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Nothing lasts forever, including credit cards. If your credit card is about to expire, there is nothing to worry about. This is a standard service procedure that credit card issuers use to make sure your credit card is working properly and avoid security issues.
Keep reading to learn more about what credit card expiration is, why credit cards expire, and what to do after expiration.
What does credit card expiration mean?
When a credit card expires, that means you can no longer use the card to make purchases—essentially, it becomes invalid.
The credit card expiration date is listed as both a month and a year, so your card is valid until the last day of that month, a Discover spokesperson said. Your credit card issuer should send you a new card well before the expiration date.
How often do credit cards expire?
While all credit card issuers have different time frames (usually every three to five years), you can find out when your card will expire just by looking at it.
If you want to check your credit card’s expiration date, you’ll often find it embossed on the front of your card, below your account number, and above your name. It will be stamped with two digits for the month and two digits for the year, for example, 21.02.
In the past, raised numbers were required on the front of a credit card because merchants used a machine to stamp the numbers on the receipt and buyers had to sign the receipt. Now there are very few such cars.
Today, you might have a newer chip credit card that doesn’t have the raised numbers on the front and has the account number printed on the back. On these cards, you will also find the expiration date on the back of the card below your account number.
Why do credit cards expire?
There are two main reasons for credit card expiration – expected wear and tear and security measures.
While your credit card account doesn’t expire at a specific time, the piece of plastic associated with it does. This is because “the magnetic stripes wear out, the cards bend,” says Nessa Feddis, senior vice president of the American Bankers Association.
Because of its wear-and-tear propensity, “issuers want to make sure that working cards end up in the hands of customers,” says Ted Rossman, senior industry analyst at CreditCards.com.
Magnetic stripe cards tend to wear out faster, so they typically expire after three years, Rossman says.
According to Rossman, EMV cards with embedded computer chips wear out less than cards with magnetic stripes. As a result, many issuers are extending the validity of these cards to five years.
Sending you a new card periodically also allows issuers to implement design and technology updates, a Discover spokesperson said.
Please note that retail credit cards such as Macy’s may be an exception and such cards may not have an expiration date.
The expiration date also serves as a safety measure. If you make a purchase online or over the phone, you are usually asked for an account number, a three- or four-digit security code on your card, and an expiration date.
The expiration date helps ensure that your transaction is valid, Feddis says. “That’s another data point to match.”
For a card issuer, setting a credit card expiration date helps manage a credit card portfolio, Rossman says. Between 20 and 30 percent of issued credit cards are never activated.
Having an expiration date on the card serves as “a mechanism to reassess the status of the customer and potentially exclude dormant cards from accounting,” says Rossman.
What to do with a credit card when it has expired?
When your credit card expires, you will need to update all automatic payments with the new card information and destroy the expired credit card. You can use scissors or a shredder if they are designed to shred thicker items like credit cards (read the manual first).
bottom line
All credit cards have an expiration date, but once the card expires, you shouldn’t have too much trouble. After receiving a new card, be sure to activate it on your computer or by calling the number indicated on the sticker. Sign your card and be sure to destroy the old one. Then you return to normal business.
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The editorial content on this page is based solely on the objective judgment of our contributors and is not based on advertising. It was not provided or ordered by credit card issuers. However, we may receive compensation when you click on links to our partners’ products.
