It’s pretty easy to qualify for a business, so that should work. It sounds like there must have been other factors in the loan application that Chase looked at and deemed it ineligible.

I personally got approved for the Chase Ink Business Preferred card with a brand new business with only $500 of annual income, so they do look at a number of different factors when deciding whether to approve or decline an application.

EY has it right. If you receive a W2, you’re probably not “self-employed” as a business (unless you own part of the company and issue yourself a W2). But if you receive a 1099, you should qualify for a business credit card.

Just use the form of income you get as the determining factor: ‘full-time employee of…’ means W2 income. That’s not a business entity.

Quick tutorial:
You must have a legal business entity registered in a municipality somewhere (usually your city of residence) to actually have a ‘business’, but you don’t need an EIN if you’re a sole proprietor – your SSN is your ‘EIN’ in that case (this is pass-thru taxation).

In most places in the USA, an LLC is free or very cheap, and the best business entity type, since it provides a legal barrier to being personally liable for the business’ expenses or mistakes. It’s also simple, since it too is a pass-through entity for tax purposes.

Just beware of the accounting side of this whole topic: spending money on a business card for personal use or (as one person suggests here… maybe trolling??) buying cash cards (if they later get used for personal items) will mess up your accounting. If you used the cash cards for business use and keep all receipts, etc., you could do that of course.

For me personally, I only ever put income that can be verified through tax returns.