Choose a cardholder type

Learn how to select the best cardholder type for your use case.

When creating a Cardholder object, you have to choose a type: either individual or company. This is an important choice because you can’t change the type after you create the cardholder.

You might have to collect additional information, depending on the cardholder type you choose. For individual cardholders, you must provide first name and last name, and proof of acceptance of Authorized User Terms (only applicable for Celtic Spend Cards). This data isn’t required for company cardholders.

Find your use case

Choosing a cardholder type depends on your use case.

Individual cardholders

You should create individual cardholders if you’re issuing the card to an employee or contractor of your business or to an owner, employee, or contractor of one of your connected accounts.

Here are some example use cases for individual cardholders:

Building a new expense management product for small businesses where the platform issues cards to employees or contractors of those small businesses.
Giving cards to your own employees to make purchases for your company.
Building a fleet card product that issues cards to drivers.
A platform that enables businesses to give cards to their employees for disbursing employee benefits or perks.

Company cardholders

You should create company cardholders if you’re issuing the card directly to an entity.

Here are some example use cases for company cardholders:

A platform that creates virtual cards to use programmatically for online purchases with company funds and for its benefit. For example, purchasing inventory for resale or paying for cloud services. The cards are not given to individual employees for individual expenses (for example, expensing a business lunch).
A platform that creates cards assigned to a vehicle (like a rental car or semi-truck). The cards stay with the vehicle at all times. Alternating drivers use the card to refuel the vehicle. The card does not belong to any one individual.

Changing cardholder type

After a cardholder has been created, you can’t change its type.

If you have linked a card to the cardholder, you can’t change who the cardholder is.

If you haven’t linked any cards to the cardholder, you can create a new cardholder with the correct type. In most cases, you don’t need to delete the existing cardholder. But make sure that you assign the appropriate type to new cardholders to avoid any potential disruption in service.