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Generally, no — personal loans are still widely available despite the COVID-19 pandemic, which could be especially valuable if you need help making ends meet. You’ll still typically need good credit and verifiable income to get approved for a loan with most lenders, including online lenders, banks, and credit unions. Keep in mind that some lenders might have more stringent requirements to ensure that borrowers can repay their loans, though.

Additionally, some lenders are offering coronavirus hardship loans that might be easier to qualify for if the pandemic has impacted your employment. These small emergency loans might come with low or even 0% interest, depending on the lender.

Read more: COVID-19 & Personal Loans

A personal loan is money you can borrow from a financial institution like a bank, credit union, or online lender. Once approved for a loan, you'll make monthly payments to pay it back in full, plus interest. The loan terms and interest rates vary based on the lender and your credit report. Typically, when you get a personal loan, it’s an unsecured loan — which means it doesn’t require collateral (like your home or car).

Read more: Different Types of Personal Loans

The annual percentage rate (APR) is what you’ll pay to borrow money. It includes not only your interest rate but any fees charged by the lender — such as origination fees.

There are two types of APR you’ll likely come across:

• A

  fixed APR

  stays the same throughout the life of the loan. This means your monthly payment and payoff date won’t ever change.
• A

  variable APR

  can fluctuate according to market trends. While a variable APR often starts out lower than a fixed APR, it could increase in the future — which would also cause your monthly payments to rise.

Each lender has their own set requirements to qualify for a personal loan. But the personal information they typically look for are borrowers who are 18 or older, U.S. citizens or permanent residents with a valid Social Security number, have a steady income, and those who have a good credit history.

See: Requirements to Qualify for a Personal Loan

How much you can borrow with a personal loan depends largely on your credit score as well as your debt-to-income ratio, which is the amount of your monthly income that goes to paying ongoing obligations like your rent, car payment, or credit card bills.

The upper limits for online personal loans vary by lender but typically fall in the $35,000 to $50,000 range. However, lenders on the Credible marketplace offer personal loans to qualified borrowers up to $100,000.

Estimate Your Payments: Personal Loan Calculator

Using Credible to check your rates doesn’t affect your credit score. Here’s how it works: Credible's prequalification process uses a soft credit inquiry that allows you to see personalized prequalified rates.

There is no obligation to proceed with any of the loan options presented on your dashboard, but if you see a loan option with one of our partner lenders that you'd like to proceed with, you'll be asked to authorize a hard credit check when you apply for an unsecured personal loan. A hard inquiry can impact your credit score by two to nine points, but typically by no more than five.

How To: Build Credit and Raise Your Credit Score

Once you’ve completed the loan application process, most lenders can fund your loan by the next business day (though it can take up to about a week, depending on the lender).

Generally, the shorter the loan term, the lower the interest rate offered by most loan companies. Some lenders even offer an autopay discount if you authorize your monthly loan payments to be directly withdrawn from your checking account or savings account.

Qualifying for lower rates offered by a lender is dependent on your online loan application, credit history and credit score, whether you get a short-term loan or a long-term loan, loan purpose, and other factors. The better your credit score, the better the interest rate you can qualify for.

See: Average Personal Loan Interest Rates

Yes. Fortunately, none of Credible’s partner lenders will charge for this. However, other lenders may charge a fee (called a prepayment penalty) if you decide to pay the loan off before the term is up.

Read more: Lenders Offering the Best Personal Loans

You’re typically not limited in how you can use your personal loan funds. Personal loans can help you pay down high-interest credit card debt, meet unexpected needs like medical bills, take care of a major purchase like a new refrigerator, purchase a new or used car with an auto loan, or fund home improvement projects. However, some lenders only provide fixed-rate loans for specific purposes (and some rates vary based on what you use it for), so you will be asked for the purpose of your loan.

Additional resources to help you get a personal loan:

• Current Personal Loan Rates
• How to Calculate Your Debt-to-Income Ratio
• Where to Get a Secured Personal Loan
• What is APR?
• How To Get A $20k Personal Loan