Yes, you can go over your credit limit, but there's no surefire way to know how much you can spend in excess of your limit. Card issuers may consider a variety of factors, such as your past payment history, when deciding the risk of approving an over-the-limit transaction.
Your credit card's credit limit is the maximum amount you can charge to the card. If a card has a $10,000 limit, then you won't be able to spend any more than that amount on it. That's the theory, but in practice you could go beyond the limit — though there are consequences for doing so.
Credit card over-limit fees are mostly gone, but that doesn't mean banks let you exceed your spending cap without consequences. It just means they deal with it in other ways. For example, your card issuer could: Decline a transaction.
A good guideline is the 30% rule: Use no more than 30% of your credit limit to keep your debt-to-credit ratio strong. Staying under 10% is even better. In a real-life budget, the 30% rule works like this: If you have a card with a $1,000 credit limit, it's best not to have more than a $300 balance at any time.
You can't overdraft a credit card. The term “overdraft” actually applies more to bank accounts. Credit card issuers tend to use “over limit,” since you're spending more than your credit limit. Whatever you call it, most credit cards don't allow the practice.
If you see a negative balance on your credit card account, your first thought could be that something's wrong. But a negative balance simply means that your card issuer owes you money, which may seem odd since it's usually the other way around.
Capital One will assess transactions that put balances over the limit and approve or deny them on an individual basis. There is no fixed amount that you can go over your limit and each transaction is approved individually. So, there is no guarantee that you will always be approved to exceed your credit limit.
The first step to paying off a maxed-out credit card is to stop using your credit card. Use your budget to figure out what you can pay each month and make a plan. Explore other options like a balance transfer, consolidating with a personal loan, negotiating a lower interest rate, or consumer credit counseling.
A high-limit credit card typically comes with a credit line between $5,000 to $10,000 (and some even go beyond $10,000). You're more likely to have a higher credit limit if you have good or excellent credit.
If you've avoided credit cards until now, a $500 limit (or something similar) is the perfect way to get your feet wet. Restricting yourself to a lower limit can be a great, low-pressure way to get started with credit cards.
More often than not, a charge that goes over a Capital One credit card limit won't even be processed, but it can occasionally happen for charges that involve holds on the account. And if Capital One does process an overlimit transaction, no over-the-limit fee will be charged.
Capital One will assess transactions that put balances over the limit and approve or deny them on an individual basis. There is no fixed amount that you can go over your limit and each transaction is approved individually. So, there is no guarantee that you will always be approved to exceed your credit limit.