Credit Card Payoff Calculator

The minimum payment on a card statement looks like the responsible amount. It is the smallest amount that keeps the account in good standing, and it is sized to keep the balance alive, not to clear it. Enter the balance, the APR, and the minimum formula from your card agreement, and the ledger shows the two numbers the statement buries in a warning box: how long minimum payments take, and what they cost. Then it prices the escape, which is a fixed payment that does not shrink as the balance does.

Sources: Federal Reserve, G.19 Consumer Credit release, October 7, 2026 (average APR 22.36 percent on accounts assessed interest and 21.19 percent across all accounts, August 2026, preliminary); Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, on how issuers calculate minimum payments (1 percent of the balance plus interest, or a flat percentage, with a dollar floor) and on the Minimum Payment Warning required by the Credit CARD Act; Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Household Debt and Credit Report, second quarter 2026 (credit card balances $1.263 trillion); Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, 2025 Credit CARD Act Report (cardholders were charged $160 billion in interest in 2024). Model: each month, interest equals the balance times APR divided by 12; the minimum equals 1 percent of the balance plus that month's interest, or 2 percent of the balance under the flat method, with a $25 floor in either case; the final payment is capped at the balance plus interest; no new purchases, fees, or rate changes. The fixed plan pays the same amount every month until the balance clears. Issuers charge interest daily on the average daily balance, so a real statement can differ by a few dollars. This is a planning estimate, not financial advice.

Step 1 — The balance and the rate

The defaults are the national picture: $5,000 at 22.36 percent, the Federal Reserve average for accounts assessed interest in August 2026. Use the APR printed on your own statement, not the advertised range for new applicants. Store cards and penalty rates run higher, and a single point of APR moves the minimum-only payoff by roughly a year at these balances.

Step 2 — The minimum, and the fixed payment

The 1 percent plus interest formula is the method the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau describes as most common at large issuers, and it is the default here. The flat 2 percent method is used by some credit unions and subprime issuers, and it is slower: at 22.36 percent it takes 96 years and 8 months on the default balance, and at 29.99 percent it never clears at all, because a 2 percent payment is smaller than one month of interest. Check your cardholder agreement for the formula that governs your card. The freeze button sets the fixed payment to the first month's minimum, which is the simplest escape from the trap: pay the amount the statement first asks for, every month, even as the statement asks for less.

The ledger

DECADES OF INTEREST

The first minimum is $143.17. Of that, $93.17 is interest and only $50.00 reduces the balance. The first year of minimum payments costs $1,058.51 in interest and leaves a balance of $4,431.92 on the original $5,000.

The statement warning box, computed for this balance: $191.88 a month clears it in 36 months, with $1,907.85 of interest, saving $6,333.36 against minimum-only payments. That 36-month figure is the payment your statement is required to show.

What other balances cost at the minimum

The same APR and the same minimum formula, applied to five balances. Interest grows faster than the balance, because a larger balance spends more months near its starting size while the minimum shrinks with it.

What a fixed payment buys

Five fixed payments on the balance and APR above. The jump from the $143.17 first minimum to a fixed $150 a month looks small. It cuts more than 14 years off the payoff, because the payment stops shrinking.

Year by year: the balance under each plan

The minimum-only column falls by about 11 percent a year in the early years, then slower in dollars as the floor takes over. The fixed column falls faster every year, because the same payment meets a smaller interest charge each month. When the fixed column reaches zero, the card is gone, and every dollar after that is money that stays with you.

No new purchases are assumed. Every new charge restarts part of this clock, which is why the payoff plan only works on a card that stops being used while it is being paid down. If the fixed payment is more than the budget allows, pay the first minimum as a fixed amount and add whatever is left over in months when there is any. The direction matters more than the size: a payment that does not shrink is what breaks the trap.