How Our Service Works, Step by Step

You start by completing one short request form with the amount you need, between $500 and $5,000, plus your contact, income, housing and checking account details, which usually takes about five minutes.

The form asks only for what lenders need to make an initial decision: your legal name, date of birth, address, Social Security number or ITIN, income source and pay schedule, monthly housing cost and bank account. Entering details exactly as they appear on your ID and pay stubs prevents delays later, when a lender verifies them.

Before you begin, it helps to confirm the basics lenders usually look for, such as age, residency, steady income and an active checking account. Our page on who is eligible for a personal loan lists those requirements and the documents lenders commonly request. Submitting a request is free and does not commit you to anything.

Your request is compared with the criteria that lenders in our network set, such as amount, state and income, and shared with lenders that may be able to respond.

Each lender then applies its own underwriting rules. Some show an initial offer within minutes using a soft credit inquiry, which does not affect your credit scores; others ask for more information first. Whether and when a hard inquiry happens depends on the lender, and a lender should tell you before it runs one.

If no lender matches your request, you will see that result rather than a false promise. Lowering the amount or waiting until your income or credit improves can change the outcome later. Approval is never assured, and two people with similar profiles can receive different responses.

Any offer you receive is presented on the lender's own website, where you can read the APR, payment, term, fees and total cost before deciding whether to accept or walk away.

Compare more than the monthly payment. Look at the APR, which includes interest and most fees, the origination fee and whether it is deducted from your deposit, the number of payments, the total repaid and any prepayment terms. As a representative example, $2,000 over 12 months at 24.00% APR is 12 monthly payments of $189.12, total repaid $2,269.44 and total interest $269.44, an estimate assuming no origination fee.

Representative APRs from lenders in our network run from 5.99% to 35.99%, and some lenders in some states may charge more. Our guide to personal loan rates explains what moves an APR. Readers comparing earnest personal loans should remember that we do not set any of these terms; the lender does.

After you accept an offer and the lender verifies your information, the lender sends the money to your checking account, as soon as the next business day after approval, depending on the lender.

Verification may include confirming your identity, income and bank account, sometimes with a pay stub or bank statement. Weekends and bank holidays can add a day or two. From that point on, your relationship is with the lender: you make payments to the lender, and questions about your balance, due dates or hardship options go to the lender directly.

Set up reminders or autopay for the first payment date, and read the lender's late fee policy before you need it. Paying on time protects your credit and avoids extra costs.

We never lend money, make credit decisions, set rates, charge you a fee for using the request form, or ask you to pay anything upfront to receive an offer.

A few more lines we do not cross:

• We never ask for your online banking password, gift cards or a wire transfer.
• We never pressure you to accept an offer; declining costs nothing.
• We never claim that every request will be approved.
• We never present ourselves as a lender or as affiliated with any lender or company named Earnest.

If someone contacts you claiming to be us and asks for an upfront payment, stop and contact us through our official channels. People researching earnest personal loans are sometimes targeted by imitators, and legitimate lenders do not collect fees before a loan is funded.

When you are ready, you can start your request in about five minutes and see whether a lender in our network can help.