In Brief: Time-Related Rules Imposed by American Express, Chase, and Citi

Most issuers have soft-ish guidelines limiting how many cards you can get from them in a period of time, or what on your credit report might disqualify you. This is why you might see an issuer referred to as “inquiry sensitive”. Three issuers, though—American Express, Chase, and Citi—have some pretty hard rules in place. This is a brief survey of time-related limits that they impose, across some broad categories that match up between issuers. It is intended as a supplementary, “quick-look” table to our “things everybody should know” series, which you can find for each issuer here:

• Things Everybody Should Know About American Express
• Things Everybody Should Know About Chase Credit Cards
• Things Everybody Should Know About Citi Credit Cards

Please direct questions or comments not about this specific table to each issuer’s “things everybody should know” page, so that information can be kept in one place.

Comparison Table

	American Express	Chase	Citi
Credit Report Limitations…	No restriction.	Certain cards cannot be obtained if you have 5 or more new accounts in the past 24 months.	Often denies people for 6+ inquiries (hard pulls) in the past 6 months.
…Notes?	N/A	Reconsideration is not possible.	Freezing a bureau before applying & having Citi pull a different credit bureau can work.
Signup Bonus Limitations	Only eligible if you have never had the card.	Only eligible if you do not currently have the card & have not received bonus from card in past 24 months.	Only eligible if you have not opened or closed a card in the same product family in the past 24 months.
Shorter Timeframe Limitations…	1 approved credit card in a rolling 5-day window	No restriction; see “Longer Timeframe”	1 approved card in a rolling 8-day window
…Notes?	Second application is set to pending then re-evaluated once out of the 5 day window. (AmEx claims that Experian won’t let them pull twice within 5 days). Rare exceptions.	See below.	Second application is auto-denied with no hard pull. Reconsideration not possible, even outside of 8-day window.
Longer Timeframe Limitations…	2 approved credit cards in a rolling 90-day window	2 approved cards in a rolling 30-day window	2 applications in a rolling 65-day window
…Notes?	Further applications are auto-denied with no hard pull. Reconsideration is possible, once outside of the 90-day window. Rare exceptions exist.	Rarely, people manage 3. Violating this on different days will result in a hard pull.	1/8 and 2/65 denials do count. Further applications are auto-denied with no hard pull. Reconsideration not possible, even outside of 65-day window.
Number of Cards Limitations	4 or 5 credit cards. 5 may require a review by a new account senior specialist. The current theory is that having a no annual fee card may get you 5 by auto-approval.	No restriction, but once you have many Chase cards, you may be limited to 1 card in a rolling 30-day window, due to “too many requests for credit”. Reconsideration is possible.	No restriction.