U.S. Bank Appears to Drop Leverage Card for 2% Essentials

U.S. Bank appears to have discontinued its Leverage business card, according to Doctor of Credit on Oct. 11, two weeks after launching two flat 2% cash-back cards.

If you run ad spend, freight and software through a business card, this decides how much cash back you keep and whether you park $15,000 or more in a U.S. Bank checking account to get the full rate. I track moves like this at Ecommerce Paradise because card rewards are a real line in a high-ticket store’s margin.

Below is what was reported, how the new lineup is built, the math on a hypothetical store, and six moves for this week. The replacement cards are decent. The relationship tiers are where owners will overpay if they do not run the numbers first.

New business cards and bank accounts should sit under an LLC you formed the right way, and Northwest Registered Agent is the LLC formation service I point ecommerce owners to. The address on an LLC filing is where plaintiffs and regulators look first, and Northwest’s registered agent address keeps yours off it. Form your LLC with Northwest →

U.S. Bank’s Leverage Card Looks Gone After Business Essentials Launch

Doctor of Credit published a post on Oct. 11 titled “U.S. Bank Discontinues U.S. Bank Leverage Business Card,” saying the card appears discontinued shortly after the bank launched two new business cards. The headline carries more certainty than the evidence behind it. I have not seen a U.S. Bank notice confirming the discontinuation, and the bank’s own launch release does not mention it.

A second outlet reported the same thing earlier. Danny the Deal Guru wrote on Sept. 29 that U.S. Bank discontinued the Altitude Power and Leverage business cards as part of the same change, without naming a specific replacement for either. Travel On Points, in its Oct. 2 launch coverage, said it did not cover what happens to the Leverage or Altitude Power cards. PYMNTS, which covered the launch on Sept. 28, also did not mention any discontinued cards.

The two replacement cards

U.S. Bank launched the Business Essentials Visa and the Business Essentials Plus Visa Signature on Monday, Sept. 28, 2026, per PYMNTS. Courtney Kelso, senior executive vice president of payments, consumer and small business at U.S. Bank, said in the Business Wire release that small business owners “deserve financial products that reward their ambition and empower them to succeed.” Actress Jessica Alba is the new small business spokesperson.

The Business Essentials Visa has no annual fee and pays unlimited 2% cash back on eligible purchases. The welcome offer is $500 after $5,000 of spend in 150 days, plus a 0% intro APR on purchases for 12 billing cycles for qualifying new cardholders. Per Business Wire, the 2% can rise to 2.5% with a qualifying balance in a qualified business checking account.

The Business Essentials Plus Visa Signature charges $295 a year. It also pays 2% on everything, plus 5% on your top eligible spending category each month, up to $200,000 a year. The welcome offer is $1,000 after $15,000 of spend in 150 days.

Where the relationship rates kick in

Per the U.S. Bank card page, the Plus card’s earning bonus applies to up to $200,000 of eligible purchases a year and depends on qualifying balances in an eligible U.S. Bank business checking account. The tiers:

A 30-day average balance of $15,000 to $74,999 lifts the total rate to 2.5%. A balance of $75,000 to $149,999 gets 3%. A balance of $150,000 or more gets the 3.5% headline rate. The no-fee card tops out at 2.5%, on the first $10,000 of eligible purchases per billing cycle, with at least $10,000 in qualifying balances, per CardRates.

The top-category list on the Plus card covers accounting and tax services, airlines, cell phone providers, dining, entertainment, office supply stores, postal and shipping services, and utilities. U.S. Bank says the categories may change without notice. Advertising is not on the list.

Cash back redeemed as a deposit into an eligible U.S. Bank account or as a statement credit gets the full stated value. Other redemptions may pay at a reduced rate, and points expire after 12 consecutive statement cycles with no reward, purchase or balance activity. Cash back booked through the U.S. Bank Travel Center pays 6% on prepaid hotels and car rentals on the no-fee card and 10% on the Plus card.

Why U.S. Bank Is Chasing a Flat 2% Business Card Lineup

U.S. Bank is following the demand it can measure. PYMNTS Intelligence’s SMB Growth Monitor found that 35.5% of small and mid-sized businesses said rewards or cash-back features influenced their choice of primary card. For 14.1% it was the main reason, and for 21.3% it was important but not the top factor.

The Leverage card was pitched around categories. U.S. Bank introduced the Business Leverage Visa Signature in September 2018 with a pitch about delivering value where businesses spend the most, per the bank’s 2018 announcement. The new Plus card keeps a category bonus but applies it automatically to whichever eligible category you spend the most in, so you do not pick anything.

Issuers trimming and reshaping business cards is not new. Chase cut Ink Business Preferred Hyatt transfers 25%, which I broke down in my post on that devaluation. Amex moved the Business Gold shipping credit from FedEx to UPS, covered in this breakdown. The pattern is the same each time. The headline number holds and the terms underneath move.

The timing also lines up with the fight over swipe fees. Card issuers fund rich cash-back programs partly from interchange, and the political pressure on those fees is rising, as I laid out when Trump backed the Credit Card Competition Act. My read is that a flat 2% product is easier for a bank to defend and reprice than a menu of category bonuses, because there is one number to change and one number customers compare. If interchange gets squeezed, expect the base rate and the relationship tiers to be the first things adjusted, not the marketing.

There is a fair counterpoint. A no-fee 2% card is competitive with the field. As a baseline, Chase’s Ink Business Unlimited pays 1.5% on every purchase with a $0 annual fee and a $750 bonus after $6,000 in three months, per Chase. Travel On Points values the Plus welcome offer at $705 after the annual fee. And if Doctor of Credit has the Leverage news wrong, current cardholders keep their card and nothing here changes for them.

What 2% and a 5% Category Mean for Ad-Heavy Store Owners

What follows is my read, not reporting. The math below is hypothetical and uses round numbers, so swap in your own statements.

Take a high-ticket store that puts $240,000 a year of ad spend, $48,000 of freight and $12,000 of software and phone on one card. That is $300,000 of annual spend. On a 1.5% flat card that returns $4,500. On the Plus card, ad spend at the 2% base returns $4,800, freight as the 5% top category returns $2,400, and the $12,000 at 2% returns $240. That totals $7,440, or $7,145 after the $295 fee. The hypothetical gap is about $2,645 a year, and it exists before you touch a relationship tier.

Ad spend is the piece to watch. Google and Meta billing is not on U.S. Bank’s top-category list, so it earns the 2% base unless the bank says otherwise. That is still half a point better than 1.5%. It is also well short of what a card with an advertising bonus category pays, so the Plus card suits a store whose freight and shipping line is large enough to win the 5% slot.

Now the tiers. This is where I would not follow the marketing. Assume, hypothetically, that spare cash earns 4% somewhere else. The first tier needs $15,000 parked, which costs about $600 a year in foregone interest and returns an extra half point on up to $200,000, or $1,000. That works. The 3% tier needs $75,000 parked, which costs about $3,000 in foregone interest against roughly $2,000 of extra cash back. The 3.5% tier needs $150,000 parked, which costs about $6,000 against roughly $3,000. Chasing the headline rate loses money under that assumption, and only the first tier clears the bar. At a different savings yield the answer moves, so run your own number.

Run a second scenario for a smaller store. Say it spends $90,000 a year on ads, $9,000 on freight and $6,000 on software, for $105,000 total. The no-fee Business Essentials returns 2% on all of it, or $2,100, against $1,575 on a 1.5% flat card. That is a $525 gap with no annual fee and no balance requirement. The Plus card would earn 5% on freight, adding $270 over the 2% base, which does not cover the $295 fee. For this store the fee card loses and the free card is the obvious pick.

Software spend deserves its own check this quarter. California will start taxing SaaS on Jan. 1, per my audit of the store tool stack, so the line you thought was $6,000 may be higher next year. The reward on a bigger software bill is nice, but it does not offset the tax. Put a tax line in the model before you decide how much of your stack to route through any card.

The other risk is liquidity. A high-ticket store lives on float between a customer paying and a supplier getting paid. I wrote about that discipline in my cash-flow-first card system, and it applies here.

Locking $75,000 into a checking account to earn a rate bonus is a bad trade if it forces you onto a credit line when a supplier invoice lands. Treasury yields are at a 24-year high, as I covered in my yield post, so credit lines are not cheap. Financing is also harder to find elsewhere. The SBA 7(a) credit box is tightening.

Holiday borrowing makes this more urgent, since 49% of holiday shoppers expect to borrow, per the ICSC survey I covered, and your own financing needs usually peak when theirs do. The alternative to card float is shipping-data lending, which Stripe and FedEx are planning for SMBs, though that is still a plan and not a product you can apply for.

Recurring platform bills are the easiest spend to route correctly. Your Shopify plan bills every month with no variation. An email tool like Klaviyo does the same. Both earn the base rate with zero effort. Put them on the card that wins your ad spend and move on.

Two smaller flags. First, points expire after 12 idle statement cycles, so a card you demote to a drawer will lose its balance. Second, a bank that can change the top-category list without notice can also change what counts as a shipping or accounting merchant, so verify your biggest vendors against the category list before you count on the 5%. If you want a second set of eyes on the whole stack of cards, banks, processors and tools, my team builds and runs high-ticket stores with that financial plumbing set up so the owner is not reconciling card categories by hand.

Not sure which business card actually fits your ad spend and freight? I laid out the picks I would start with. See my credit card picks →

Six Moves for Leverage Holders and Card Shoppers This Week

Here are six things to do before you apply for or switch anything.

Pull 12 months of card statements and sort spend into advertising, freight, software and everything else. Do it in Finaloop if your books live there. FreshBooks exports by category too. A spreadsheet works if you have neither. You need the dollar figure for each bucket before any card comparison means anything.
If you hold a Leverage card, call U.S. Bank and ask directly whether it is closing and what product-change options exist. Get the answer in writing. Do not rely on a blog post, mine included, for a decision that moves your credit line.
Check your largest freight and accounting vendors against the 5% category list and decide whether freight is big enough to carry the $295 fee. As a rough test, the 5% slot pays about three points above the 2% base, so you need roughly $10,000 a year in the top category to cover the fee on that alone.
Skip the 3% and 3.5% relationship tiers unless your spare cash would otherwise sit idle at a low yield. Keep your operating float in an account built for it, such as the one in my Mercury walkthrough.
If you pay overseas suppliers, compare a card’s foreign transaction fee against sending the money through Wise. The U.S. Bank pages I read do not list a foreign transaction fee, so ask before you route supplier payments through either new card.
Check your business credit profile before applying anywhere. Nav shows what lenders see, and a hard pull you did not plan for is an easy mistake. If you want a human to look at the whole picture, book a discovery call and we will walk through it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the U.S. Bank Leverage card officially discontinued?
Not confirmed by U.S. Bank in anything I could read. Doctor of Credit says it appears discontinued, and Danny the Deal Guru reported the same on Sept. 29. Call the bank before you assume your card is closing.

Do I need a U.S. Bank checking account to get either new card?
No. Per CardRates, a U.S. Bank checking account is not required for either card. You need one only to earn the higher relationship rates, which depend on qualifying balances.

Which card fits a dropshipping store with big ad spend?
The no-fee Business Essentials is the simpler fit if most spend is advertising, since ad spend earns the 2% base on both cards. The Plus makes sense when freight or shipping is large enough to win the 5% slot. My high-ticket dropshipping guide covers how the margins work.

Does a business card application affect my personal credit?
It can, depending on the issuer and how the account is reported. Travel On Points says most business cards do not show on personal credit reports, which is why these two are not expected to affect Chase’s 5/24 count. Check the application terms for your own case.

Should I put chargeback-prone purchases on a rewards card?
Keep your processor reserves and dispute exposure separate from your rewards strategy. My guide to chargeback prevention for high-ticket stores explains why, and the same logic applies to a backup plan if one account freezes.

Where do I start if I do not have an LLC or business bank account yet?
Form the entity first, then open banking and cards under it. My checklist for starting a US store from abroad walks the order. The free beginner guide covers the basics.

Already running a store and want my team to take the growth, ads and back-end off your plate? See the scaling service →

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Trevor Fenner

Trevor Fenner is an ecommerce entrepreneur and the founder of Ecommerce Paradise, a platform focused on helping entrepreneurs build and scale profitable high-ticket ecommerce and dropshipping businesses. With over a decade of hands-on experience, Trevor specializes in high-ticket dropshipping strategy, niche and product selection, supplier recruiting and onboarding, Google & Bing Shopping ads, ecommerce SEO, and systems-driven automation and scaling. Through Ecommerce Paradise, he provides free education via in-depth guides like How to Start High-Ticket Dropshipping, advanced training through the High-Ticket Dropshipping Masterclass, and fully done-for-you turnkey ecommerce services for entrepreneurs who want a faster, more hands-off path to growth. Trevor is known for emphasizing sustainable, real-world ecommerce models over hype-driven tactics, helping store owners build scalable, sellable, and location-independent brands.