Enter your balance, APR, and payment. We show how long the minimum payment actually takes against a fixed higher payment, and what each path costs in interest.
Last reviewed August 2026
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Card issuers set the minimum payment low on purpose. A low minimum keeps you paying interest for years instead of months, and interest is how the card company makes its money. The CFPB and Regulation Z require issuers to disclose your APR, but nothing requires them to nudge you toward paying it off fast.
This calculator does not do the persuasive math for the bank. It runs the numbers straight: how long the minimum payment actually takes, and how much less time and interest a fixed higher payment costs instead.
Leave the calculator above on its defaults, a $5,000 balance at 22.99% APR, close to the Federal Reserve's June 2026 average of 22.15% for accounts carrying a balance (G.19 Consumer Credit report, cited below). This calculator's minimum-payment model is 2% of the balance or $25, whichever is greater, so the estimated minimum here is $100 a month. Running that $100 payment through the same amortization loop the calculator uses takes 167 months, just under 14 years, and costs $11,694 in total interest, more than double the original balance.
The fixed-payment field defaults to $200 a month, double the minimum. Run that through the same loop and it finishes in 35 months, under 3 years, for $1,871 in total interest. That difference, $100 more a month, saves 132 months (11 years) and $9,823 in interest on a single card. This is not a rounded illustration; it is the exact output of the calculator's own payoff loop for these inputs, run independently to confirm it matches.
There is a side effect of paying this down faster worth naming even though it is outside what this calculator computes: your credit utilization ratio, the share of your total available credit you are using, is one of the larger factors in most credit scoring models. Taking a $5,000 balance from most of a $5,500 limit down toward $0 over 35 months instead of 167 does more than save interest; it also lowers that ratio the entire time, which commonly helps a credit score even before the balance reaches zero.
There is no single universal formula, issuers set their own minimum payment rules. This calculator uses the common educational model: 2% of the balance, or $25, whichever is greater, held constant against your starting balance rather than recalculated month to month. Some issuers instead use 1% of balance plus that month's interest and fees, or recompute the percentage against your current balance every statement. Check your actual statement for your real minimum, this is an estimate for comparison purposes.
If you are paying down more than one card, the order changes your total interest even when your total monthly payment stays the same. The avalanche method puts every extra dollar toward the highest-APR card first while paying the minimum on the rest, which minimizes total interest paid, mathematically the cheapest approach. The snowball method puts extra dollars toward the smallest balance first regardless of its rate, which pays off individual cards faster and is designed to build the momentum and confidence that keeps people sticking with a payoff plan. Run each of your cards through this calculator individually, in both orders, to see the dollar difference for your specific balances and rates rather than taking either method's reputation on faith.
Before 1978 many states capped how much interest a lender could charge, called a usury cap. The Supreme Court case Marquette National Bank of Minneapolis v. First of Omaha Service Corporation, 439 U.S. 299 (1978), held that a national bank can charge the interest rate allowed in its home state to customers anywhere in the country. Card issuers responded by chartering in states with no usury cap, mainly Delaware and South Dakota, and lending nationally at whatever rate they set. The result: a cardholder in a state with a low historical usury cap gets no protection from it on a card issued by an out-of-state bank.
Both payoff paths use the same standard amortization loop: each month, interest accrues on the remaining balance at the monthly rate (APR divided by 12), the payment is applied, and the remainder reduces principal. The loop runs for up to 600 months (50 years) as a safety guard. If a payment does not cover that month's interest, the balance cannot shrink, this calculator detects that case and flags it instead of returning a misleading number.
It models one card at a time. If you are juggling several cards, the order you attack them in (highest APR first, called avalanche, or smallest balance first, called snowball) changes your total interest and payoff date, run each card's numbers here to compare. It also does not model new charges added during the payoff period, promotional 0% balance transfer offers, or balance transfer fees, which typically run 3 to 5 percent of the transferred amount.
Take that same $5,000 balance at 22.99% APR and run the numbers on a typical 0% APR balance transfer offer with a 3% transfer fee instead. A 3% fee on $5,000 is $150, usually added to the transferred balance, bringing it to $5,150. Commit to clearing that balance within an 18-month promotional window and the required payment is $5,150 divided by 18, about $286.11 a month, with $0 interest during the promo period since the rate is 0%.
Now compare that to staying on the original 22.99% card and paying that same $286.11 a month without transferring: the amortization loop finishes in 22 months instead of 18, and costs $1,147 in interest along the way. Transferring costs a flat $150 fee and finishes 4 months sooner; staying costs $1,147 in interest and takes longer. The transfer saves roughly $997 net of its own fee, in this specific example. That gap shrinks or reverses on a shorter promo window, a smaller balance, or a higher transfer fee, so run your own balance, fee percentage, and promo length before assuming a transfer offer is automatically the cheaper path.
This calculator uses the common educational model of 2% of the balance or $25, whichever is greater. Actual issuer minimums vary, check your statement for your real minimum.
The balance never goes down and grows instead. This calculator flags that case directly rather than showing a misleading payoff date, since one does not exist at that payment level.
Effectively no. Since the 1978 Marquette decision, national banks can charge the rate allowed in their home state to customers anywhere in the country, and most major issuers charter in states with no usury cap.
The National Foundation for Credit Counseling (nfcc.org) is a nonprofit network of certified credit counselors offering free or low-cost debt management guidance.
Mathematically, the highest interest rate first (avalanche) minimizes total interest paid. Paying off the smallest balance first (snowball) usually costs a little more in interest but clears individual cards faster, which some people find easier to stick with. Run your actual balances through this calculator both ways to see the real dollar gap for your situation rather than assuming.
The Federal Reserve's G.19 Consumer Credit report put the average APR on accounts assessed interest at 22.15% as of June 2026 data (released August 2026), up from 21.52% the prior quarter. The average across all accounts, including those not currently carrying a balance, was lower at 20.94%. Check the current release at federalreserve.gov/releases/g19 and use your own statement's APR in the calculator above rather than a national average, since your actual rate is what determines your real payoff timeline.
Disclaimer. This calculator is designed to estimate credit card payoff timelines based on the information you provide. It is not financial advice and does not account for all factors that may affect your actual payoff outcome, including changes to your APR, new charges made during the payoff period, or balance transfer fees. Consult a nonprofit credit counselor or licensed financial advisor for personalized debt management guidance. Free nonprofit credit counseling is available through the National Foundation for Credit Counseling (nfcc.org).