Credit Card Payoff Calculator
How long a card balance actually takes to clear — and what paying only the minimum costs you in years and interest.
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Written and maintained by ReadoutKit / Takashi Yamazaki
How this works
The number the statement does not print
A card statement tells you the balance, the rate and the minimum due. What it rarely tells you plainly is the one figure that decides whether the debt is a nuisance or a decade: how long the balance takes to clear at the amount you actually pay, and what that costs in interest along the way.
That figure is not intuitive, because it does not move in proportion to the payment. Raising a payment by ten per cent does not shorten the term by ten per cent — it shortens it by considerably more, because every extra unit goes entirely to the balance, and the interest charged in every remaining month falls with it. The relationship is compounding run in reverse, and the leverage sits at the end of the term where the balance is smallest.
Why the minimum payment is designed the way it is
Minimum payments are usually set as a percentage of the outstanding balance, with a floor of a fixed amount for small balances. The consequence of the percentage is easy to state and hard to feel: the payment falls as you pay. A 2% minimum on a $5,000 balance is $100 this month, $98 next month, and keeps retreating.
Interest, meanwhile, is also a percentage of the balance. At a 20% APR, the monthly rate is about 1.67%. When the minimum is 2% and the interest is 1.67%, only 0.33% of the balance goes to the debt each month, and the term stretches over decades. If the minimum percentage is at or below the monthly rate, the balance never clears at all — the calculator reports that case as a failure rather than a large number, because it is one.
Switch the mode to a fixed payment set at the first month's minimum, and the same debt clears several times faster for the same starting outlay. The difference is not in what you pay this month. It is in refusing to let the payment shrink.
What the payment size buys you
A $6,000 balance at 22.8% APR, with only the monthly payment moving.
| Monthly payment | To clear | Total interest | Total paid | Interest vs balance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $150 | 76 mo | $5,374 | $11,374 | 89.6% |
| $200 | 45 mo | $2,968 | $8,968 | 49.5% |
| $300 | 26 mo | $1,620 | $7,620 | 27.0% |
| $400 | 18 mo | $1,130 | $7,130 | 18.8% |
| $600 | 12 mo | $718 | $6,718 | 12.0% |
Compare the first two rows. Fifty dollars more a month takes 31 months off the payoff and $2,406 off the interest. The right-hand column is the same story as a ratio: at $150 a month the interest comes to 89.6% of what you borrowed — you nearly pay for the balance twice — and at $600 a month it is 12%. Nothing about the debt changed between those two rows except the speed.
The rate moves the cost; the payment moves the clock
Same $6,000, always $200 a month, with the APR varying instead.
| APR | To clear | Total interest | Total paid |
|---|---|---|---|
| 15.0% | 38 mo | $1,567 | $7,567 |
| 18.0% | 41 mo | $2,031 | $8,031 |
| 21.0% | 43 mo | $2,582 | $8,582 |
| 24.0% | 47 mo | $3,255 | $9,255 |
| 27.0% | 51 mo | $4,103 | $10,103 |
Between 15% and 27% — nearly double the rate — the payoff stretches from 38 months to 51, only 13 months. The interest, meanwhile, goes from $1,567 to $4,103, a factor of 2.6. This is worth internalising: the rate mostly sets the price, and the payment sets the schedule. In the previous table, changing the payment moved the payoff by 64 months. A balance transfer that lowers your APR is worth real money, but if the payment stays the same, the debt will still be there for years.
The minimum shrinks, and that is the whole problem
Because the minimum is a percentage of what you still owe, it falls as you pay. The table below pays the minimum as billed on one side, and freezes the first month’s figure on the other. Nothing else differs.
| Balance | First payment | Paying the minimum | Same amount, frozen | Interest difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $2,000 | $40 | Never | 160 mo | Never |
| $4,000 | $80 | Never | 160 mo | Never |
| $6,000 | $120 | Never | 160 mo | Never |
| $10,000 | $200 | Never | 160 mo | Never |
Every row in the “paying the minimum” column runs past the 600-month horizon the calculator models, so it is reported as never rather than given a number that would be fiction. Freeze the same first payment and every balance clears in 160 months.
That the frozen column is 160 months for every row is not a coincidence. The minimum is 2% of the balance, so doubling the debt doubles the first payment; the ratio between them never changes, and neither does the schedule. The size of the balance is not what keeps people in card debt for a decade. Letting the payment fall is. A standing transfer for the amount of this month’s minimum moves you from the left column to the right one, and it costs nothing today.
Working backwards from a deadline
The third mode inverts the question. Instead of asking how long a payment takes, it asks what payment a deadline requires — the same annuity formula a mortgage or car loan uses, pointed the other way. This is the mode to use for a balance transfer: enter the balance including the transfer fee, a 0% rate, and the number of promotional months, and you get the payment that must be sustained for the offer to be worth taking.
It is also the honest way to plan around a known date — a bonus, the end of a lease, the start of a larger fixed cost. If the payment the deadline demands is beyond what you can keep up, better to see that now than to discover it in month nine.
Reading the chart and the figures
The chart splits each year of payments into the part that clears the balance and the part that is interest. Early on, the interest bar dominates; as the balance falls the split inverts. A balance where interest still dominates in year three is a balance that needs a different payment, a different rate, or both.
The interest-versus-balance figure is the one worth quoting to yourself: it is the total interest as a percentage of what you originally owed. At 100%, you pay for the purchase twice. On a minimum-payment schedule at a typical card rate, figures well above 300% are routine rather than exceptional.
The final statistic — the same payment at 0% — separates the two things that determine the term. It shows how many months the balance alone would take. Everything beyond that number is what the rate is costing you in time, expressed in the unit you actually feel.
Assumptions, stated plainly
Every projection here assumes the rate does not change, no new purchases are added, no fees or penalty rates are triggered, and each payment lands on schedule. Real cards vary the minimum formula, compound daily rather than monthly, and apply payments to different balance types in an order set by regulation. Those details shift the totals by modest amounts. They do not change the shape of the answer, and they do not rescue a payment that fails to outrun the interest.
Nothing you type is transmitted anywhere. The calculation runs in your browser, which is the appropriate arrangement for a number you would not read out to a stranger.
Common questions
- How long does $6,000 at 22.8% take to clear?
- At $150 a month it takes 76 months — six years and four months — and costs $5,374 in interest, almost as much as the balance itself. At $200 it is 45 months and $2,968. At $300, 26 months and $1,620. At $600, 12 months and $718. Going from $150 to $200 a month, an extra $50, cuts 31 months off the clock and $2,406 off the interest. The tables in this article work through payment sizes and APRs separately.
- What happens if I only ever pay the minimum?
- On $6,000 at 22.8%, with a minimum of 2% of the balance or $25 — whichever is larger — the debt never clears within the 600-month horizon the calculator models. The first payment is $120. Pay that same $120 every month without letting it fall, and the balance is gone in 160 months. The amount you send in month one is identical in both cases; the only difference is whether you let it shrink. That is the entire mechanism, and it is why the minimum payment is a floor rather than a plan.
- Why does paying the minimum take decades?
- Because the minimum is a percentage of what you still owe, so it shrinks every month as the balance falls. A 2% minimum on a $5,000 balance is $100; on $2,000 it is $40. The payment retreats at almost the same pace as the debt, which is why the last part of a balance can take longer to clear than the first. Freeze the payment at the first month's figure and the same debt clears several times faster — the calculator shows the exact difference for your numbers.
- Is APR the same as the monthly rate on my statement?
- No. APR is the annual figure; card interest is charged monthly. This tool divides the APR by twelve to get the monthly rate, which is the convention almost every issuer uses to compute the periodic finance charge. Some statements quote the monthly rate directly — multiply it by twelve to get the number to enter here. Note that dividing rather than compounding means the effective annual rate is slightly higher than the stated APR, which is why an issuer may quote both.
- What if my payment is smaller than the interest?
- The balance grows and never reaches zero. The calculator says so outright rather than printing a large but finite number of months, because the distinction matters: below that threshold you are not making slow progress, you are making none. The threshold is the balance times the monthly rate — on $5,000 at 24% APR it is exactly $100 a month.
- Does it account for new purchases on the card?
- No, and that is deliberate. Every figure here assumes you stop adding to the balance from today. A payoff projection that also modelled future spending would answer a question you cannot forecast, and would let a small spending assumption hide the effect of the payment you are actually choosing. If you expect to keep using the card, treat the result as the best case.
- Should I clear the highest rate first, or the smallest balance?
- Paying the highest APR first costs the least in total interest — that is arithmetic, not opinion. Paying the smallest balance first clears individual cards sooner, which some people find easier to sustain. The gap between the two is usually smaller than people expect when rates are close together, and much larger when one card is well above the rest. Run each card here separately, compare the interest figures, and you will see which case you are in.
- Does a 0% balance transfer always win?
- Only if you clear the balance before the promotional period ends. Enter your balance with the transfer fee added, a 0% rate, and the number of months the offer runs. If the required payment is more than you can sustain, the balance that remains when the promotion expires reverts to the standard rate, and the fee will have bought you a delay rather than a saving.
Sources
The formulas and rates used by this tool come from the documents below. Rules change; when a figure here disagrees with the source, the source is right.
Figures checked against the sources below on September 1, 2026.
- Regulation Z §1026.22 — Determination of annual percentage rateConsumer Financial Protection Bureau