Is the Home Depot Credit Card Worth It? Editor’s Review for 2024 (2024)

Editor’s Rating

Pros

• No membership fees
• Qualify with fair credit

Cons

• No rewards
• High regular APR
• Deferred interest

Is the Home Depot® Credit Card Worth It?

The Home Depot® Credit Card is worth it for people who want to finance big-ticket projects from Home Depot while building credit, all with a $0 annual fee. Instead of offering ongoing rewards like most store cards, the Home Depot Credit Card gives an intro APR of 0% for 6 months on eligible purchases.

That might seem appealing, but there’s some important fine print. The introductory APR offer includes a deferred interest clause, which means interest will retroactively apply to your full purchase amount at the card’s 29.99% regular APR if you don’t pay off your purchase on schedule. Leaving even $1 unpaid by the end of the intro period can result in a lot of unexpected interest charges.

What You Need to Do to Make the Home Depot® Credit Card Worthwhile

To make the Home Depot® Credit Card worthwhile, you should pay off any purchases you finance using the introductory APR by the time the promotional period ends. That will prevent you from owing interest back to the day that you made them. You should also pay any non-financed purchases in full each month, as accruing interest at the 29.99% APR is expensive.

You also may want to consider other credit cards – a solid rewards card or a regular credit card with a longer 0% introductory APR could be a better choice.

Home Depot Credit Card Review Highlights

1. $0 Annual Fee

   The best part of the Home Depot® Credit Card is something that it lacks: an annual fee. It’s not uncommon for a store-affiliated credit card not to charge an annual fee, even if it will approve applicants who have limited credit, but it’s definitely a plus nonetheless.

2. 1-Year Hassle-Free Returns

   The Home Depot® Credit Card gives you a full 365 days to return an item for a full refund. That’s pretty sweet.

3. Credit-Building Capabilities

   Approvability is a major hurdle that anyone with limited credit must climb over. Placing a refundable deposit on a secured credit card is always an option, but cards that will approve relatively unproven consumers at no cost are even better. The Home Depot® Credit Card is one such option, and if you simply keep it open and in good standing, you don’t even need to make purchases to improve your standing. It could therefore serve as a bridge to better credit and a better card, which has to be considered a benefit.

4. First-Purchase Discount

   New cardholders can get $25 - $100 of their first purchase with the Home Depot Credit Card, depending on the amount spent.

Home Depot Credit Card Lowlights

1. You Won’t Be Rewarded

   With all of its big-ticket items, Home Depot is a place where you can rack up some serious credit-card rewards. You’ll have to use unaffiliated plastic for that, however, because the Home Depot® Credit Card does not offer rewards: no initial bonus, no per-dollar earning rate, nothing.

2. Regular APR Won’t Do You Any Favors

   If you’re approved for the Home Depot® Credit Card, you will be assigned a regular APR between 29.99%. The rate you’ll get is a function of creditworthiness, with the lowest rate likely being limited to people with excellent credit and the highest rate being reserved for those with limited credit. For context, the average APR for all new credit-card offers is 22.89%, the average for fair credit is 26.41% and the average for store credit cards is 30.16%, according to WalletHub’s latest Credit Card Landscape Report.

3. Deferred-Interest Financing Poses Risks

   Home Depot periodically offers 0% financing “deals” of varying lengths, often with a specific spending threshold attached. For example, the Home Depot® Credit Card’s base financing offer is 0% interest for six months on purchases of at least $299. Longer financing offers also are available from time to time.

   However, there is a very important caveat to this deal. It’s known as deferred interest, which means interest will retroactively apply to the entire amount of the purchase that you financed if you slip up in the slightest. If you pay your bill a day late or you’re a dollar short on paying off your full balance by the end of the promotional period, it will be as if the 0% deal never existed. That has to be worrisome when you consider the lofty regular APR levied by this card. At the very least, it makes using a credit card calculator imperative if you use the Home Depot Card for financing purposes.

Other Things to Consider About the Home Depot® Credit Card

1. Decent Reviews

   The Home Depot® Credit Card’s terms aren’t too complex, as it doesn’t bring too much to the table. A thorough review of this offer must therefore extend beyond the limited features it provides to include metrics such as customer ratings, which figure to be revealing when it comes to customer service and the overall cardholder experience.

   The Home Depot® Credit Card has an average rating of 3.5 out of 5 stars on WalletHub, with 50% of people giving four stars and only 15% giving two or fewer. You can read their reviews in detail for more context, but these ratings seem to indicate general satisfaction.

2. Your Credit Score

   Your credit score should ultimately be a big determinant of whether it makes sense to apply for this card. After all, you can likely do a lot better in terms of either rewards or financing with a different card if you have good or excellent credit. If you have limited or fair credit, it’s more of a discussion.

   You can see exactly where you stand by checking your credit score for free on WalletHub – the only site that offers free daily updates.

Home Depot Credit Card vs. The Competition

Home Depot® Credit Card Review Methodology

This Home Depot® Credit Card review is based on WalletHub’s proprietary 100-point credit card rating system. By using a consistent methodology to evaluate the Home Depot® Credit Card and all other cards, WalletHub’s credit card experts make it easy for people to compare their options and find the best credit cards for their needs.

The WalletHub rating system uses 16 key metrics grouped into seven categories: Fees, Rewards, Two-year Cost, Interest Rates, Approval Requirements, Special Features, and Reviews. Each metric has a maximum number of points allocated to it, based on the metric’s importance as determined by our editors. The points are added up to create an overall rating for the Home Depot® Credit Card out of a maximum of 100 points, which is then converted to a 5-point scale.

Ratings for each category reflect how close Home Depot® Credit Card is to WalletHub’s definition of a 5-star credit card, which is based on market conditions and what we believe are reasonable terms. We compare Home Depot® Credit Card to that standard to give a numerical approximation of how reasonable and competitive its terms are compared to other cards.

To learn more about how WalletHub rates credit card offers, check out our full credit card review methodology.

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Important Disclosures