Citi 5 Day Rule

Understanding the Citi 5 Day Rule rule:

There have been reports of people being automatically declined for a Citi card if you’ve applied for a card from any bank in the last 5 days. This seems to be tied to having a hard pull done on your credit. If you’ve applied for a credit card in the last 5 days, regardless of bank (it doesn’t have to be Citi), you may be auto declined.

If this happens, you may also be declined for 60 more days as Citi may just use the same credit pull. After 5 days have passed, you can call for reconsideration to explain, and there have been reports of the customer service representative rerunning the application and being approved. You may have to call multiple times and speak to different reps to make this happen.

Important to know:

Citi also has a 1/8 rule that says you will not be approved if you apply for two CITI cards within 8 days. This is different because it only applies to cards from Citibank. The 5 day rule applies to cards from ANY bank.

About Approval Rules

Collecting credit card points is largely driven by understanding and abiding by bank rules regarding approval (or disapproval) of cards.  So here’s what you need to know:

• Approval rules are rarely fully publicized by the banks
• We use our own research and data points from other users in creating the rules listing
• Our goal in sharing/using the rule listings is to provide you guidance to avoid getting declined
• There can sometimes be exceptions to the rules, but we try to take a more cautious approach in advising you.