Payoff Time
2y 9m
May 2029
Warning: Minimum Payments Trap
With minimum payments only, it would take over 40 years to pay off this balance, and you'd pay £18,451.17 in interest alone!
£200.00
£100.00 min + £100.00 extra
£1,521.02
£16,930.15
452 months faster
The extra payment only works if you find it every month
Track your spending in iBudget, give the extra payment its own budget line, and watch the balance come down.
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Minimum Payments Only
- Starting payment:
- £100.00
- Time to payoff:
- 40y 5m
- Total interest:
- £18,451.17
- Total paid:
- £23,451.17
The minimum is recalculated each month, so it falls as the balance falls.
With Extra Payments
- Monthly payment:
- £200.00
- Time to payoff:
- 2y 9m
- Total interest:
- £1,521.02
- Total paid:
- £6,521.02
By paying £100.00 extra each month, you save £16,930.15 in interest and become debt-free 452 months sooner!
| Extra Payment | Monthly Total | Payoff Time | Total Interest | Savings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| £0.00 | £100.00, falling | 40y 5m | £18,451.17 | - |
| £50.00 | £150.00 | 4y 2m | £2,357.06 | £16,094.11 |
| £100.00 | £200.00 | 2y 9m | £1,521.02 | £16,930.15 |
| £200.00 | £300.00 | 1y 8m | £906.25 | £17,544.92 |
| £300.00 | £400.00 | 1y 3m | £653.35 | £17,797.82 |
| £500.00 | £600.00 | 10 months | £427.86 | £18,023.31 |
The first row is the minimum-payment-only plan, where the payment is recalculated each month and falls with the balance. Every other row assumes you keep paying the same fixed amount every month, which is why even a small extra payment changes the timeline so much.
How this calculator works
Two month-by-month simulations, not one amortisation formula — because a card minimum is not a fixed payment.
The formula
each month: i = b × (APR ÷ 100 ÷ 12); minimum-only pay = min(b + i, max((b + i) × p, 25)); fixed pay = max(b₀ × p, 25) + extra; b ← b + i − pay- b
- The balance carried into the month. Interest is added to it before any payment is taken off.
- b₀
- The starting balance you typed. Used once, to set the fixed payment for the extra-payment plan.
- i
- This month's interest: the balance multiplied by APR / 100 / 12. A nominal monthly rate applied once a month, not a daily rate on an average daily balance.
- p
- Your minimum payment percentage, as a decimal. In the minimum-only plan it is applied to the balance plus interest and recalculated every month, which is why the payment falls as the balance falls.
- 25
- The floor under the percentage-based minimum, in whatever currency the page is displaying. It is not currency-converted.
- extra
- The slider amount, from 0 to 500 in steps of 25. Setting it to zero makes the second plan identical to the first rather than switching it to a fixed payment.
- stop
- The loop ends when the balance reaches zero, at 600 months, or the first month the payment would not exceed the interest — because from that point the balance can never fall.
Interest and total-paid figures are rounded to two decimals only at the end; the simulation itself runs in full floating point. Total paid is reported as the starting balance plus total interest, which is exact when the debt clears and an understatement when it does not.
Most credit card calculators quietly cheat. They take your current minimum payment, treat it as a fixed monthly amount, and run an amortisation formula over it — which produces a payoff date that is far too optimistic, because no card issuer lets you pay a fixed minimum. This one runs two separate month-by-month simulations instead, up to 600 months each, and the difference between them is the point of the whole page.
The first simulation is minimum payments only, and it recalculates the payment every single month. It adds interest to the balance, then takes a payment equal to your minimum percentage applied to that interest-inclusive balance, subject to a floor of 25 in whatever currency the page is showing. Because the payment is a percentage of a falling balance, the payment falls too. The share of it that actually reduces what you owe stays stubbornly small, month after month, which is why minimum-only payoff times run to decades rather than years.
The second simulation is a fixed payment. It takes today's minimum — your percentage applied to the opening balance, or the 25 floor, whichever is larger — adds the extra amount from the slider, and then never changes that figure again. So the extra payment slider is doing two jobs. It adds money, and it converts a declining payment into a constant one. On typical numbers the second job is worth more than the first, and it costs nothing: it is a decision about how you pay, not how much.
Both simulations charge interest before applying the payment, at APR divided by 100 divided by 12 — a nominal monthly rate, applied once a month to the whole balance, rather than a daily rate on an average daily balance. Both stop early if the payment can never exceed the interest, because at that point the balance can only grow. Both cap out at 600 months, displayed as '50+ years'. The interest and total-paid figures are rounded to two decimals only at the very end; the simulation itself runs in full floating point.
One consequence worth knowing: total paid is reported as the starting balance plus total interest. That is exactly right when the debt clears, and it understates reality when it does not, because a plan that never clears keeps taking payments forever. If a result is flagged as never clearing, read the payoff time and the total paid as warnings rather than as figures.
A worked example
One US cardholder, one card, the calculator's own default figures — so you can reproduce every number on this page.
$5,000 at 19.99% APR, 2% minimum, $100 a month extra
Worked example- Starting balance
- $5,000.00
- Monthly rate — 19.99 ÷ 100 ÷ 12
- 0.0166583
- Month 1 interest — $5,000 × 0.0166583
- $83.29
- Month 1 minimum — 2% of $5,083.29
- $101.67
- Of which reduces the balance
- $18.37
- Month 2 minimum — 2% of $5,064.61
- $101.29
- Fixed payment instead — $100 min + $100 extra
- $200.00
- Month 1 of the fixed plan reduces the balance by
- $116.71
On minimum payments only the balance takes 485 months to clear and costs $18,451.17 in interest — more than three and a half times the amount borrowed. On a fixed $200 a month it clears in 33 months for $1,521.02 of interest. The saving is $16,930.15 and 452 months. Note what the extra $100 is really buying: the minimum plan pays $101.67 in month one and the fixed plan pays $200, so the payment roughly doubles at the start — but the minimum plan's payment is still falling in year forty, while the fixed plan's payment has stopped existing after year three. Change nothing but the APR to 22.15%, the current US average on accounts charged interest, and the same fixed $200 payment takes 34 months and $1,767.76 of interest.
What to change, in order of what it is worth
- 1
Freeze the payment before you increase it
Set the extra payment to zero, note the payoff time, then set it to a small amount. Almost all of that first jump comes from the payment no longer falling — a free change.
- 2
Attack the rate, not just the balance
A 0% balance transfer or a lower-rate consolidation loan changes the APR input, and the APR input drives everything else. Compare it against a bigger payment before you commit to the bigger payment.
- 3
Give the extra payment a budget line
An extra payment that competes with groceries for the same unallocated money will lose. Name it, schedule it for payday, and treat it as a bill.
How to read your result
What a good number looks like, what a bad one is telling you, and what to do about each.
The headline number is the payoff date, and the first question to ask of it is whether you can actually live inside it. Thirty-three months of a fixed payment is a real ask but a finite one. Four hundred and eighty-five months is not a plan at all — it is a description of what happens if you do nothing, and it is the single most useful thing this calculator produces, because almost nobody believes it until they see their own numbers in it.
Next, compare the total interest against the balance you started with. On a healthy plan the interest is a modest fraction of the balance: the worked example above pays $1,521 of interest on $5,000, about 30%. When interest starts to approach or exceed the original balance, the plan is not working. When it reaches three or four times the balance — which the minimum-only column routinely does at ordinary APRs — the card has stopped being a debt you are repaying and become a subscription you are renting.
Then look at your APR against the market. The average US card assessed interest at 22.15% in the second quarter of 2026, and the representative UK card rate was 24.71% in July 2026. If your rate is meaningfully above those, the highest-value move is probably not a bigger payment at all — it is a 0% balance transfer, a consolidation loan at a lower rate, or simply calling the issuer. If your rate is a store card rate, the CFPB puts the 2024 US average for those at 31.3% against 25.2% for general purpose cards, and moving the balance is worth more than almost anything else on this page.
Finally, sanity-check the monthly payment figure the calculator shows, because that is the number that has to survive a real month with a real grocery bill in it. A payoff date built on an extra payment you cannot repeat every month is not a plan. The more reliable version of the same idea is to fix the payment at today's minimum and simply never let it fall — no extra money at all, just a standing order that does not shrink. Set the slider to zero and then to a small amount to see how much of the saving comes from that alone.
Rates and balances to compare yourself against
US and UK figures are given side by side, because the two markets price and regulate card debt differently. All are averages across large populations, so treat them as orientation rather than a target. Two more for context: US consumers were charged $160 billion in credit card interest in 2024, up from $105 billion two years earlier, and in the UK the FCA counts 2.8 million adults in persistent credit card debt — paying more each year in interest, fees and charges than they take off the balance.
22.15%
Average US card rate on accounts charged interest
2026 Q2, preliminary. Covers only accounts that carried a balance; the all-accounts average, which includes people who pay in full, was 20.94%.
24.71%
Representative UK credit card rate
July 2026. A quoted rate on advertised card lending, almost flat since 2025, and it excludes 0% promotional balances.
Source: Bank of England, quoted household interest rates (IUMCCTL)
$5,300
Average monthly card balance per US cardholder
2024. An average across all cardholders including those who pay in full, so people who revolve hold considerably more; it was about $8,700 for prime credit scores.
£2,751
Average UK credit card debt per household
May 2026, and £1,415 per adult. An arithmetic average across all households, including the majority carrying no balance, so a typical revolving balance is higher.
15%
US general purpose cardholders paying only the minimum
2024, the highest share since at least 2015; 20% on store cards. This is the population the minimum-only column is describing.
27 years 10 months
UK minimum-only payoff time on an average balance and rate
Modelled on £2,751 with the minimum set at interest plus 1% of the balance. Fixing the payment at that first month's £79 instead clears it in 4 years 11 months.
What this calculator does not account for
Every payoff projection is a simplification. These are the specific ones this tool makes.
- One card, one rate, forever
- The APR you type is applied unchanged for the entire projection. There is no promotional 0% period expiring, no variable rate tracking a base rate, no penalty APR after a missed payment, and no separate rate for purchases, cash advances and balance transfers — real cards commonly carry three different rates on one statement, and payments are usually allocated to the highest-rate portion first.
- No fees at all
- Annual fees, late fees, over-limit fees, foreign transaction fees, cash advance fees and balance transfer fees are all ignored. Interest is the only cost modelled. The CFPB reports US consumers paid $31.3 billion in card fees in 2024, up 23% on 2022, so for some cardholders this is not a rounding error.
- Monthly interest, not daily
- Interest is charged once a month at APR divided by 12, on the full opening balance, before any payment lands. Most issuers use a daily periodic rate on an average daily balance, which means the timing of your payment within the cycle changes your bill. Expect small differences against real statements every month.
- No grace period and no new spending
- The model assumes interest is charged from month one on the whole balance, so it does not describe anyone who clears their statement in full. It also assumes not one further purchase goes on the card. If this is the card that covers the gap at the end of the month, the projection will not happen.
- The minimum payment rule is an approximation
- The simulation applies your percentage to the balance including that month's interest, with a floor of 25. Real issuers differ — some apply the percentage to the statement balance and add interest and fees on top, and UK minimums are conventionally modelled as interest plus 1% of the balance rather than a flat 2%. The floor of 25 is not currency-converted either, so a page displaying pounds is applying a £25 floor rather than a converted one.
- The two headline tiles use slightly different minimums
- The monthly payment tile shows your percentage applied to the opening balance. The minimum-only simulation applies it to the balance plus interest, so its first payment is a little higher. The gap is a dollar or two on typical figures, but it is why the two numbers do not tie exactly.
- Total paid assumes the debt clears
- Total paid is computed as the starting balance plus total interest. That identity only holds when the balance actually reaches zero. On a run flagged as never clearing, or one that hits the 600-month cap, the total-paid figure is not a real lifetime cost — it is the cost up to the point the simulation gave up.
- Payment holidays, arrears and hardship programs are out of scope
- Missed payments, late fees compounding into the balance, hardship or forbearance arrangements, negotiated settlements, debt management plans and formal insolvency all sit outside the model. If your result never clears, those routes are the realistic answer, not a bigger extra payment.
- No inflation, tax or opportunity cost
- Nothing is adjusted for inflation, so a payment in year five counts the same as one today. Nothing is compared against what the extra payment could earn elsewhere — a workplace pension match, for instance, can beat card interest. The tool answers one narrow question: what does this balance cost if you repay it this way.
- Rounding and stopping rules
- The simulation runs in full floating point and rounds only the final interest and total-paid figures to two decimals. It stops when the balance reaches zero, at 600 months, or the first month the payment would not exceed the interest charge. The payoff date shown is simply today's date advanced by the number of months, so it takes no account of statement or due dates.
None of that makes the projection useless — it makes it a planning estimate rather than a statement of account, and the direction of the errors is mostly knowable. Fees and daily compounding push the real cost slightly higher than shown. The declining-minimum model, by contrast, is the part this calculator gets closer to right than most, which is exactly why its minimum-only numbers look so much worse than the ones you may have seen elsewhere.
Credit card payoff questions, answered
Including the awkward ones about what the model gets wrong.
How long will it take to pay off my credit card?
It depends on three things: the balance, the APR, and whether your payment is fixed or falls with the balance. Running this calculator on its own defaults — a $5,000 balance at 19.99% APR with a 2% minimum — the minimum-only plan takes 40 years and 5 months, while a fixed $200 a month clears it in 2 years and 9 months. The same money, restructured, is the entire difference.
Why does paying the minimum take so long?
Because the minimum is a percentage of what you still owe, so it shrinks every single month as the balance shrinks. On the default figures the first minimum is about $101.67, of which $83.29 is interest and only $18.37 touches the balance. Next month the minimum is $101.29, then $100.92, and the amount going to principal falls in step. You never escape the shallow end of the curve.
What exactly does the extra payment slider do?
It does two things at once, and the second matters more than most people realise. It adds the amount you choose, and it freezes the payment at today's minimum plus that amount for the whole projection instead of letting it decline. Even setting the slider to a small amount converts a declining payment into a fixed one, which is where most of the time saving comes from.
Why does the minimum payment shown differ slightly from my statement?
Two reasons. The calculator applies your minimum percentage to the balance plus that month's interest, which is close to how most issuers do it, but issuers vary — some apply the percentage to the statement balance and add interest and fees on top. And the summary tile at the top shows the percentage applied to the opening balance alone, so it reads a couple of dollars lower than the first payment the simulation actually takes. Both are estimates of a figure your issuer calculates by its own published rules.
What minimum payment percentage should I enter?
Do not guess it — the rule is written in your card agreement, usually in the summary box under 'minimum payment', and issuers set it individually. The UK convention is different enough to matter: The Money Charity models a UK legal minimum as that month's interest plus 1% of the outstanding balance, so a UK cardholder entering the 2% default here will get a faster, more flattering answer than their card will actually deliver. If your agreement expresses the minimum as a cash floor rather than a percentage, enter a percentage low enough that the calculator's floor takes over.
How is credit card interest actually calculated?
Most issuers use the average daily balance method: they multiply each day's balance by a daily periodic rate (APR divided by 365) and total those charges over the statement cycle. This calculator uses the simpler convention of one monthly charge at APR divided by 12, applied to the whole balance before payment. Over a two- or three-year payoff the difference is usually tens of dollars, not hundreds, but it is a simplification.
Does the calculator know about my grace period?
No, and this is the biggest thing it assumes about you. If you clear your statement balance in full every month, most cards charge no interest on purchases at all and this tool does not apply to you. It models a revolving balance from day one. That is the right model for the roughly half of US card accounts that carry a balance month to month, and for the 19% of UK adults the FCA counts as revolvers.
Why does my result say the payoff time is one month, or fifty-plus years?
Both are the simulation hitting a wall rather than a real answer. If your minimum percentage is too low to outrun the interest — for a 2% minimum that happens near 24.5% APR — the balance can never fall, so the loop stops at the first month it detects that and reports the month it stopped. Every run is also capped at 600 months, displayed as '50+ years', and the scenario table labels both cases 'Never clears'. Either way the meaning is the same: the plan does not work, and the answer is a higher payment, a lower rate, or free debt advice.
Should I pay off the card with the highest balance or the highest interest rate first?
With more than one card, the avalanche method — highest APR first — always costs the least in interest, while the snowball method — smallest balance first — usually clears your first individual card sooner and is easier to stick to. The gap between them is often smaller than people expect, and both are dramatically better than minimums. This calculator handles one card at a time; use the snowball or avalanche calculator for a multi-card queue.
Should I build savings before I attack the card?
Most debt advisers say keep a small buffer first — a few hundred, or one month of essential bills — because otherwise the next unexpected bill goes straight back onto the card you just paid down. Bankrate's 2026 survey found 29% of Americans have more credit card debt than emergency savings. A buffer that stops you re-borrowing at 22% earns its keep even at a poor savings rate.
Will a balance transfer beat this plan?
Often, yes, and the calculator cannot show it. A 0% promotional balance transfer stops interest entirely for the promotional window in exchange for a one-off fee charged as a percentage of the amount transferred, and against a rate above 20% that trade is usually worth making. This tool holds one fixed APR for the whole projection, so it cannot model a promotional rate expiring. If you are considering one, run the calculator at 0% and again at the go-to rate, and treat the honest answer as somewhere between them.
Does paying the card down help my credit score?
Usually, because the share of your credit limit you are using is one of the largest scoring factors, and card balances drive it directly. Experian UK advises keeping utilisation below 25%; the widely quoted 30% rule is American and neither is a published scorecard weighting. Closing a card as you clear it can nudge your score down by shrinking your total available credit, so consider leaving it open and unused. This calculator does not model credit scores at all.
Read next
Read next
- Types of credit card explainedBalance transfer, money transfer, purchase and store cards, and which one actually helps a balance you already have.
- Debt snowball vs avalancheIf you have more than one card, this is how to decide which order to clear them in.
- Dealing with debt: a practical guidePriority debts, free advice, and what to do when no payment plan adds up.
- How to improve a bad credit ratingWhat actually moves the needle once the balance starts coming down.
- Cash vs card budgetingThe habit change that stops the balance climbing back while you pay it off.
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