Citizens Bank HELOC Review 2025: Decent Rates but Poor Customer Service

3.6 _/5

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HELOC

• Check your rates with a soft credit check, which doesn’t affect your credit
• Low-interest options for borrowers with a good credit history
• Get an offer in 2 minutes and funds within 2 weeks with a Citizens Fastline® application

• Poor customer service experience
• Not available in all 50 states
• Unclear fees

Rates (APR)	Starting at 7.50%
Loan amounts	Up to $400,000
Repayment terms	10-year draw; 10-year repayment

Citizens Bank is a Rhode Island-based personal and business bank offering, among other products, home equity lines of credit (HELOCs). Like any bank, it tries to make its HELOC competitive with specific rates, terms, and repayment options that give the consumer more flexibility. 

But when weighing your HELOC options, is Citizens Bank one of the best places to turn to? In this 2025 review, we’ll compile everything you need to know—from its starting rates to discount policies—to gauge whether taking out your HELOC from Citizens Bank is the best option for you. We found that due to poor ratings online, especially when it comes to customer service—as well as our own negative customer service experience—you may want to consider other options.

Table of Contents

1. How does a Citizens Bank HELOC work?
2. Eligibility and credit score requirements
3. What customers say
4. Pros and cons
5. Alternatives
6. How to apply
7. How we rated Citizens Bank’s HELOC

How does a Citizens Bank HELOC work?

A Citizens Bank HELOC has the traditional terms you’d expect from a home equity line of credit. Your line of credit refers to a loan that works similar to a credit card, letting you borrow as needed up to a predetermined limit. A HELOC is backed by collateral: the equity you hold in your home, which can allow lenders to offer lower interest rates compared to credit cards and unsecured loans (those that don’t use collateral).

Citizens Bank HELOCs can be up to $400,000, depending on the amount of home equity you have available to back the loan. You can expect some of the standard fees, including late payment fees, as part of the terms of this loan. 

Keep in mind that, like all HELOCs, you don’t need to draw from this approved credit if you don’t want to. But if you do, the home equity backing the loan helps secure debt at far superior terms than other personal loans.

Citizens Bank HELOC rates, terms, and more

Terms	Details
Rates (APR)	Starting at 7.50%
Rate discounts	Autopay (select states)
Loan amounts	Up to $400,000
Draw period	10 years
Repayment period	10 years
Fees	Late payment fee
Unique features	Get an offer in as little as 2 minutes

Costs and fees

The annual percentage rate (APR) refers to the interest you pay on the amount borrowed for each year of the loan, as well as any associated fees and costs associated with the loan. With rates starting at 7.50% APR at Citizens Bank, the price of the HELOCs you can obtain here tends to be competitive—don’t be surprised to see 8% to 12% HELOC APRs at other banks in early 2025.

Now, 7.5% is the lowest rate available, and it’s likely only available to the most creditworthy applicants. Whether you can secure that rate on your HELOC will depend on your credit score, the amount of home equity you’re borrowing against, and other factors.

You’ll also owe late fees if you delay any of your monthly payments after drawing from the line of credit. 

Repayment

HELOCs have two basic periods: the draw period and the repayment period. The draw period refers to when you borrow money and may only have to make interest payments while not paying down the principal quite yet. During the 10-year draw period with a Citizens Bank HELOC, you can borrow money and make interest-only payments. 

Once the draw period closes, the HELOC “locks up,” in a sense, allowing you no further credit. You’re now in repayment mode, where you must make regular payments to bring down the debt you’ve incurred. A typical repayment period on a HELOC is 20 years, but Citizens’ is shorter—just 10 years. This can allow you to get out of debt a decade sooner, but monthly payments will be higher than on a line of credit with a 20-year repayment period, all else being equal.

Keep in mind that since the repayment period also includes paying back the principal, you may suddenly see your payments go up. As long as you understand the draw and repayment periods before you agree to the HELOC, you can anticipate this change and plan your HELOC accordingly. 

Citizens Bank HELOC eligibility and credit score requirements

Citizens Bank will run a soft credit check on your background. Also known as a soft pull, this is a quick review of your credit report—and it won’t affect your credit score. Through this soft check, Citizens Bank will check up on basic information, such as your credit score, to help determine your eligibility for the HELOC you want.

Any time you apply for a HELOC (or any type of credit or loan), you can likely get better rates and more favorable terms with a higher credit score.

Requirement	Details
Eligible properties	Primary residence and second vacation home
State of residence	30 states (listed below) and Washington, D.C.
Max LTV	80%

How does home value affect your HELOC terms?

LTV stands for loan-to-value ratio. It’s a financial term that helps you understand how much equity you hold in the home—and, therefore, how much of that equity you can borrow against. Let’s use round numbers. 

Imagine you own a $200,000 home outright, meaning you don’t owe any balance on the home loan. That’s $200,000 in home equity. If your lender allows a maximum LTV of 85%, your HELOC could be up to $170,000. Of course, the numbers here will change depending on how much of your home you’ve paid off—which changes your home equity.

According to online reviews, Citizens Bank may hire an appraiser to determine your home value, so your appraised home value might not match your expectations from the outset.

What customers say about Citizens Bank HELOCs

When we checked out the reviews online, we found that many of Citizens Bank’s customers based their reviews on experiences outside HELOCs—such as securing a debit card from the bank.

So when you do your research here, pay attention to what customers are saying. Dialing up Citizens Bank myself, I found it hard to discover any information about specific HELOC rates, fees, and other key details. Without being a current paying customer of Citizens Bank, you might find it hard to get the answers you need to know before beginning an application. So don’t be surprised if you feel in the dark about Citizens Bank from the get-go; your experience is hardly an aberration.

Still, we should be fair: Not everyone says the same thing about any company. It’s also worth noting that the Better Business Bureau awarded the bank an “A” rating, indicating a high level of trust.

Source	Customer rating	Number of reviews
Trustpilot	1.2/5	627
Google	1.4/5	86

Pros and cons of getting a HELOC from Citizens Bank

Consider the following before you decide whether to proceed with Citizens.

Pros

• Soft credit check

  Running a soft credit check to examine your background can be a minimally invasive way to start the process. Since Citizens Bank runs a soft credit check to make sure you meet its eligibility requirements, this report won’t lower your credit rating if you want to apply for future loans.

• Low rate for creditworthy borrowers

  Not everyone qualifies for the lowest rate available, but Citizens’ minimum rate is among the lowest we found.

• Discounts on autopay

  If you set up autopay with Citizens Bank, you could get discounts on your HELOC that may make life easier as you draw on the line of credit. And if you’re already a customer of Citizens Bank, setting up autopay will likely be easy.

Cons

• Lack of clarity on fees

  Is the only Citizens Bank HELOC fee a late fee? It’s difficult to say. Citizens Bank HELOC details are scant on its website, often requiring you to submit an application for a HELOC before you get answers to these questions. And you deserve to know so you can make an educated decision before you ever fill out an application.

• Poor customer service ratings

  If you’re going to have an appraiser come out and check out the value of your home—if you’re going to secure a HELOC at all—it helps to know that you have good customer service in your corner. Citizens Bank scored poorly on Trustpilot for its customer service.

• Limited availability

  Citizens HELOCs aren’t available in 20 states. (See the full list of states where it’s available above.)

• Lower max LTV of 80%

  Many of the HELOC lenders we’ve reviewed allow higher LTVs—we’ve seen 85%, 90%, even 95%. If you’re shopping for HELOCs to gain access to a tremendous amount of borrowing power, the lower LTV limit can limit your options.

• Shorter repayment period

  Citizens’ 10-year repayment period is shorter than many competitors’ 20-year repayment. This can help you save money by paying off your debt faster—however, principal and interest payments with a 10-year repayment period will be much higher than over 20 years.

Alternatives to a Citizens Bank HELOC 

A HELOC can be an excellent way to give yourself more financial leeway. If you need a sudden infusion of cash to fund a renovation? Borrowing against your home’s equity can be a reliable way to do it in an affordable way. And thanks to Citizens Bank’s low starting rate, your home equity may go further than you imagined.

However, if Citizens Bank’s customer service gives you pause, or the lower LTV limits don’t give you the full borrowing power you’re seeking, plenty of alternatives to Citizens Bank HELOCs are available.

For example, if you’d prefer a fixed-rate HELOC (which helps make your HELOC costs much easier to predict), Figure is an excellent alternative. We also found Figure’s terms much easier to find and understand on its website.

Aven also offers a fixed-rate HELOC—and earns the best customer reviews of all the HELOC lenders we evaluated for our most recent editorial ratings.

How to apply for a HELOC with Citizens Bank

Applying for a HELOC with Citizens Bank can be as simple as visiting the website. Citizens offers a service called Citizens FastLine®, which it advertises as a streamlined, digitized way to apply for your HELOC online—it also appears to be the only way to plug into a HELOC application digitally.

According to Citizens Bank, a digital application through FastLine® can result in a personalized offer within two to three minutes of filling out the form. This way, you’ll have a much stronger sense of the loan amount you can secure and what kind of rate and loan terms you can expect. 

Citizens Bank can close these HELOCs in as few as seven days, resulting in your cash hitting your account as soon as within two weeks of your first application.

To get started, you can take the following steps:

1. Visit the Citizens Bank website. Start at the Citizens Bank homepage, then click “Home Equity Line of Credit” under “Home Loans” on the upper menu.
2. Use the “Get My Rate” feature. From here, you’ll fill out basic details that should only take a few minutes. 
3. Click “Get Me Started,” and work your way through Citizens FastLine®. It will ask for your property use, the address, and other details about your financial situation. For example, under “Property use,” you might choose the menu option that says “Primary residence” if that’s where you live.

How we rated Citizens Bank’s HELOC

We designed LendEDU’s editorial rating system to help readers find companies that offer the best home equity products. Our system awards higher ratings to companies with affordable solutions, positive customer reviews, and online transparency of benefits and terms.

We compared Citizens to several HELOC lenders, using hundreds of data points from company websites, public disclosures, customer reviews, and direct communication with company representatives. We weighted, scored, and combined each factor to produce a final editorial rating. This rating is expressed on a scale from 1 to 5, with 5 being the highest possible score. Our take is represented in our rating, recapped below.

Company/product	LendEDU Rating
Citizens Bank HELOC	3.2/5