The best U.S. Bank credit cards

Featured cards

All 9 cards in this ranking, with what each one is actually best at. Tap any card to jump to its row.

1. 1 U.S. Bank Altitude Connect Visa Signature Card — Best overall for U.S. Bank cardholders: 4x on travel, no annual fee — 4.0¢ back per dollar
2. 2 U.S. Bank Altitude Go Visa Signature Card — 4x on dining, no annual fee — 4.0¢ back per dollar
3. 3 U.S. Bank Business Altitude Connect Visa Signature Card — Best for business spending: 4x on travel, $95 a year — 4.0¢ back per dollar
4. 4 U.S. Bank Triple Cash Rewards Visa Business Card — Best for straight cash back: 3% on gas, no annual fee — 3.0¢ back per dollar
5. 5 U.S. Bank Smartly Visa Signature Card — 2% on everything else, no annual fee — 2.0¢ back per dollar
6. 6 U.S. Bank Business Altitude Power Visa Signature Card — 2x on everything else, $195 a year — 2.0¢ back per dollar
7. 7 U.S. Bank Cash+ Visa Signature Card — 1% on everything else, no annual fee — 1.0¢ back per dollar
8. 8 U.S. Bank Business Leverage Visa Signature Card — 1x on everything else, $95 a year — 1.0¢ back per dollar
9. 9 U.S. Bank Shield Visa Card — 0% on everything else, no annual fee — 0.0¢ back per dollar

The ranking

How we rank

One arithmetic rule, applied by code to our maintained card database. There is no editorial pick, no hand-ordering and no sponsored slot.

• Printed earn rate. Each card's strongest printed earn rate — the highest flat rate it actually publishes, base rate included — taken from our maintained database. That is what places a card here, so a card leads on the category it is genuinely built for.
• Conservative point value. That rate is multiplied by our conservative mid-range value for the currency it pays, which is why a hotel card printing a large multiplier can finish below a plain cash-back card. Every point value we use, published →
• Annual fee. Printed against every card and used to break ties. The best fee-free card in this pool is U.S. Bank Altitude Connect Visa Signature Card at 4.0¢ per dollar. We never net the fee out of the rate for you — whether it is worth paying depends on how much you spend.
• Caps and limits. Where a card's headline rate stops after a spending cap, that cap is on the card's own page and in the relevant category guide. This ranking uses the printed rate, so a heavily capped bonus should be checked against the cap before you act on it.
• Pool and cutoff. 221 open US cards are in our database; 12 of them are U.S. Bank cards and qualify. The page publishes the top 9 by real value — the cutoff is #24, so 3 qualifying cards did not make it and can be found on the full card list.
• Rotating and pick-your-own categories. Kept out of the headline ranking, because they only pay in the right quarter or with the right election. Issuer-travel-portal-only rates are excluded for the same reason: they pay only if you book through the portal.
• Commission. The ranking code has no access to which cards pay us a commission — the ordering function never reads the affiliate file. Any apply link is attached after the order is already fixed, so it cannot move a card up or down. How that works.

Full methodology, including how each point value is set: how we value points and rank cards →

The honest caveat

The best U.S. Bank card for you depends on where you actually spend — a card's top rate only counts if your money lands in that category, caps bite, and premium cards carry annual fees a lighter spender won't earn out. The optimizer settles it by re-scoring your real charges against every card here.

Common questions

More guides

Every guide on this site is built by the same code from the same card database, so the numbers on one page mean exactly what they mean on another. Jump sideways:

All 70 best-card guides → · Best card for a specific store or bill →