Upstart Personal Loans Review, July 2025

Who are Upstart personal loans best for?

Best fast loans for most credit types

Upstart is one of the fastest lenders to send money of all Credible partners — getting funds to approved borrowers in two days, on average. Plus, it's suitable for different credit profiles. If you have excellent credit, you could qualify for Upstart's lowest rates, which are very competitive. But if you don't, you may be more likely to qualify for a loan with Upstart relative to other lenders. 

Upstart’s AI allows a more personalized and accurate approach to lending by adding more factors to the application algorithm, such as education. These extra factors might better predict who is creditworthy. Additionally, the use of AI can greatly speed up the application process.

The result is that more borrowers can be approved for a personal loan from an Upstart partner bank or credit union, and loans can be funded as soon as the day after applying.

Pros and cons

Pros

• A variety of loan amounts: Loans between $1,000 and $50,000 are available — with the exception of Georgia, Hawaii and Massachusetts, which have higher minimums. The highest amount you can borrow depends on what you qualify for based on your application.
• Easier qualification: You might qualify for a loan through Upstart even with poor credit. The application process considers extra factors such as education and work experience.
• Fast turnaround time: If you accept a loan offered to you before 5 p.m. EST Monday through Friday, your loan will be funded the next business day. If you accept a loan after that time, you’ll get funds the following business day.
• Highly rated: Upstart has a 4.9-star customer service rating (out of 5) from Trustpilot and an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau (BBB).

Cons

• High interest rates: Your annual percentage rate (APR) could be as high as 35.99%.
• Fees: Upstart charges an origination fee between 0% and 12% of the loan amount, a late payment fee of 5% of the past due amount or $15, a bank or check return fee of $15, and $10 for paper copies.
• No cosigners: Upstart doesn’t allow cosigners on personal loans. Also, spousal income isn’t considered.
• Mixed customer reviews: Upstart has a 1.23-star rating from customer reviews on the BBB website, but customer reviews give it 4.9 out of 5 stars on Trustpilot.

Upstart average interest rates

Upstart has a relatively low minimum income requirement, which may be why its average rates tend to be higher than the average rates across all Credible partner lenders.

Upstart average loan amounts

People with higher credit scores are more likely to be approved for higher loan amounts.

How to qualify

To qualify for an Upstart personal loan, you must meet the following requirements:

• Have a verifiable name, birthdate and Social Security number
• Be at least 18 years old
• Meet credit score requirements. (See credit score and financial history below.) If you have no credit score, you must have recently graduated or be enrolled in an associate’s, bachelor’s or a more advanced degree program from an accredited school.
• Have a U.S. address
• Have an email account
• Have a job, a job offer or another source of income
• Have a bank account from a U.S. financial institution

Credit score and financial history

• Upstart has no minimum credit score to qualify; the final decision depends on the lender. The following also applies:
• A debt-to-income ratio (DTI) of no more than 50% — the exceptions are for residents of Connecticut, Maryland, New York and Vermont, who can’t exceed 45%. Your DTI in this case doesn’t include your rent or mortgage payment
• No bankruptcies within the past 12 months
• No current delinquent accounts
• Fewer than six inquiries on your credit report within the last six months
• No material adverse change in your credit profile between the time you’re offered the loan and the funding of the loan

Income and employment

Here’s what Upstart requires for income and employment:

• A pay stub within the last 30 days to verify your income
• An offer letter if you have a job but haven’t started yet
• If you’ve been an independent contractor for more than one year, you’ll need to provide a 1040 tax return
• If you’ve been an independent contractor for less than a year, you’ll need to provide your offer letter. Rideshare and food delivery workers need to have been receiving income for at least a year
• Self-employed people need to have worked for at least a year and provide a 1040 tax form from the previous year

Related: Personal Loans To Consider If You're Self-Employed

Upstart personal loan purposes

You can use an Upstart personal loan for many purposes. Common uses include weddings, debt consolidation, medical expenses, vacations, home improvements, student debt and moving expenses.

Loan fees and penalties

Upstart personal loan fees and penalties include an origination fee between 0% and 12% of the loan amount, a late payment fee of 5% of the past due amount or $15, a bank or check return fee of $15, and $10 for paper copies.

Loan origination fees

Upstart charges include an origination fee between 0% and 12% of the loan amount. If you were to take out a $10,000 loan, for example, and were charged a 12% origination fee, that would be $1,200, which would be deducted from your loan before the remaining $8,800 is delivered to you.

No early repayment penalties

Upstart has no early repayment penalties. You can repay the loan at any time.

How Upstart compares to other lenders

How to contact Upstart

You can contact Upstart by sending a message through the contact form found on Upstart’s website, by calling the company at 650-204-1000 or 1-855-438-8778 or by sending an email to [email protected].

About Upstart personal loans

Upstart, an AI lending marketplace, connects millions of borrowers to over 100 banks and credit unions. It isn’t a lender itself.  What sets it apart is its use of artificial intelligence (AI) to process loan applications. Using a proprietary AI loan model, Upstart says it can better predict repayment results for each loan. If this is true, applicants who might not have been approved using the old application models might now be approved using Upstart.

Rating Upstart personal loans

Credible evaluated 30 personal loan lenders based on customer experience, minimum fixed rates, maximum loan amounts, funding times, loan terms, fees and more to determine individual lender ratings based on how each compared to its peers across categories. 

Credible’s team of experts gathered information from each lender’s website, customer service department, in-house resources and via email support. Each data point was verified to make sure it was accurate at the time of publication.

Learn more about how Credible rates lenders by exploring our Personal Loans Lender Rating Methodology.