Paying rent with a credit card: how it works and what changed

Your landlord doesn't accept cards, so a platform sits in the middle. It charges your card as a merchant transaction and then transfers the rent to the landlord's bank account. You pay the platform's fee and, these days, a fee from your card issuer too.

The appeal was the interest-free period: rent paid on the card isn't due until your statement date plus the grace period. Some people also used rent to hit spending milestones for annual fee waivers. The risk is the same as any card spend: if you don't clear the bill in full, card interest quickly wipes out any benefit. Many issuers also exclude rent from reward points or cap them, so check your card's reward terms first.

On 15 September 2025, RBI issued updated Master Directions for payment aggregators. They allow an aggregator to collect money only for merchants it has a contract with, and a marketplace may not take payments for sellers who aren't onboarded on it. Most landlords aren't KYC-verified merchants, so routing card rent payments to them no longer fitted the rules. Within days, PhonePe, Paytm and CRED stopped credit card rent payments, as reported by Business Standard, MediaNama and others.

Later reports said some platforms were testing a return with KYC for both tenant and landlord, but we couldn't confirm a relaunch from an official source. If an app offers rent payment by card today, check that it verifies your landlord and shows every fee before you pay.

Card issuers began charging for rent transactions well before the 2025 changes. HDFC Bank's FAQ says it charges 1% on all rent transactions, capped at ₹3,000 per transaction. ICICI Bank introduced a 1% fee on rent payments from 20 October 2022. Other issuers have their own charges, so read your card's schedule of charges. These fees come on top of the platform's own fee, and GST applies to fees.

At 1%, ₹25,000 rent costs ₹250 a month in bank fees alone, ₹3,000 a year. That's often more than the rewards earned, especially if your card excludes rent from rewards.

For most tenants, the cheapest route is a direct transfer: UPI, NEFT or IMPS from your bank account, or a standing instruction so rent goes out on the same date every month. Keep rent receipts if you claim house rent allowance (HRA). If your annual rent goes above ₹1 lakh, your employer will usually ask for the landlord's PAN.

Subspace doesn't offer rent payment. It's for the recurring bills around your rent: you can pay your credit card bill through Bharat Connect, plus electricity, broadband, DTH, insurance premiums and loan EMIs. If you use a card for spending, paying the card bill in full and on time is what keeps it free.