Ranking of student credit cards in Belgium

Can a student with no income get a credit card in Belgium?

Two banks answer no on their own website, and sell a free credit card on the same page. At the foot of their youth account page, read on 6 September 2026, KBC and CBC write that a student has no steady income, depends financially on their parents, and will generally be refused a credit card. Four lines above, a table advertises the Compte Plus with a free credit card. Both statements hold together because the second assumes an income, but you have to read both blocks to work that out.

Beobank takes the other route. Its Young Mastercard is granted at 18 on presentation of a current student card from a Belgian university or university college, with a current account at any bank in the country, and the bank states that parents need not be present. The application still goes through credit approval.

The legal frame does not change from one issuer to the next. Book VII of the Belgian Code of Economic Law requires the lender to check the applicant's repayment capacity and to consult the Central Individual Credit Register before granting credit. A student job under contract, a regularly paid grant or an allowance count as income. Pocket money from parents does not.

The Beobank application runs in this order. 1) Check that you are 18 and currently enrolled at a Belgian university or university college. 2) Gather your identity card and your student card for the current year. 3) Fill in the online form on the product page, or go into a branch. 4) Wait for approval before the card is issued.

This site's guide to student cards sets out the file to build bank by bank and the documents to gather. This ranking does something else: it scores seven offers on eligibility and on the real twelve-month cost, and says which one passes when the income is missing.

Sources: FPS Economy, consumer credit - Student credit cards in Belgium: which bank - Belgian credit card requirements

What does a student card really cost over twelve months?

Zero euros at four of the seven issuers, for as long as the youth package applies. Argenta, KBC, CBC and Belfius charge nothing for the credit card of a customer under 25, and nothing for the account that carries it.

The bill gets complicated as soon as you leave the advertised price. Argenta takes no monthly package fee on Green, but charges EUR 2 for every transfer and every cash withdrawal at the counter, so a student still using the branch twice a month pays EUR 48 a year more than one who does everything in the app. Belfius includes two Mastercards in the Beats New package, the third costs EUR 0.96 a month. BNP Paribas Fortis gives the Hello card free for the first year, then EUR 1.13 a month, or EUR 13.56 over twelve months.

Beobank's EUR 5 a year remains the only straightforward price in the panel. It applies from year one, it depends on no account being opened, and the bank pays EUR 5 onto the card account after the first purchase, for any application filed up to 30 November 2026 and a first purchase made within three months of the card being granted.

If I were 19, I would pay that EUR 5 rather than chase the free offers. Moving a student account to a new bank costs an afternoon of direct debits, codes and phone calls, and the youth rate ends at 24 or 25 in any case. Five euros a year buy the right to stop thinking about it.

Sources: Wikifin, official current account comparison tool - What a Belgian credit card really costs - Credit card versus debit card

The FX commission is missing from every Belgian bank youth page

None of the official pages read on 6 September 2026 at Argenta, KBC, CBC, BNP Paribas Fortis and Beobank puts a figure on the commission applied to a payment made outside the euro zone.

Belfius comes close without getting there. The Beats New page announces free withdrawals up to EUR 250 a month in local currency outside the euro zone, then refers in a footnote to possible local bank fees and possible exchange fees, with no amount and no percentage.

Beobank publishes its commission elsewhere, in a separate fee schedule and in a document dedicated to payments in other currencies. So the figure exists, it is simply not where the student looks for it, namely on the page of the product being sold to them.

Revolut is the only one in the panel to write its rate on the page that concerns it: FX free up to EUR 1,000 a month, then a 1% fair-use fee. That rate stood at 0.5% before, and the Belgian terms read on 6 September 2026 carry an effective date of 9 July 2026.

ING is not in this ranking. On 6 September 2026, neither the youth credit card page nor the youth account page on ing.be returned readable content without running scripts, exactly the obstacle met in August on the business cards. A card whose price I cannot read on an issuer source does not enter a ranking on this site.

So I could not compare that line, and it is the most awkward gap in this piece. For a student on an Erasmus term paying in a foreign currency for six months, the FX commission weighs more than the annual fee of all seven cards combined.

Sources: Beobank, payments in other currencies (PDF) - The hidden fees of a Belgian credit card

What happens on the day the youth rate ends?

The adult tariff applies, all at once, with no transition.

At Belfius the step is the steepest in the panel: the Beats New package is free until the 25th birthday, then EUR 5.50 a month, of which EUR 1.93 is the Mastercard payment service. That is EUR 66 a year where there was nothing the day before.

Argenta moves to EUR 2 a month for the card on the 25th birthday, KBC and CBC end the free Compte Plus after 24, and BNP Paribas Fortis keeps Hello4You free up to 28. That date is worth comparing before the birthday, while leaving still costs nothing.

Sources: FPS Economy, the credit agreement - Credit cards for young professionals in Belgium

What trace does a credit card leave when you sign it at 19?

An entry in the Central Individual Credit Register, within two working days of the contract being signed.

The National Bank's register records every consumer credit and every mortgage credit taken out by natural persons for private purposes, together with the payment defaults attached to them. Its legal basis rests on the Code of Economic Law and on the Royal Decree of 23 March 2017. Every lender is legally required to consult it before granting a loan, which includes the bank that will look at your mortgage file ten years later.

Retention periods decide the rest. A contract that runs normally is deleted at the latest three months and eight days after it matures. A regularised payment default stays one year from the date of regularisation, and ten years from the first default if it is never regularised.

Beobank's credit facility deserves particular attention here. Its representative example gives an annual percentage rate of 16.49% on a EUR 750 line, rates in force on 09/05/2025, and the minimum monthly repayment can drop to one eighteenth or one twentieth of the drawn reserve, with a EUR 25 floor. Paying that minimum means carrying a debt charged at 16.49% for more than a year, on an amount a student normally clears in two months if they think about it.

Any natural person can consult free of charge the data recorded in their name at the National Bank, and ask for a correction of any entry they can prove wrong. If a disagreement with the issuer persists, Ombudsfin handles banking disputes free of charge. And if repayments become difficult, an approved debt mediation service or the local public welfare centre step in well before the file moves to the negative section of the register.

Sources: National Bank of Belgium, Central Individual Credit Register guide (PDF) - Ombudsfin, financial dispute mediation - Being listed in the Central Individual Credit Register

Sources

• Beobank
• Argenta
• BNP Paribas Fortis
• CBC
• Belfius
• KBC
• Revolut

Fees read off the issuers' official pricing pages on 6 September 2026. They can change without notice: always check the issuer's page before subscribing.