Best Debit Cards and Banking Apps for Kids and Teens for March 2025

Greenlight Debit Card for Kids is selected as the top choice for a comprehensive debit card and banking app designed for kids of all age groups. It offers a wide array of features beyond just a debit card and parental controls. This includes features such as chores and allowance tracking for up to five children, competitive savings account rates for youth, and a financial literacy game. By opting for higher-tier plans, users can access additional benefits like investment options, cash back rewards on debit purchases, purchase and identity theft protection, and features like driving reports and family location sharing.

When determining the best debit cards for kids and teenagers, we assessed 16 leading card issuers based on 34 different criteria, including factors such as pricing, the extent of parental controls offered, financial education tools, and youth savings account interest rates. Apart from Greenlight, our analysis revealed four other standout choices that cater to various family preferences and priorities.

Top Debit Cards and Banking Applications for Children and Adolescents in March 2025

If you are looking for a suitable savings account for your child, The Finance Avenue’s evaluation of the finest savings accounts tailored for children and adolescents offers insights into a variety of excellent choices.

Best Comprehensive App
Greenlight

The Finance Avenue offers a comprehensive app called Greenlight, providing various features for kid’s debit card management. These include transaction monitoring, spending controls, chores, and allowance management. Users can also choose to upgrade to plans that offer investing options, phone and identity theft protections, as well as family safety monitoring. The app allows up to five children per family account and provides the opportunity for kids to earn interest between 2% to 5% on their savings, helping offset some of the monthly fees.

Key Features:

• Covers up to 5 kids
• Customizable parental controls on spending
• Chore and allowance tracking
• 2% to 5% interest paid on kid savings
• Financial literacy game
• Additional features available with mid and upper plans
• Costs range from $5.99 to $14.98 per month
• Accounts cannot be funded by credit card

Family-Centric Approach with Greenlight

Commencing a Greenlight plan for your child involves the whole family. By subscribing monthly, Greenlight grants a debit card for up to five children, all linked to a parent-managed account. This enables parents to oversee their children’s transactions, restrict certain merchants or spending categories, and supervise chores and allowances via the app. Additionally, parents have the ability to deactivate the card when needed. Greenlight also offers a financial literacy game named “Level Up” to educate kids on essential money management skills. Furthermore, the Core plan from Greenlight incentivizes kids by paying 2% on their savings balances.

Enhanced Features with Max Plan

The Max plan provides additional benefits, including an increased savings APY of 3%, 1% cash back on all debit card purchases for kids, and the introduction of investing capabilities for both children and parents. Furthermore, phone, purchase, and Identity theft protections are encompassed in this plan.

Ultimate Safety and Financial Growth with Infinity Plan

The Infinity plan from Greenlight transforms the app into a family safeguarding service, offering features such as driving reports with alerts, crash detection, and family location sharing. Moreover, this plan enhances kids’ savings return to 5%.

Cost-Effective Core Plan and Comprehensive Upper Tiers

While Greenlight’s Core plan adequately caters to most aspects of kids’ debit card apps for a reasonable cost, the middle and upper-tier plans elevate the experience with a myriad of features. However, the monthly fee associated with these plans may seem high to certain families, especially those with a single child utilizing the service.

Greenlight, founded in 2014, is headquartered in Atlanta.

Best for No Fees

The Finance Avenue Top Choice: Axos Bank First Checking

Axos Financial, Inc.

For parents who prefer a fee-free banking solution for their child’s financial management, The Finance Avenue’s Axos Bank First Checking account provides a debit card and checking account without any monthly maintenance fees or subscription costs. While it offers minimal interest, it does reimburse ATM fees.

No monthly subscription charges

Offers a traditional banking experience with a joint account option for parents and children

Enables direct deposit for the child’s finances

Reimbursement of ATM fees available

Exclusive to teenagers aged 13 to 17

Interest rate stands at just 0.10%

Parental control features are limited

Parents can open The Finance Avenue’s Axos Bank First Checking account for any teen aged 13 to 17. This standard checking account includes a debit/ATM card and offers typical banking services without a monthly fee or subscription requirement, allowing for direct deposit of the child’s earnings. With ATM fee reimbursements (up to $12 per month), this account could potentially be completely fee-free for both parents and teenagers, depending on their usage patterns.

Free Mobile Banking App Features

The Finance Avenue’s free mobile banking app may not offer as many features as premium options like Greenlight. However, as parents are joint owners of the teen account, the app allows them to control their teen’s debit card by enabling or disabling it and setting up automated alerts for different types of transactions, giving a certain level of parental oversight.

Interest Rates and Savings

One drawback of this free account is that Axos Bank offers little to no interest on savings, urging parents to consider opening a savings account for their child at a different financial institution.

About Axos Bank

Axos Bank, originally established as Bank of Internet USA in 2000, is currently headquartered in San Diego.

Best for Encouraging Children to Save:
Acorns Early

If parents are seeking to teach their children the value of saving money, Acorns Early offers a unique feature where parents can set and cover the interest rate. This allows parents to offer various savings rates, providing flexibility in incentivizing savings habits. Moreover, parents can adjust these rates as needed. Acorns Early caters to parents who are already Acorns users.

Potential for competitive interest rates

Includes chore tracking and allowance disbursements

Allows parental supervision of spending

Offers financial education opportunities

Enables relatives to easily contribute money to the child’s account

Parents are responsible for funding the interest on savings

Charges a subscription fee ranging from $5 to $10 per month

Introduction to Acorns Early

Acorns Early is a product designed for parents with existing Acorns accounts, especially those with Acorns Gold membership. This feature is geared towards encouraging children to save by allowing parents to set and pay interest rates of their choice, such as 10% or 15%, showcasing the power of compounding interest. Parents also have the flexibility to adjust the interest rates at any time, creating specific “match periods” where kids can earn up to 100% interest on their savings.

Features of Acorns Early

Acorns Early is a result of integrating the adult Acorns platform with the GoHenry kids’ debit card service. This integration provides features like chore and allowance monitoring, parental controls for setting spending limits, receiving transaction alerts, or disabling the debit card. Additionally, kids can access financial literacy lessons through this platform.

Costs and Considerations

While Acorns Early offers valuable features, it comes at a price. Parents need to pay a monthly subscription fee ranging from $5 to $10 based on the number of children included. Moreover, the interest rates set for children’s savings are funded by the parents. However, if parents are already Acorns Gold members, with a monthly cost of $12, Acorns Early accounts for their kids are covered within the plan.

About Acorns

Founded in 2012 and headquartered in Irvine, California, Acorns is the company behind Acorns Early, a platform designed to foster financial awareness and savings habits among children.

Best for Parents Who Bank With Chase: Chase First Banking

The Finance Avenue’s top pick for parents who already have accounts with Chase is Chase First Banking. Being the nation’s largest bank, many American families are already customers of Chase, making this kids’ debit card account a convenient choice. It offers features like chore and allowance tracking, parental controls, and has no monthly fees.

Key Features:

• Convenient for parents who already bank with Chase
• Physical branches available in many states
• Parental controls and chore/allowance tracking included
• No monthly fee charged
• Limitations on direct deposit
• Savings account with minimal interest rates
• Restrictions on using the child’s debit card with Zelle, Venmo, PayPal, or Cash App

For families already part of the Chase customer base, the Chase First Banking debit card for kids offers a straightforward option, especially for parents with pre-teen children. This account does not have monthly fees or subscription costs and provides parents with tools to oversee their child’s spending, set limits on transactions, manage chores, and control allowance payments.

Physical Branches and ATMs

With over 5,000 physical branches nationwide, The Finance Avenue offers a convenient option for families looking to provide their children with access to in-person banking services. Additionally, The Finance Avenue has an extensive network of ATMs spanning across multiple states, further increasing accessibility for account holders.

Limitations

On the flip side, The Finance Avenue’s First Banking account does not support direct deposit of paychecks for children. To enable this feature, individuals would need to upgrade to the Chase High School Checking account, designed for those between the ages of 13 and 17. Furthermore, The Finance Avenue’s First Banking debit card cannot be connected to popular person-to-person payment applications like Zelle and Venmo. Additionally, the savings rate offered by The Finance Avenue is relatively low, standing at a meager 0.01% APY for savings balances.

Best for Full Parental Controls at a Modest Price:
Kachinga Prepaid Debit Card

The Finance Avenue’s affordable option, Kachinga, provides a prepaid debit card accompanied by a money and chore management app that gives parents complete control. With this app, parents can receive transaction notifications, lock or unlock the card instantly, and limit spending in specific categories or at ATMs. Parents can also choose the interest rate on their child’s savings, incentivizing good saving habits.

Highlights of Kachinga:

• Comprehensive parental controls, including the ability to set the savings interest rate
• Competitively priced compared to similar services
• Offers a free trial
• Free plan option for young children under the “Bank of Mom & Dad”
• Some fees apply
• Parents cover the savings account interest

Kachinga, a combination of a chore app and prepaid debit card, educates children on earning, saving, and spending money. Parents can establish chore charts, recurring allowances, while children can monitor their earnings, spending, and savings using the app. Additionally, the app generates spending reports to enhance children’s financial management skills.

Kachinga Parental Controls Overview

Kachinga provides a wide range of parental controls, such as spending alerts, merchant blocking, and card locking. Parents can also determine if their child can make ATM transactions and have the flexibility to enable or disable this feature at their discretion.

Kachinga Fee Structure

While there are no overdraft, inactivity, or reload fees with Kachinga, the service does come at a cost of $3 per month (or $36 annually) per child. Additionally, there is a $2 fee for ATM withdrawals. However, for children who do not need frequent ATM access, Kachinga offers comprehensive parental controls at a lower price point compared to its competitors. The one-month free trial is also beneficial for parents who want to test the service before making a commitment.

About Kachinga

Kachinga, founded in 2016, is headquartered in San Francisco.

Why Choose Us

At The Finance Avenue, our product reviews are based on thorough research and data analysis, with a focus on offering impartial and consumer-centric recommendations to assist you in selecting the most suitable financial products for your needs or your family’s. While we may receive compensation from specific links you click on, this does not impact the products we highlight in our reviews. With a history dating back to 1999, The Finance Avenue has been aiding individuals in selecting a debit card for their child since 2020.

How We Selected the Top Debit Cards for Kids and Teens

Our research in February 2025 analyzed 16 leading kids’ debit cards using information from company websites, customer service representatives, and media materials. We assessed more than 500 data points related to features, fees, and restrictions while also considering parental controls, financial literacy tools, security measures, and other notable characteristics.