What is my income for the purposes of applying for a credit card?

bris

What you pay yourself is irrelevant, what you show is what is paid to you. Whether you take all of it to live on is nothing to do with them, they just need to see all of what you get from other sources, employment, pensions, interest etc.

Time4T_Accounts

In which case, nothing at all is paid to me. Everything I ‘get’ is as a result of my own stock market investments made over my working life (I’ve not yet reached State Pension Age).  I can’t even show a stream of rental income.  

Vortigern

I have never been asked by a credit card company for proof of income -  which consists of 2 pensions, some (shrinking) interest from savings and some (notional) return on investments.

I'm not suggesting that you exaggerate your income, but it's important to be consistent in entering your income on subsequent applications. The credit companies and banks will report the details from your application to "National Hunter" - who will highlight any major changes from one application to the next.

Se1Lad

I only have one income from one employer - when applying for any credit I always list my total compensation package which includes salary, pension contributions I make, pension contributions my employer makes, bonus and other benefits I am provided with.  I could if I chose to for example reduce my pension contributions and take a higher salary, or convert the benefits to salary which is why I include everything provided by my employer as my income. 

 A couple of times when applying for new credit I have been asked for proof of income and have submitted payslips which could suggest a lower income than I have provided (as they don’t include my annual bonus for example depending on the dates of payslips they ask for), but this has never been questioned or challenged.

Time4T_Accounts

I get the bit about income informing the credit limit, but I wasn’t sure whether a company such as Amex might have minimum income requirements (the MSE ‘best buy’ is silent on this point) ...