. Report an error