Citizens Bank Personal Loan Alternatives August 2026

If you're searching for a Citizens Bank personal loan, the product is no longer available, and hasn't been for new customers for several years. Citizens still services existing personal loans on its books, but it isn't accepting new applications.

That's the short answer. Below, you'll find where you can go for a personal loan, what Citizens Bank does still offer that might fit a similar need, and how to evaluate the bank if you're already a customer or considering one of its other lending products.

Alternative banks that offer personal loans

If a personal loan is what you need, several lenders are actively originating them right now.

SoFi offers personal loans from $5,000 to $100,000, with fixed APRs ranging from 6.99% to 35.49% for borrowers who qualify for its autopay and member-rate discounts. SoFi doesn't publish a minimum credit score. There's no origination fee by default, though you can opt into one (up to 7%) in exchange for a lower rate. 

LightStream, the online lending arm of Truist, offers loans in the same $5,000–$100,000 range, with APRs ranging from 7.24% to 24.89% with autopay. LightStream charges no origination, late, or prepayment fees, and it runs a Rate Beat program that shaves 0.10 percentage points off a competing lender's approved offer. The tradeoff: LightStream doesn't offer soft-pull prequalification, so checking your rate means a hard credit inquiry.

Both lenders seem aimed at borrowers with strong credit. If your credit is fair or you’re in the process of rebuilding it, you might get a better shot (and a soft-pull rate check) from lenders that serve a wider credit range.Compare a few prequalification offers before committing, since your actual rate depends heavily on your credit profile, income, and loan purpose.

Does Citizens Bank offer an alternative type of loan that might appeal to someone looking for a personal loan?

Citizens Bank stepped back from more than just personal loans. In mid-2023, Citizens Financial Group also stopped originating new indirect auto loans (the loans made through car dealerships), though it continues to service auto loans already on its books. So if you were hoping to finance a car purchase directly through Citizens via a dealer, that option isn't there either.

What Citizens does still actively offer, and what might scratch a similar itch depending on your situation:

• Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC). If you own a home, the HELOC is Citizens' most prominent current lending product. It's a revolving credit line, not a lump-sum installment loan, but it can be used for many of the same purposes people seek personal loans for: debt consolidation, home repairs, unexpected expenses. If that sounds like a loan that will meet your needs, it’s a good idea to learn all there is to know about Citizens’ HELOC. 
• Citizens GoalBuilder® HELOC. A smaller version of the line above, aimed at homeowners who don't qualify for the standard HELOC, often due to limited equity or a more moderate income. Citizens frames this option as an alternative to "more expensive borrowing options such as credit cards or personal loans," which tells you how the bank wants you to think about it, even though it still requires owning a home.
• Student loan refinancing. If your borrowing need is specifically about existing student debt, Citizens refinances both private and federal student loans, plus Parent PLUS loans, into a single new loan. 
• Citizens Pay. A point-of-sale financing option offered through certain retail partners (bicycle retailer Trek is an example that comes up in customer reviews). This isn't something you apply for directly as a general-purpose loan; it's tied to a specific purchase at a specific retailer. (Note: Citizens also finances purchases through some other retail partnerships under its separate "Citizens One" brand, which is a different product line from Citizens Pay.)

None of these are a substitute for an unsecured personal loan if you don't own a home and don't have a qualifying purchase or existing student debt. That's a real gap, and it's the main reason the alternative lenders above exist.

How to qualify for a Citizens Bank loan

Since a general personal loan isn't on the table, qualification depends on which product you're after:

HELOC: Citizens' published minimum credit score for its standard HELOC is 680, with a maximum loan-to-value of 85% and available loan amounts from $17,500 up to $2,000,000, depending on your equity and location. Not all states are eligible: Citizens lists HELOC availability in 29 states plus Washington, D.C., concentrated in the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, and parts of the Midwest and South.

GoalBuilder HELOC: Aimed at homeowners who don't clear the bar for the standard product. Citizens' GoalBuilder page discloses the variable rate directly: Prime + 3.25%, or Prime + 3.00% if you set up autopay from a Citizens checking account, on loan amounts of $5,000 to $25,000. Citizens states plainly that "borrower income limits and property location restrictions apply" but doesn't spell out the exact number on its own site. According to third-party sources, you qualify based on your home's census tract being classified low- or moderate-income, or by having a household income below 80% of your area's median income, whichever applies. 

Student loan refinancing: Citizens requires U.S. citizenship, permanent residency, or resident-alien status with a valid Social Security number, plus a bachelor's degree or higher. You'll need a minimum $10,000 balance to refinance, and cosigners are allowed.

Across all of Citizens' current lending products, the qualification story is the same: they're either secured by your home or tied to a specific existing debt or purchase. There's no general unsecured product left where the qualification bar is simply "credit score and income," the way it typically works for a personal loan.

How to apply for a Citizens Bank loan

For the HELOC, Citizens runs its application through a tool it calls Citizens FastLine®. You enter your ZIP code and basic financial information online, and the tool returns a personalized rate offer within a few minutes. This initial step uses a soft credit check, so it won't affect your credit score. If you like the offer, you move forward with a full application, which does involve a hard credit inquiry before closing.

You can also start a HELOC application by phone or in person at a branch, and Citizens' home equity phone support is available seven days a week.

For student loan refinancing, the application is online through Citizens' student loan portal, where you'll need to provide income documentation, proof of degree completion, and details on the loans you're refinancing.

There is no personal loan application to speak of, since Citizens doesn't accept them. If you land on a Citizens Bank page referencing personal loans, it's most likely either general information for existing borrowers managing a loan they already have, or content describing the discontinued product for historical or comparison purposes.

Citizens Bank loan approval and funding

Timelines vary significantly by product:

• HELOC: Citizens advertises closing in as few as 7 days after you accept your FastLine offer, with funds available in as little as 2 weeks total. Some third-party reviews note that a more traditional HELOC application, particularly one requiring an appraisal, can take closer to 45 days from start to finish.
• Student loan refinancing: Citizens doesn't publish an exact funding timeline on its own refinancing page, but third-party breakdowns of the process (based on Citizens' own steps) describe the mechanism: after approval, you sign a promissory note, then a mandatory rescission period (typically 3 days) has to pass before Citizens sends funds to your old lenders to pay them off. Add in document processing time on both ends, and the whole process, from application to old loans being paid off, typically runs a few weeks rather than days.
• Discontinued products (personal loans, indirect auto loans): Since these are closed to new business, approval and funding timelines are not applicable to new applicants.

Is Citizens Bank legit?

Yes. Citizens Bank is a legitimate, federally insured national bank. The confusion some people run into is that several unrelated small community banks around the country also use "Citizens" in their name (Citizens Bank of West Virginia, Citizens Bank & Trust, First Citizens Bank, and others), and they are not the same institution as Citizens Financial Group, the Providence, Rhode Island-based bank this review covers.

A few facts that speak to legitimacy and scale:

• Citizens Bank traces its roots to 1828, when it was founded as High Street Bank in Providence, Rhode Island; it's currently rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau, where it's also an accredited business. (Note: Citizens' own BBB file lists a "business started" date of 1871, which appears to reference a later charter for a related entity, Citizens Savings Bank, rather than the bank's actual founding. Citizens' own corporate history page confirms 1828 as the founding year.)
• It's one of the larger consumer banks in the country, reporting $233.8 billion in total assets as of June 30, 2026, per its most recent quarterly earnings report, and operating roughly 1,000+ branches across 14 states and Washington, D.C.
• Citizens Bank, N.A. is a member of the FDIC, meaning eligible deposits are federally insured up to standard limits.

That said, "legitimate" isn't the same as "complaint-free." Citizens has been the subject of two closed CFPB enforcement actions in the past decade: a 2015 consent order requiring roughly $18.5 million in refunds and penalties over how the bank credited certain deposits, and a 2023 resolution of a 2020 lawsuit requiring a $9 million penalty over how the bank handled credit card billing-error and unauthorized-use disputes. Both matters are closed. Separately, customer-review sites paint a rougher picture of day-to-day service: Citizens' Trustpilot rating sits in roughly the 1.3-out-of-5 range based on public review pages, with recurring complaints about customer service wait times, account access issues, and its 2025-2026 online banking platform changes. 

Take the volume of complaints in context (Citizens serves millions of customers, and dissatisfied customers are more likely to leave a review than satisfied ones), but the pattern is consistent enough across independent review sites to be worth knowing about before you apply for a loan.

When borrowing money from Citizens Bank may make sense

Given that a general personal loan isn't an option, borrowing from Citizens makes the most sense in a narrower set of situations:

• You're a homeowner with meaningful equity and want a flexible line of credit rather than a lump-sum loan, particularly if you can meet the requirements for Citizens' best HELOC rate tier, which include a line of $200,000 or more, a loan-to-value of 80% or less, and setting up automatic payments from a Citizens checking account.
• You have moderate income or limited home equity but still own a home, in which case the GoalBuilder HELOC is worth a look specifically because it's designed for borrowers who wouldn't otherwise qualify.
• You have existing student loan debt, your credit has improved since you first borrowed, and you're comfortable giving up federal loan protections in exchange for potentially better refinancing terms. This is especially worth a look if you're already a Citizens customer, since the bank's refinancing product offers a loyalty discount to existing account holders.
• You're financing a specific retail purchase through a merchant that partners with Citizens Pay, and the terms of that specific offer work for your budget.

If none of those describe your situation (you're not a homeowner, don't have student debt to refinance, and just need a general-purpose loan for a fixed amount), Citizens Bank isn't going to be able to help, and your time is better spent comparing lenders that are actually still originating personal loans, like SoFi and LightStream above, or browsing Bills.com's full personal loan lender reviews for more options.