What Happens if You Forget Your Debit Card PIN?

Talk about a tough situation.

There's a reason consumers are often advised to pay for purchases with a debit card over a credit card. With a credit card, you risk racking up scores of interest if you don't pay your balance on time. In fact, as of the end of 2022, Americans had a whopping $930 billion in credit card debt, according to data from TransUnion. And that's reason enough to stick to a debit card for upcoming purchases.

Your debit card gives you access to the money you have in your checking account. You can swipe a debit card at a store to pay for a given purchase, and you can use your debit card to withdraw cash from your bank account at an ATM.

To do so, however, you'll need to know your debit card's PIN. And if you don't use your card often, you might run into a situation where you've forgotten your PIN.

In that case, you will have the option to reset your debit card PIN. But the process might take longer than you'd like it to.

When your memory fails you

Given the number of passwords you might be juggling in your brain these days, it's easy to see how you might end up forgetting your debit card PIN. If this happens, you may want to log onto your bank's website (assuming you haven't forgotten your password) and see if you can reset your debit card PIN there. It may be an option -- but often, it won't be.

Rather, in many cases, you'll need to visit your bank to reset your debit card PIN or call your bank and speak to a live agent. If you go to your bank in person and show up with proof of ID, you may be able to have your debit card PIN reset on the spot. But if you can't make it over to your bank, you may, for security reasons, need to wait for your bank to mail you a letter with your new PIN.

Should you write down your debit card PIN to avoid forgetting it?

That's not necessarily a smart move. Let's say you have your debit card PIN written on a piece of paper in your wallet, and you then lose your wallet. If someone dishonest finds it, they can't really do much damage to your checking account if they don't have the ability to use your debit card. But if your PIN is right there, someone can take money out of your account or swipe your debit card to buy things.

That's why you don't want to carry around your debit card PIN in writing. But one thing you can do is write that information down and store it in a locked safe at home.

That won't help you if you're out and about and need to take a withdrawal from your local ATM. But that way, you can at least access that information once you get home, as opposed to potentially having to wait for your bank to send you a letter with a new debit card PIN in the mail.