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
Sensible default -- modify inputs below to match your situation.
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.
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. Some issuers instead use 1% of balance plus that month's interest and fees. Check your actual statement for your real minimum, this is an estimate for comparison purposes.
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.
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.
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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).