A Guide To Apple Card Family

As your kids grow, you start to share a lot more beyond the last bite of ice cream after dinner. You might share your phone plan, your car, and eventually many, many life lessons. And now, you can also share your Apple Card with your kids thanks to Apple Card Family.

Apple Card Family offers a new level of privacy, security, and safety for users so that parents can feel at ease letting their teens learn to use the card. With the same easy-to-use iPhone interface that Apple Card users know and love, Apple Card Family gives parents an opportunity to teach their kids about financial literacy, build credit together, and more.

Who Can Use Apple Card Family?

You can register anyone in your Apple Family Sharing group over the age of 13 as an Apple Card Family participant. This means that they’ll have complete access to use the card, track their spending, and manage their bill, all from their iPhone — something they likely are already comfortable using.

They can spend independently, or even just have a credit card on hand in case of emergencies, but you still have full control. Parents can set transaction limits and even pause a participant’s rights to the card. (Because you never know when your teen might get a wild hair and splurge on a new pair of Nikes without asking first.)

When a participant turns 18, they can choose to have their usage reported to credit bureaus to begin building credit. As adults, we know that building credit is no easy feat, so starting early with your kids can be a huge step toward financial independence.

Any eligible user over the age of 18 can be added as a co-owner of the card. If you already have an Apple Card, you can still opt-in to Apple Card Family. Two Apple Card users can merge their accounts to become card co-owners, combine their spending limit, build credit equally, and keep the lower APR of their two original cards.

Apple Card users can invite up to five people from their Apple Family Sharing group to their account by sharing it in the Wallet. Practically speaking, this means up to four participants (kids) can be added to a card with two co-owners (parents).

Apple Card Family Benefits & Use

Nobody likes to budget, but Apple makes tracking your spending and usage super simple. If you already have an Apple Card, you’re probably intimately familiar with how easy it is to use the card and manage everything from bill pay to Apple Cash right from your Apple Wallet. You can track spending with just a few taps to really see where your money is being spent. With Apple Card Family, your kids can, too.

This is a great way to help your teens learn about their spending habits and see in a very clear way where their money is going. Whether you have a new driver who needs to see how much filling up the gas tank actually costs or a college student who orders Door Dash way more than they should, when they use their Apple Card, everything they do is right there in a colorful, intuitive app. (They’re already tapping away on their phone anyway, so they might as well learn something while they’re at it, right?)

Every Apple Card Family participant and co-owner in your Family Sharing Group also has access to their own unlimited daily Apple Cash rewards. Users can earn up to 3% cash back for purchases made directly from Apple and select retail partners like Uber, Nike, Walgreens, and more. Earn 2% cash back when you use Apple Pay anywhere else, and 1% cash back when you swipe the physical card. Apple Cash is deposited into the user’s Wallet app daily and can be spent anywhere that accepts Apple Pay, as well as in peer-to-peer transactions through iMessages.

Bill pay is pretty simple, too. Your Apple Card Family bill is always due at the end of the month instead of a random day like other cards, and there’s just one bill for everyone. The app allows users to schedule payments, break them up, set the full bill on auto-pay, or even pay for individual transactions as you go with a connected bank account and a few clicks.

What Else Makes Apple Card Family Different?

Unlike traditional credit cards, Apple Card Family allows co-owners equal rights and access where credit-building and rewards are concerned. Other credit cards only allow for the primary account holder to reap the main benefits of card ownership (including credit-reporting and rewards access) while authorized users don’t have the same rights or experience.

Often, the way that this setup works can backfire in the event of separation, divorce, or death. Historically speaking, this is an issue that disproportionately impacts women who have been added to their spouse’s credit card, especially prior to the Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974.

Apple Card Family aims to reinvent this paradigm with co-ownership that gives spouses equal footing. Same access, same credit reporting, same rewards.

To apply for an Apple Card or start using Apple Card Family, head to the Wallet app on your iPhone. The entire process takes just a few clicks. Once approved, you can start helping your kids manage their finances with peace of mind in no time.