When and How To Refinance a Personal Loan

If you’re consolidating debt by refinancing multiple personal loans at once, consider Best Egg. You can set up automatic payments and have your loan funds sent to up to 10 creditors. That way, you don’t have to pay them off one by one. Best Egg’s online dashboard also makes it easy to ensure your Best Egg funds made it to the right accounts.

It can take up to 15 days for your refinance loan to reach your current lender(s), although a maximum of seven days is more typical.

You’re responsible for making payments until your new loan pays off your old balances in full. Keep a close eye on your current due dates while your debt is being consolidated to avoid missing a payment and hurting your credit.

You must meet the requirements below to qualify for a Best Egg loan:

• Citizenship: Be a U.S. citizen or permanent resident living in the U.S.
• Administrative: Have a personal checking account, email address and physical address
• Residency: Not live in the District of Columbia, Iowa, Vermont, West Virginia or U.S. territories
• Credit score: 580+

When you need to refinance a big personal loan, BHG Financial may be a good fit. You can refinance up to $250,000, as long as you qualify.

Many people refinance personal loans to stretch out their loan term. BHG can help with that, too — you could have up to 120 months to pay off your refinance loan.

Although you need a credit score of at least 660 to qualify in general, you likely won’t get approved for BHG’s biggest, longest-term loans unless you have excellent credit. BHG’s average borrower has a 744 FICO Score and an annual income of $241,000.

BHG Financial also charges a steep origination fee of 3.00% - 4.00%. To put that into perspective, you’d receive $8,000 less in loan funds if you borrowed $200,000 with a 4.00% origination fee.

To get a loan from BHG Financial, you’ll need to meet the following requirements:

• Administrative: Have a Social Security number and email address
• Credit score: 660+

BHG Financial’s average borrower has a score of 744, no past bankruptcies or accounts in collections and an annual income of $241,000. Not all of BHG Financial’s loans, loan amounts, rates or terms are available in all states.

If you want a financial safety net for unexpected events like a job loss, Discover is worth considering. It offers a program designed to help borrowers if they’re having a hard time keeping up with their payments. Your account must have been active for the previous six months to qualify.

If you’re looking for a personal loan with no origination fee, Discover also fits that bill. It doesn’t charge any fees at all.

A Discover personal loan isn’t easy to qualify for, however. It requires very good credit and a moderate income. Discover also doesn’t offer joint applications, so you’ll have to qualify based on your credit alone.

You’ll need to meet these eligibility criteria to get a Discover personal loan:

• Age: Be at least 18 years old
• Citizenship: Have a Social Security number
• Administrative: Have a physical address, email address and internet access
• Income: Minimum income of $40,000 (individually or as a household)
• Credit score: 720+

LightStream is an online lender with a unique rate-matching program called Rate Beat. If another lender offers you a similar loan with a lower rate, LightStream may beat it by 0.10 percentage points. Loan shopping and refinancing go hand in hand, so keep Rate Beat in mind while comparing loan options.

You can’t prequalify for a loan with LightStream. That means it requires a hard credit check if you want to see if you’re eligible. It also won’t pay off your existing loans for you. Instead, you’ll have to send the funds to your old personal loan company (or companies) yourself.

LightStream doesn’t specify its exact credit score requirements, but you must have good to excellent credit to qualify. Most of the applicants that LightStream approves have the following in common:

• At least five years of on-time payment history on a variety of accounts (credit cards, auto loans, mortgages and other types of debt)
• Stable income and the ability to afford current debt obligations
• Savings, whether in a bank account, investment account or retirement account

Every SoFi personal loan comes with a free, 30-minute financial advising session with a financial planner. If you want unlimited access to free financial planning, you can opt for a SoFi Plus membership for $10 a month.

However, SoFi will only make sense if you have a larger loan to refinance — you can’t borrow less than $5,000. Also, SoFi’s lowest rates require an origination fee. Compare loan offers with and without fees to see which option is the best choice for you.

You must meet the requirements below to get a loan from SoFi:

• Age: Be the age of majority in your state (typically 18)
• Citizenship: Be a U.S. citizen, an eligible permanent resident or a non-permanent resident (a DACA recipient or asylum-seeker, for instance)
• Employment: Have a job or job offer with a start date within 90 days, or have regular income from another source
• Credit score: 680+

It can be easy to fall into the payday loan trap when you have bad credit. If you have at least $1,000 to refinance, Upstart could be the way out of a triple-digit interest rate.

Upstart has one of the lowest minimum credit score requirements on the market. If you’re a college student about to graduate or you have at least an associate’s degree — and you have a job, job offer or proof of income — Upstart could waive its credit score requirement altogether.

Upstart does charge an origination fee. Generally, the lower your credit score, the more likely it is that this fee will apply — and the higher the fee will be. Upstart could charge a fee of 0.00% - 12.00% of the loan amount.

Upstart has transparent eligibility requirements, including:

• Age: Be 18 or older
• Administrative: Have a U.S. address, personal banking account, email address and Social Security number
• Income: Have a valid source of income, including a job, job offer or another regular income source
• Credit-related factors: No bankruptcies within the last three years, minimal recent inquiries on your credit report and no current delinquencies
• Credit score: 300+ (unless you’re an eligible college student or graduate, in which case Upstart could approve you with no credit)