Personal Loan Refinancing: Is It Right for You?
Best Egg is our pick for best personal loan refinancing thanks to competitive rates and a hassle-free online experience
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- Refinancing means paying off your current loan with a new one, typically one with lower rates and/or different repayment terms.
- Refinancing can be a great way to get a lower interest rate if you’ve improved your score since taking your original loan.
- Although choosing a longer loan term can result in more interest, it may be worth it to avoid missing payments.
- If you can’t afford your debt even after refinancing, credit counseling or bankruptcy may be a better option.
| Lender | User rating | Best for | APR | Term | Amount | See Results |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Personal loan refinancing overall | 6.99% to 35.99% | 36 to 60 months |
$2k – $50k |
||
|
Great customer service | 7.99% to 24.99% | 36 to 84 months |
$2.5k – $40k |
||
|
Beating rates | 7.49% to 24.14% | 24 to 84 months | Starting at $1.6M | ||
|
|
Refinancing payday loans | 6.70% to 35.99% | 36 to 60 months |
$1k – $50k |
Read more about how we chose the best personal loan refinancing loans.
Best personal loan refinancing, backed by expert research
Best for: Personal loan refinancing overall – Best Egg
- APR
- 6.99% to 35.99%
- Can pay up to 10 creditors automatically
- Online dashboard helps you track and manage your payments to creditors
- Have the option of offering collateral to get a bigger loan or a better rate
- Collateral can get you a bigger loan or lower rate
- Will deduct from your loan funds as an origination fee
- Can take up to 15 days for Best Egg to pay off your old loans
- Can’t add a co-borrower to your loan for better approval odds
Best Egg is the best lender for personal loan refinancing, thanks to its easy online process and low rates. Best Egg will send your loan to up to 10 creditors on your behalf.
Best Egg also offers secured loans, or loans that require collateral. Best Egg uses the permanent fixtures inside your home as collateral, like built-in cabinetry and light fixtures. Only homeowners with equity qualify, but those that do can qualify for rates from 7.99% – 35.99%
Note that it can take up to 15 days for your refinance loan to reach your current lender(s). Keep a close eye on your online dashboard and make sure that your loan makes it to the right accounts.
You must meet the requirements below to qualify for a Best Egg loan:
- Citizenship: Be a U.S. citizen or permanent resident living in the U.S.
- Administrative: Have a personal checking account, email address and physical address
- Residency: Live in an eligible U.S. state (Best Egg operates in most states, with a small number excluded)
- Credit score: +
Best for: Great customer service – Discover
- APR
- 7.99% to 24.99%
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- May be willing to work with you if you’re having trouble paying
- Can send funds directly to creditors within one business day
- U.S.-based customer service, which is open on nights and weekends
- Won’t qualify with bad credit
- No joint loans
Discover has earned nearly a perfect score from LendingTree users. This no-fee lender has extended customer service hours and a program designed to help if you’re having a hard time keeping up payments.
However, a Discover personal loan isn’t easy to qualify for. It requires good credit and a moderate income. Discover also doesn’t offer joint applications, so you’ll have to qualify based on your credit alone.
You’ll need to meet these eligibility criteria to get a Discover personal loan:
- Age: Be at least 18 years old
- Citizenship: Have a Social Security number
- Administrative: Have a physical address, email address and internet access
- Income: Minimum income of $40,000 (individually or as a household)
- Credit score: 599+
Best for: Beating rates – LightStream
- APR
- 7.49% to 24.14%
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- May beat a competitor’s rate through the Rate Beat program
- Can get your funds the same day you apply
- No fees
- Won’t pay off your personal loans directly
- Must have at least $1,589,000 to refinance
- Requires a hard credit pull to check rates
LightStream is an online lender with a unique rate-matching program called Rate Beat. If another lender offers you a similar loan with a lower rate, LightStream may beat it by 0.10 percentage points. Loan shopping and refinancing go hand in hand, so keep Rate Beat in mind while comparing loan options.
You can’t prequalify for a loan with LightStream. That means it requires a hard credit check if you want to see if you’re eligible. It also won’t pay off your existing loans for you.
LightStream doesn’t specify its exact credit score requirements, but you must have good to excellent credit to qualify. Most of the applicants that LightStream approves have the following in common:
- At least five years of on-time payment history on a variety of accounts (credit cards, auto loans, mortgages and other types of debt)
- Stable income and the ability to afford current debt obligations
- Savings, whether in a bank account, investment account or retirement account
Best for: Refinancing payday loans – Upstart
- APR
- 6.70% to 35.99%
- No formal credit score requirements
- Could qualify with little-to-no credit
- Uses an algorithm to determine your creditworthiness, not just your credit score
- Can’t add a co-borrower to your loan to help you get approved
- Could pay an origination fee
- App is only available for iPhone, not Android users
It can be easy to fall into the payday loan trap when you have bad credit. If you have at least $1,000 to refinance, Discover could help you refinance your way out of a triple-digit interest rate.
Discover is a lending platform, and some of its partner lenders don’t have a specific minimum credit score requirement. The company uses an AI-powered algorithm that looks at thousands of factors alongside your score, including education and income.
Discover partners can charge an origination fee. Generally, the lower your credit score, the more likely it is that this fee will apply — and the higher the fee will be.
Discover has transparent eligibility requirements, including:
- Age: Be 18 or older
- Administrative: Have a U.S. address, personal banking account, email address and Social Security number
- Income: Have a valid source of income, including a job, job offer or another regular income source
- Credit-related factors: No bankruptcies within the last three years, minimal recent inquiries on your credit report and no current delinquencies
- Credit score: None
How does personal loan refinancing work?
Refinancing can be a smart way to pay less interest if you’ve improved your credit score since taking your original loan. If you have more than one personal loan, debt consolidation may be an option. Consolidation simply means refinancing multiple loans into one.
- You get a new loan and use it to pay off your current loan(s). Your new refinance lender may offer to send your loan directly to your old lender. This can sometimes get you a discount.
- You continue making payments on your old loan until you are certain it has been paid and closed.
- You carry on paying your debt, but to your new refinance lender.
Personal loan refinance rates
Personal loan rates depend on a ton of factors. For instance, bigger loans tend to have higher APRs because the lender has more to lose if the borrower defaults. Your credit score has a major impact on how much it costs to borrow.
Below are the average personal loan marketplace rates that LendingTree users saw in the fourth quarter of 2025. Find your credit band, note the average APR and use our personal loan calculator to check what rate you might get.
| Credit tier | Average APR |
|---|---|
| Excellent (800 and above) | 15.75% |
| Very good (740-799) | 17.89% |
| Good (670-739) | 23.27% |
| Fair (580-669) | 27.79% |
| Poor (under 580) | 30.25% |
Improving your credit score from fair to very good could save you an average of $1,804 in personal loan interest
Get personalized tips on how to improve your credit score with LendingTree Spring.
Example of how refinancing can save money
Meet Sarah. She took out a $30,000 personal loan with an 84-month term to replace her roof after a leak.
After getting her loan, she worked on improving her credit score and was able to bring it from 670 to 740. That moved her FICO Score from good to very good.
By then, she had paid down her loan balance to about $21,000 and had 48 months remaining on her repayment term. Because Sarah’s score has gone up, she now qualifies for a loan with much better terms.
| Original personal loan | Refinance loan | |
|---|---|---|
| Loan amount | $30,000 | $21,000
Even though Sarah originally borrowed $30,000, she only has $21,000 left on her loan to refinance.
|
| Annual percentage rate (APR) | 23% | 18% |
| Remaining balance | $21,000 left on old loan | – |
| Repayment timeline | 48 months left on loan | 48-month loan term |
| Monthly payment | $721 | $616 |
By refinancing, Sarah lowered her monthly payment by about $105, freed up more than $1,200 per year in her budget and will pay roughly $5,000 less in future interest over the life of her loan.
Other ways that refinancing can help
Reducing monthly payments with a longer term
Refinancing isn’t always about saving on interest. You might be able to reduce your monthly payments by choosing a longer loan term, even if you don’t qualify for a better rate.
By choosing a longer loan term, you’ll break up your balance into more payments. This results in a lower payment each month, but you’ll pay more in interest overall.
Getting out of debt faster with a shorter term
Refinancing can also help you get out of debt faster if you pick a shorter loan term. This will condense your debt into a smaller window, increasing your monthly payments but reducing the total interest paid.
Ask LendingTree: Is it ever worth it to extend your loan?
It can be. I’ve refinanced debt into a longer term. My financial situation changed, money was tight and I needed a lower payment. It’s not a perfect solution, but I calculated how much more interest I’d pay before signing and made extra payments when I could to pay my loan off faster. To protect your credit score, sometimes paying more interest is better than paying late.
Estimate your refinance loan payment
If you aren’t ready to prequalify, use our debt consolidation calculator to get an idea whether refinancing is worth pursuing.
Is now a good time to refinance a personal loan?
Personal loan rates reached their highest levels in almost twenty years in early 2024. If this is around the time you took out your original loan, you might qualify for a better rate based on market conditions.
That said, it’s better to focus on things that you can control instead of trying to time the market.
When refinancing might help
Here are signs that it could be a good time to refinance your personal loan:
- Your credit score has improved. If your credit score has improved substantially since you got your original loan, you might get a lower interest rate by refinancing. A lower interest rate can save you money over the life of the loan.
- You need lower payments. When you need to lower your monthly payments, think about refinancing into a longer-term loan. This should lower your payment, but it will also increase the total amount of interest you’ll pay over time.
- You want to pay the loan off faster. If you want to pay off your loan faster, consider refinancing into a shorter loan term. Your monthly payment will go up if you go this route, but you’ll save on interest costs.
When you should wait
If any of the below apply to you, refinancing might be the right choice for you.
- You can’t get a lower interest rate. Whether interest rates have risen or your credit score has dropped, it may not make sense to refinance if you don’t qualify for a lower interest rate.
- You’d have to pay high fees. Some personal loans come with an origination fee, which the lender usually deducts from your loan amount. Your current lender could also charge a prepayment penalty (although this is rare). If the fees aren’t worth the possible benefits, refinancing may not be a good idea.
- You can’t afford your debt, even after refinancing. Refinancing won’t change how much you owe. If you have more debt than you can pay, it might be time to consider credit counseling or bankruptcy.
Compare your refinance options with LendingTree
You’d shop around for flights. Why not your loan? LendingTree makes it easy. Instead of applying to just one lender and hoping for a good rate, see multiple lenders compete for your business so you can choose the best offer.
Tell us what you need
Take two minutes to tell us who you are and how much money you need. It’s free, simple and secure.
Shop your offers
LendingTree users get 11 personal loan offers on average. Compare your offers side by side to get the best deal.
Get your money
Pick a lender and sign your loan paperwork. You could see money in your account in as soon as 24 hours.
How does refinancing a personal loan affect your credit score?
Refinancing a personal loan can impact your credit at different times, in different ways.
When you first get the loan, you might see a small drop due to the hard credit check most loans require. Your average age of accounts may also go down since you are paying off an old one and opening a new one.
However, refinancing can help your score in the long run as long as you make your payments on time. Refinancing can make your monthly debt payments easier to pay, helping you stay on track and build a positive payment history.
For more information, learn how your credit score is calculated.
Common refinancing mistakes
LendingTree makes it simple to refinance your loan, but there are still some missteps that you need to avoid.
- Extending the term too long: Stretching your loan term can bring your monthly payment down, but be careful about how much interest it will cost you over time.
- Applying before improving credit: To save the most money, you may want to wait until you’ve moved up a credit band before trying to refinance (good to very good, for example).
- Not checking for a prepayment penalty: Prepayment penalties are not common on personal loans, but they are possible (especially on high-interest loans). Check your loan paperwork to see if your lender charges a fee for paying your loan off early.
- Refinancing repeatedly: It may be possible to refinance a personal loan more than once, but it can be a sign that you have more debt than you can manage.
- Focusing on the monthly payment: An offer may look enticing because it has a super-low monthly payment. Total interest and APRs are a better way of gauging price.
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How we chose the best loans for personal loan refinancing
We reviewed more than 40 lenders and loan marketplaces to determine the overall best lenders for personal loan refinancing. To make this list, the company must offer personal loan refinancing.
From there, we assessed each lender across four categories: eligibility and access; cost to borrow; loan terms and options; repayment support and tools.
According to our systematic rating and review process, the best loans for personal loan refinancing come from Best Egg, , Discover, LightStream, and Discover.
Our categories
We assess how easy it is for people to qualify and apply. This includes state availability, soft-credit prequalification, membership requirements, funding speed and whether borrowers with less-than-excellent credit can get a loan.
We evaluate how affordable the loans are based on minimum and maximum APRs, loan fees and rate discounts. Lenders with unclear or potentially predatory costs receive lower scores.
We consider repayment term flexibility, loan amount ranges and whether options like secured loans, joint loans or direct-to-creditor payments are offered — plus whether the lender clearly communicates these options.
We evaluate borrower experience after funding: customer service access, hardship or forbearance programs, payment flexibility and digital tools like mobile apps or credit monitoring.
Our process
We gather data directly from lenders through their websites, disclosures and direct communication with company representatives. Our editorial team verifies and updates information regularly. We value transparency and award less favorable scores when lenders obscure or omit details.
Our editorial team applies the same scoring model and standards to every lender. Lenders cannot pay to influence our ratings.
Why trust LendingTree’s methodology?
Our writers and editors dig through the facts, contact lenders directly and even go through the application process ourselves if it helps better explain what you can expect. As a Certified Financial Education Instructor℠, I’m committed to breaking down complex financial details so people can make confident, informed decisions with their money.
Jessica’s experience in editing and financial education helps shape LendingTree articles that are clear, accurate and truly useful to readers. Her certification means our recommendations are built on a foundation of consumer-first financial knowledge — not just numbers.
Frequently asked questions
Once you refinance a loan, you can’t reverse the process. It’s important to know the downsides before making a final decision. Some drawbacks of personal loan refinancing include:
- Higher interest charges if you choose a longer loan term
- Possible origination fees with your new lender
- Possible prepayment penalties with your old lender
- A small dip in your credit due to a hard credit pull (usually five points or fewer)
- Could switch to a lender with poor customer service (LendingTree user reviews can help prevent this)
While every lender has its own eligibility criteria, generally, a good credit score (670+) is required to qualify for personal loan refinancing. Lenders typically start offering their best rates once you hit 740+.
Some lenders, like Discover and Best Egg, accept fair and bad credit scores. Rates may not be lower than what you’re currently paying, but you can still refinance to get a lower monthly payment with a longer loan term.
Lenders also look at other factors, like your debt-to-income ratio (DTI). This is how much you currently owe per month compared to your income. Most lenders prefer a DTI of 35% or less, but the lower, the better.
Because every lender has its own eligibility requirements, the best way to see if you qualify for personal loan refinancing is by prequalifying. It won’t hurt your credit score and will show you what rates to expect from each lender.
Some lenders will refinance their own loans, but not all. LightStream, for instance, won’t refinance its own loans.
Although your current lender may seem competitive, how can you know for sure unless you compare multiple offers? Use the LendingTree marketplace to check refinance rates on the nation’s largest network of lenders.