Credit unions have a reputation as the no-fee, member-friendly option. Checking every card in our directory for a $0 annual fee, the actual gap is much smaller than that reputation suggests.
71.0% of bank cards in our directory charge no annual fee, versus 68.4% of credit union cards — banks are very slightly ahead, not behind. That's almost certainly a mix effect: a huge share of "bank" cards in our directory are mass-market cash-back and student cards from the largest issuers, which compete hard on having no fee at all; credit unions, meanwhile, include more premium travel-rewards and small-business tiers that do carry a fee.
The real credit-union advantage isn't the annual fee — per our first piece, it's the 6.35-point average APR gap. If you carry a balance, that matters far more than a waived $0-$95 annual fee ever will.
Share of cards in each group whose published annual fee is $0 / "no annual fee," across our full directory of 8,170 cards with a listed fee status (fee data checked independently of the APR filter used in other pieces, so totals differ slightly).