Best Debit Cards for Teens of 2024 (2024)

Best Debit Cards for Teens

Best Debit Cards for Teens

Greenlight offers low fees, a free trial, an easy-to-use app, and built-in allowance and chore features, making it our choice as the best overall debit card for teens.

Greenlight is marketed towards teens to help them develop their financial education early. The company provides a MasterCard debit card for teens connected to an account that parents manage. The account is owned jointly between the parent and child and allows parents to see their child’s spending through a mobile app.

You can store money in a “parent’s wallet” that can be used to distribute funds to each child, turn off the debit card, get real-time spending alerts, and even set up spending control by store name. Greenlight also offers an app that helps teens track balances, view chore lists, check off chores they have completed, teach them financial literacy, and more.

Greenlight charges only $4.99 per month for a basic family plan that includes debit cards for up to five kids and access to a mobile app. The Greenlight Max plan costs $9.98 per month and includes a special investing app that helps teens become investors, a special edition card, priority customer service, identity theft monitoring, cell phone protection for damaged or lost phones, and purchase protection. The Greenlight Infinity plan costs $14.98 per month and includes all the perks of the Greenlight Max plan in addition to family location sharing, SOS alerts, and crash detection.

Greenlight does not allow parents to fund wallets with PayPal or credit cards, limiting them to checking accounts or debit cards instead. The company also places a $1,000 daily limit on each child’s account, which is lower than many other teen debit cards. Parents can also use the app to set up chores for their children and reward them with deposits and automate the funding of an allowance.

BusyKid offers teens an easy-to-fund and affordable prepaid debit card based on chores and rewards with investment, saving, and education features.

BusyKid offers a chores-based prepaid debit card that lets you assign money to your child so they can see where their money is going and learn how to manage it better.

Once your teen receives their money from their chores, they can decide whether to spend, save, or invest it. Investments can be made to actual companies like Netflix or Nintendo, and teens can even donate a percentage of their income to the charity of their choice. All money moving outside the system for donations, stocks, or shopping requires parental approval before it goes through.

In addition to helping you assign chores, BusyKid even suggests appropriate chores based on age. You can also send your teen “bonuses” for outstanding performances, like getting straight A’s or doing more around the house. BusyKid also provides a detailed history of all chores, paydays, transactions, and bonuses so parents can get a real-time look at their teen’s spending.

BusyKid is $4.00 per month (billed annually) and includes up to five cards. There is a $5.00 fee for any replacement cards and a $0.50 fee each time there is a transaction where there is a declined transaction. You can only keep $2,000 on a debit card, and BusyKid limits single purchases to $2,000 and a max of 20 purchases per day.

Capital One MONEY account for teens has no monthly maintenance fees, no minimum balance requirements, a free debit card, free access to over 70,000 ATMs, and even earns interest.

Capital One MONEY offers a teen account for children at least 8 years old with a free debit card, parental controls, and the ability to earn 0.10% interest. The bank’s mobile app also provides separate sign-ins for teens and parents.

Parents can use the app to access teen account activity, get real-time spending alerts, auto-fund allowances, and lock and unlock their teen’s debit card. Teens can use the app to set savings goals and monitor their balance account activity.

Capital One MONEY lets teens remote deposit any checks received and set up their paychecks to direct deposit. You also don’t need a Capital One account to get started. When your teen turns 18, however, they have the option to transition their MONEY account to one of Capital One’s standard accounts.

Chase First Banking offers a real checking account experience for teens with the added security of advanced parental controls to keep an eye on how their money is being spent.

Chase First Banking is an excellent option for teens to have their own checking account experience while still allowing parents to keep an eye on transactions. Chase offers a mobile app that allows teens to set savings goals and request money from their parents.

Parents can use the app to set ATM withdrawal limits, spending limits (including limiting specific spending categories), and account alerts for real-time notices of spending. The app also allows parents to set up a recurring allowance or one-time chores.

It is worth noting that Chase also offers a high school checking account with fewer use restrictions like the Chase First account, such as allowing peer-to-peer transfers. Unfortunately, it doesn’t come with the same level of parental control.

Chase charges no monthly maintenance fee and requires no minimum balance for this account, and teens will have access to over 16,000 Chase ATMs. The only fees that this account does charge are out-of-network ATM fees ($3.00) and foreign transaction fees (3% after conversion).

While not explicitly advertised for teens, American Express’s Serve card has a high spending limit and allows parents to control up to four sub-accounts.

American Express Serve Free Reload cards are free to purchase if done online. Parents get one main account and card and can order up to four sub-accounts for teens. While this product isn’t explicitly marketed for teens, it is an excellent way to allow teens their allowance and large transactions.

American Express Serve Free Reloads cards can be reloaded electronically free of charge and can be reloaded with cash free of charge at over 45,000 different locations. Each reload must be a minimum of $20. Teens can also remote deposit their checks without a fee, which can take up to 10 days, or pay a 1% to 5% fee if they need immediate access to the funds. American Express also offers free online bill pay and free early direct deposit.

Since this card isn’t teen-focused, there isn’t any financial literacy education included in the app or literature. However, parents can still monitor their child’s spending activity through the app. This card works well for higher-income families that want to offer their teen experience with larger amounts of money.

FamZoo focuses on teaching kids good money habits with an extensive range of financial literacy resources, budgeting and saving features, and the ability for parents to pay their children interest on their accounts.

FamZoo offers a financial education-centered app for both IOS and Android. It has chore lists, purpose-driven accounts like spending and saving, and savings goals. It also provides real-time alerts on spending, instant transfers, and the ability for parents to track spending.

One of the unique features that FamZoo offers is the ability to have family billing on the accounts. For example, parents can set up a $20 automatic monthly withdrawal from their teen’s account for the cell phone bill. This helps teens understand that shared family plans like this aren’t free and allows them to budget and make sure that they have enough in their account to pay their portion of the bill.

FamZoo also lets you set up mock stocks so your teen can practice investing without the risk. You can also set parent-paid interest on savings to help teach teens to save rather than spend.

FamZoo allows parents to order up to four cards for free, and $3 per card after that. While electronic transfers are free, there is the option of reloading cards with cash, but those fees can cost up to $5 for each reload.