Best Credit Cards for Rent Payment in India

How to read this ranking

Short answer: none of these cards pays you to put rent on it. Four cards in our data earn anything on rent, and all four also charge a fee for it, so every one of them nets zero or less. By reward alone Standard Chartered Ultimate is far ahead: 3 points per ₹150 on rent at ₹1 a point is 2%, or ₹9,600 a year on ₹40,000 a month. The others pay Standard Chartered EaseMyTrip 2 points per ₹100 (0.5% at ₹0.25, ₹2,400 a year), IndusInd Legend 0.7 points per ₹100 (0.35% at ₹0.50, ₹1,680) and IndusInd EazyDiner 0.7 points at ₹0.20 a point (0.14%, ₹672). Most other cards in our data, such as Axis ACE and SBI Cashback, pay nothing on rent, and nearly every issuer charges a 1% fee on rent payments, in the minimums and exceptions tabulated in our guide to these fees.

The ranking subtracts the card-side rent fee, which our data records as 1% plus 18% GST (₹5,664 a year on ₹40,000 a month) for all four cards: Standard Chartered's Smart-card MITC lists a 1% rental processing fee, and IndusInd's premium-card MITC charges 1% plus GST on third-party rent payments and exempts only a list of top-tier cards that does not include Legend or EazyDiner. Ultimate's ₹9,600 less ₹5,664 leaves ₹3,936, which its ₹5,000 annual fee (no waiver; ₹4,000 of it allocated to rent by share of spend) turns into about −₹64, so it leads only because the others lose more: EaseMyTrip about −₹3,300, Legend about −₹4,000 and EazyDiner about −₹5,000. Rent-payment apps usually charge their own fee on top of this, so check the platform's fee and the card's current terms before routing rent through a card. See our guide on paying rent with a credit card.

Figures come from the issuers' own terms as recorded on each card page (sources and check dates are listed there). Estimates, not offers.