# Pay UAE rent by credit card with Tern Rewards

Source: https://kredit.ae/perks/tern-rewards

Tern charges your credit card and transfers the rent to your landlord's account on your existing schedule, with no transaction fee and up to 2% back in Tern points.

Category: Home

Tern Rewards is a UAE rent-payment service. It charges your credit card and sends the money to your landlord's bank account on the schedule already in your tenancy contract — monthly, quarterly, or a single cheque. It does not lend you the money or change what you owe, so there is no premium on the rent itself and no credit assessment beyond the limit your card already gives you.

Tern charges no transaction or convenience fee on the transfer, and pays up to 2% of the payment back in Tern points, redeemable with retailers including Amazon, Netflix, and Carrefour. Because the payment reaches your card as ordinary rental-housing spend, your card's own rewards apply on top — which is where the card you use starts to matter more than the platform.

Registration is digital: upload your tenancy contract for verification, add any UAE credit card, and give your landlord's IBAN.

## Referral code

- **8d38ef** — 1,350 bonus Tern points. New Tern Rewards accounts. Enter the code during signup. The bonus, its value, and redemption options are set by Tern Rewards and can change.

## What you get

- **No transaction fee** — Tern does not charge a transaction or convenience fee on the transfer, so whatever your card pays you on the spend is what you keep. Rent-now-pay-later platforms work differently and add 5-15% to the rent itself.
- **Up to 2% in Tern points** — Tern pays up to 2% of the payment back in its own points, redeemable with retailers including Amazon, Netflix, and Carrefour. This is separate from, and additional to, whatever your credit card pays on the same transaction.
- **Keeps your existing schedule** — Tern pays on the cadence already in your tenancy contract, and a single payment can be split across several cards where one card's limit will not stretch. The number of payments matters for card rewards: monthly caps and spend tiers make some cards better at 4 cheques and others better at 12.
- **Digital onboarding** — Tern verifies your tenancy from an uploaded contract, takes any UAE credit card, and pays the rent to your landlord's IBAN. Nothing needs to change on the landlord's side — they receive an ordinary bank transfer.

## Best cards to pay rent through Tern

Rent reaches your card as MCC 6513, rental housing, and most UAE banks drop that code into a reduced 0.1-0.5% bucket. These four pay their full rate on it, confirmed against each issuer's own published terms, and no card outside this list returns more at the rent shape named against it. Every figure is what the card returns in a year after its annual fee.

- **[Liv Cashback+ Credit Card](https://kredit.ae/credit-cards/liv-cashback-plus-credit-card/details)** (Best overall) — Rent counts toward the AED 15,000/month spend tier, so a large enough payment earns the top 4% rate, against a AED 1,500 monthly cashback cap. AED 120,000 rent in 6 payments returns AED 4,065 after the AED 735 annual fee. Cadence decides it: split AED 60,000 into 12 payments and each month falls under the tier, leaving the card AED 135 net-negative.
- **[Invest Bank Platinum Credit Card](https://kredit.ae/credit-cards/invest-bank-platinum-credit-card/details)** (Best for 12 payments) — A flat 3% on all spend, rent included, against a AED 525 annual fee and a AED 1,000 monthly cashback cap. Its terms carry no reduced category at all, which makes it the card for twelve monthly payments: AED 120,000 in 12 payments returns AED 3,075, against AED 2,400 from the next-best card and AED 1,665 from Liv Cashback Plus.
- **[Liv Cashback Credit Card](https://kredit.ae/credit-cards/liv-cashback-credit-card/details)** (Best free card) — The same tier ladder as Cashback Plus at half the rates and no annual fee, capped at AED 750 a month. Nothing to earn back means it leads the free cards from the first dirham: AED 48,000 in 4 cheques returns AED 960, matching Ruya and ahead of Invest Bank Platinum's AED 915 once its fee is counted.
- **[Ruya Mastercard Cashback Credit Card](https://kredit.ae/credit-cards/ruya-cashback-credit-card/details)** (Best for lower rent) — 2% on all spend capped at AED 500 a month, with the AED 313.95 annual fee waived once yearly spend clears AED 30,000 — which rent alone does. Government and utilities are its only exclusions, so rent earns in full: AED 36,000 in 4 cheques returns AED 720, against AED 555 from Invest Bank Platinum and AED 540 from Liv Cashback.

## How to pay your rent through Tern

1. **Pick the card first** — Rent earns very little on most UAE cards, so check the recommendations below against your rent amount and payment cadence before you register — the card you use changes the return far more than anything on Tern's side. A cheque bigger than your credit limit is not a dead end: Tern lets you split one payment across several cards, so two mid-limit cards can cover a cheque neither would carry alone. Cadence still matters, though, because every card here caps what it pays in a month — more payments earn more than one lump sum.
2. **Register with code 8d38ef** — Upload your tenancy contract for verification, add the card you picked, and give your landlord's IBAN. Enter 8d38ef as the referral code during signup for 1,350 bonus Tern points.
3. **Set the schedule your contract already uses** — Match the payment cadence in your tenancy contract. Tern transfers each payment to your landlord's account and the transaction reaches your card as rental-housing spend, so both Tern points and your card's own rewards apply.

## Frequently asked questions

### What is the Tern Rewards referral code?

8d38ef. Enter it during signup and Tern credits 1,350 bonus points to the new account. The bonus and its redemption terms are set by Tern Rewards.

### Does Tern Rewards charge a fee to pay rent by card?

No. Tern charges no transaction or convenience fee on the transfer itself. That is the difference from rent-now-pay-later platforms, which add roughly 5-15% to the rent in exchange for splitting it into instalments.

### Where in the UAE does Tern Rewards work?

Tern advertises its service to renters across the UAE and accepts any UAE credit card. What it needs is a tenancy contract it can verify and a landlord bank account to pay into, so the practical constraint is your paperwork rather than your emirate.

### Which credit card pays the most on rent in the UAE?

It depends on the amount and how many payments you split it into, because rent rewards are governed by monthly caps and spend tiers rather than a single headline rate. Liv Cashback Plus leads from around AED 60,000 a year at two to six payments, Invest Bank Platinum at twelve monthly payments, and Ruya or Liv Cashback at lower rents where the tiered cards cannot reach their top rate. The comparison on this page gives the annual figure for each.

### What if my rent is bigger than my credit limit?

You have two ways round it inside Tern. Split the payment across several credit cards, so a cheque larger than any single limit still goes through; or use Rently within Tern for rent-now-pay-later, which turns the cheque into monthly instalments — that route adds a premium to the rent, so weigh it against the cashback rather than assuming it pays for itself. Where the landlord will accept more frequent payments, that is the better answer anyway: every card on this page caps what it pays per month, so a lump sum leaves most of the rent unrewarded. AED 120,000 returns AED 4,065 on Liv Cashback Plus across 6 payments, against AED 765 in a single cheque.

### Why does rent earn so little on most UAE credit cards?

UAE banks code rent as MCC 6513, rental housing, and most place it in a reduced earning bucket alongside utilities, government, education, and telecom payments — typically 0.1-0.5% instead of the card's headline rate. Only a handful of cards pay a full rate on it.

### Do I earn Tern points and credit card rewards on the same payment?

Yes. Tern pays up to 2% of the payment in its own points, and the transaction also reaches your credit card as ordinary spend, so your card's rewards apply on top.

### Does paying rent by credit card affect my credit score?

Paying rent by card does not by itself affect your AECB score. What matters is utilisation — keeping the balance well below your total credit limit — and paying the statement in full and on time. A single large rent payment can push utilisation high for that cycle.

Last verified: 2026-08-26