How To Send Money To Yourself Credit Card

Josh has been writing content online for over 5 years and has millions of views. He creates content on tech, fitness, money, and family.

Discover how to avoid fees and interest while transferring money from your credit card to your bank account.

How to Transfer Money Into a Bank Account From a Credit Card

We have all had an emergency when we needed money fast, whether to pay for bills that have come due or to purchase things our family needs.

In some situations, you can't use credit cards as a form of payment. Some of these situations include:

Mortgages
Car loans
Other credit cards (without an approved balance transfer)
Do-Si-Dos from the local Girl Scout troop

I know budgeting experts will tell you not to use credit to pay for credit, but there are some situations where it will save you money.

So how can you use your credit card to deposit money into your bank account?

Pay Yourself With Your Credit Card to Transfer Money to Your Checking Account

To transfer money from your credit card into your checking account and avoid large interest rates and fees, you just need to pay yourself using a Square Account.

Square is a service that gives people or businesses the ability to accept credit or debit card payments using their smart device. Signing up for a Square account is fast. And when the sign-up process is done, you will get a free card reader for your iOS or Android device in the mail, which is convenient, although you can accept a limited number of transactions a day by typing them in manually. You can also purchase a card reader at many popular retailers like Target.

By paying yourself through Square, instead of taking out a cash advance or paying for a wire transfer, you can save a lot of money.

Disclaimer: Why You May Not Want to Use My Method

My money hack violates Square's terms of service. Your Square account could be suspended and the payments canceled. It also may violate terms of use for the credit card you are using.

Please read the Square Terms of Service before attempting this money hack.

It's possible that you may still be able to use my method by and be in line with Square's terms of service by providing an approved good or service and using Square to accept the payment from yourself. However, you should still read the terms of service to be sure.

What You Will Need

You will need the following to transfer money from your credit card to your bank account using my Square transfer money hack:

A smart device (iOS or Android) with an Internet connection
A Square account
A bank account (duh, right?)
An active credit card with available credit
Ability to wait up to the next business day for the cash (though it may actually deposit on the same day)
Optional: a Square reader if you can wait more than a day for the cash to deposit

Step-by-Step Explanation

Before attempting to transfer money from your credit card to your bank account, you should first read the "What you will need . . ." section above.

Why Using Square Is Probably to Your Financial Advantage

Using this Square hack will most likely be financially better for you than other options. With your Square account, you will only be charged a one-time fee of 2.75% for the purchase. Unlike with a cash advance, you will avoid paying an increased interest rate, and you will still have your grace period to pay the credit off before it gains any interest.

Tip: Only use this money hack if you have to. Do the math and see if it is financially better for you than other choices you have.

How to Calculate How Much Money to Charge Yourself

As mentioned, Square is going to charge 2.75% out of the total sent from the payee (which is you in this case). You will need to adjust the amount you send to account for the 2.75% that will be taken out. So if I needed $40 I would take 40 and divide it by .9725 to find the amount I need to charge myself.

40 / .9725 = 41.1311 (or, rounded up, $41.14).

Thus, I would add $1.14 to the original amount needed of $40.

I would need to pay myself $41.14 through Square to receive the $40 I need.

I hope this helps you—good luck!

Background: How and Why I Found this Hack

For those who are curious, here's how I stumbled on this money hack: I had just finished paying most of my family's monthly bills, and the next day I noticed an unexpected doctor's bill that had automatically drafted earlier than normal.

Since I was a new stay-at-home dad, we were on a pretty tight budget. That surprise bill was going to incur fees that we didn't have the money to pay. At the same time, we had to pay our mortgage the next day, and the fees would leave us almost 40 dollars short.

I had to get money into my checking account, but the banks were closed. I thought of using a wire transfer, since it is the fastest one. A wire transfer would be deposited the same or the next business day, but it had a fee of $25. The whole point was to avoid the overdraft fee of $35, so I didn't think the wire transfer was worth it.

I had a ton of money in my PayPal account, but it takes 3–4 business days to withdraw funds from PayPal.

I could also have used a cash advance offered by my credit card. With the cash advance, however, I would have had to pay a fee of 4% of the total amount advanced, plus I would instantly start incurring an increased percentage rate on the money that had been advanced. It didn't make sense to me.

That's when I started to think outside the box for other options, and this is what I came up with. Remember to read Square's terms of service before trying it out, and good luck!

This article is accurate and true to the best of the author's knowledge. Content is for informational or entertainment purposes only and does not substitute for personal counsel or professional advice in business, financial, legal, or technical matters.

Coraline Peters on May 24, 2019:

I tried using square and Walmart's flagged it as a cash advance.

JR on April 13, 2019:

Why just not use paypal?

Travel Chef from Manila on October 20, 2018:

This can be an effective method in case of emergency. However, relying on this method 100% may only result in a mismanagement of one's financial status. It's better to discipline oneself when acquiring or buying stuff. What I mean by that is to buy only according to one's means.

Nena ported on September 29, 2018:

usually MBNA credit card has always a promo of low interest on balance transfer. You can transfer the fund to any financial institution including your own bank account. I used MBNA to this purpose.

Rene on September 28, 2018:

used PayPal, pay a family member with ur credit card n then send the money to your bank accout from their PayPal account, as send money to a friend or fam

Russ on July 05, 2018:

Tried square with a family member and my transaction was flagged and I was forced to do a refund.

GRACIOUS on June 04, 2018:

How do I create a square account?

Arthur on September 01, 2017:

To simplify, Credit Card into Cash is the company that uses a third party company. They have a dot com site. You just use their site as if you are ordering your cash. You save money by not having to open an LLC or corporation and paying unnecessary fees to keep that corporation open. And I was correct on their dropping of processing fees.

If you are receiving your cash via a Chase account, you get charged a lesser fee than whats posted on their site. I hope this helps.

Rob on August 30, 2017:

Arthur...what process do you use and what third party company?

Arthur on August 29, 2017:

I use credit card into cash's method. Just use a third party company to facilitate the purchase (follows terms of use). I've received (borrowed) over $15,000.00 thus far. Process took less than ten minutes online. Got my money the next day. Sometimes the same day. It is a little expensive but it definitely is cheaper than a typical loan. And it's safer than this hack method.

Empy on August 09, 2017:

Didn't work anymore

BusinessOwner on April 02, 2017:

This technique is not necessarily grounds for your account to get banned. The problem lies in the structure of the individual's account. For example, I've done this method more than once with amounts higher than $5000. The only difference is that I have a LLC with it's own Tax ID #, address, name,etc... For those of you who don't know what LLC is, it's pretty much a corporation, and all corporations,LLC, LLP,etc are considered their OWN entity. So in my scenario, I'm not doing anything wrong because the LLC is a business (not an individual) separate from myself (my personal name and credit card). There's nothing stating that I as an individual cannot buy something from my business.

That is why an individual may get their account banned. If YOU (meaning your name,SSN,credit card,etc) are "buying" something from yourself (you better be a legitimate business) or yes, you can be violating some terms. The Square account is associated with your SSN (if you sign up as a person), while signing up as a business will be with a separate Tax ID

Jon on March 23, 2017:

Does not work.

Square requires a DEBIT card, and will not accept a credit card.

kkins on March 06, 2017:

My experience is positive so far. I followed these steps to create an account during this weekend. I then paid myself nearly $3000 with my Sears (Citi) credit card in a single transaction by manual input. I received an email Sunday night from Square stating the funds have been deposited to my bank account minus fees ($100 and some change). Bank account doesn't show anything yet...but it is only 12am Monday.

Now I'm wondering about the $100.xx charge and if I could get that back if I processed a refund for this transaction. I mean, I only need this money temporarily since my money is tied up elsewhere...hmm.

Josh Woods (author) from United States on February 08, 2017:

This is a risky trick, can you please give more detail to your situation. How much money did you attempt to transfer? Who's card, Square account, and bank account did you use? What type of card did you use? What information did Square or your bank provide?

Josh Woods (author) from United States on February 08, 2017:

I personally would not use someone else's bank account to transfer credit funds into through square. There is always the risk that Square or the Bank will catch on to the transaction and freeze an account. Usually, Square just sends a warning or shuts the Square account down. If you didn't see an email from Square, check your junk mail and if it's not there then just ensure that you can log into your Square account using the credentials you created during the registration process. You should be able to manually enter a customer's card information as many times a day as you need, but for manually entered transactions, Square's fee is 3.5% + 15¢ per transaction. Also, manually entering the card info sometimes makes the transaction take longer to process in my experience. What amount is too much to take from each card? Well, it's not just about the card? Square monitors transaction thoroughly and will be looking for anything odd. All of the transfers I have made have been under $100 and using my own card and bank accounts. I have had no trouble with Square. If you read some of the comments for this post, many will say they had issues using more money and some don't give enough detail to help us determine which amounts are being flagged. If your friend with the bank account approves of you using his bank account, I would go ahead and get him to sign up for Square. That way the bank account/Square account and the card being processed are registered to two different people. Your other option is to start providing a legit service or product to accept payments with Square. I hope this helps.

Preston on November 30, 2016:

After reading through all these comments, I'm thinking the best action to being able to do these types of transactions is to have an LLC linked into Square and your personal info to not appear anywhere on Square itself, then link Square to your LLC banking account. If you do all that then you shouldn't have any issues. That way everything is considered a business transaction from you to the business and not from you to yourself. That way you can do the large dollar transactions without any problems.

lauraj7338 on November 29, 2016:

I would NOT use this method! I almost got my credit card and Square account shut down doing this. It may have worked a couple years ago but banks and Square are wise to it.

James on November 10, 2016:

Which other service is better than square ?

James on November 10, 2016:

I just created a square account now and I was told to link an account but I don't have any for now,can I use my friend's account to receive payment? And also after opening an account, I have not receive any emails from them showing a welcome mail or anything to show I just registered. The 3rd questions is, can't I use card manually 4times or more daily depending on purchase and what amount will too much to take from each cards?