Credit card payoff calculator
See how long your credit card takes to clear, what the interest costs, and how much longer the minimum payment would take.
- Runs in your browser
- Nothing you enter is sent
- Free, no account
Total interest
$2,467.58
38.6% of the balance
Total paid
$8,867.58
balance + interest
First month's interest
$122.13
1.908% of the balance
Payments
36
of $250.00
- Balance repaid72.2%$6,400.00
- Interest27.8%$2,467.58
Everything you will hand the issuer before the card is clear.
Minimum-only payoff
Over 60 years
starting at $128.00 a month
Minimum-only interest
Over $64,394
Interest you avoid
—
versus paying the minimum
Time you avoid
—
- Your plan
- Minimum payment only
Formula and working
Monthly periodic rate
i = APR ÷ 12 i = 22.9% ÷ 12 = 1.9083% per month = 0.019083
This month’s interest
Interest = balance × i = 6,400 × 0.019083 = $122.13
Months to clear a fixed payment
n = −ln(1 − B·i / A) / ln(1 + i) = −ln(1 − 6,400 × 0.019083 ÷ 250) ÷ ln(1.019083) the schedule above uses the month-by-month simulation, which rounds interest to the cent each month = 36 payments
Total interest
Interest = Σ (balance × i) over every month total paid $8,867.58 − balance $6,400.00 = $2,467.58
Card interest is billed monthly on the carried balance. If you clear the statement in full every month, a purchase APR never applies at all — the grace period does the work.
| # | Month | Payment | Interest | To balance | Balance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Feb 2026 | $250.00 | $122.13 | $127.87 | $6,272.13 |
| 2 | Mar 2026 | $250.00 | $119.69 | $130.31 | $6,141.82 |
| 3 | Apr 2026 | $250.00 | $117.21 | $132.79 | $6,009.03 |
| 4 | May 2026 | $250.00 | $114.67 | $135.33 | $5,873.70 |
| 5 | Jun 2026 | $250.00 | $112.09 | $137.91 | $5,735.79 |
| 6 | Jul 2026 | $250.00 | $109.46 | $140.54 | $5,595.25 |
| 7 | Aug 2026 | $250.00 | $106.78 | $143.22 | $5,452.03 |
| 8 | Sep 2026 | $250.00 | $104.04 | $145.96 | $5,306.07 |
| 9 | Oct 2026 | $250.00 | $101.26 | $148.74 | $5,157.33 |
| 10 | Nov 2026 | $250.00 | $98.42 | $151.58 | $5,005.75 |
| 11 | Dec 2026 | $250.00 | $95.53 | $154.47 | $4,851.28 |
| 12 | Jan 2027 | $250.00 | $92.58 | $157.42 | $4,693.86 |
Showing 1–12 of 36 rows
Assumptions
- The APR is converted to a monthly periodic rate by dividing by twelve, which is how US and UK issuers bill a revolving balance. Some issuers use a daily periodic rate on the average daily balance, which produces a slightly higher charge.
- No new spending is added to the card and the rate never changes. A promotional 0% period ending mid-plan will make the real number worse than this.
- Cash advances, balance-transfer fees, annual fees and late fees are not modelled.
- The minimum-payment comparison recalculates the minimum from the falling balance every month with a fixed floor, which is standard practice; some issuers instead use interest + 1% of the balance.
- Payments are assumed to arrive on the statement date with no partial-month interest.
How card interest is actually charged
A credit card APR is a nominal annual rate. Issuers divide it by twelve to get a monthly periodic rate and apply that to the balance you carry into the billing cycle. At 22.9% APR the monthly rate is 1.908%, so a 6,400 balance attracts 122.13 of interest before a single unit of your payment reduces the debt.
That single fact explains everything else about cards. If your payment is below the interest charge, the balance grows no matter how diligently you pay. If it is barely above, almost all of it evaporates and the debt moves at a crawl. The calculator refuses to pretend otherwise — enter a payment that cannot cover the interest and it says so instead of quietly producing a number.
The minimum payment is designed to be slow
A typical minimum is 2% of the balance with a small floor, recalculated every month. Because the percentage is taken from a falling balance, the payment falls too, and the gap between the minimum and the interest charge stays thin for years.
| Balance at 22.9% APR | First minimum (2%) | First month's interest | Debt reduced |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2,000 | 40.00 | 38.17 | 1.83 |
| 4,000 | 80.00 | 76.33 | 3.67 |
| 6,400 | 128.00 | 122.13 | 5.87 |
| 10,000 | 200.00 | 190.83 | 9.17 |
Under 5% of a minimum payment reaches the debt in the first month. That is not an accident of arithmetic — the 2% convention exists precisely because it keeps the account open and revolving for as long as possible.
The fixed payment is the whole trick
The single most effective change is not paying more; it is paying the same amount every month instead of whatever the statement asks for. Fixing the payment at today's minimum alone typically cuts a decades-long payoff to a handful of years, because the gap between your payment and the shrinking interest charge widens every month instead of staying constant.
The two curves in the chart above show exactly this. Both start from the same balance and the same rate; only the payment rule differs.
Working backwards from a deadline
If you know when you want the card clear — before a mortgage application, before a promotional rate ends, before the end of the tax year — switch the calculator to solve for the payment. It inverts the annuity formula:
A = B × i / (1 − (1 + i)^−n)then verifies the answer against the month-by-month simulation and nudges it up by a cent if monthly rounding would otherwise push you one month past the deadline. Closed-form answers are elegant; cent rounding is what actually happens on a statement.
Things that make the real number worse
- New spending. The model assumes the card is not used again. Every purchase resets the clock and, on most cards, forfeits the grace period until the balance is cleared in full.
- Cash advances. Usually a higher APR, usually no grace period, usually a fee of 3–5% on top. Payments are often allocated to the cheapest balance first, so an advance can sit accruing at 27% while your payment retires 19% purchase debt.
- Promotional rates expiring. A 0% balance transfer that reverts to 24.9% turns a good plan into a bad one overnight. Set the reversion date as your deadline and solve for the payment.
- Fees. Annual fees, late fees and over-limit fees are not modelled here.
A note on daily interest
Some issuers use a daily periodic rate applied to the average daily balance rather than a monthly rate on the statement balance. The difference is small — usually under 1% of the total interest over a payoff plan — but it always runs slightly against you, because more days of compounding means more interest. Treat the totals here as a close floor rather than an exact match to your statement.
Your balance stays in this tab
A card balance and an APR together say a great deal about someone's finances. This page has no server, no analytics and no third-party requests, so there is nowhere for that information to go. The plan, the schedule and the CSV, Excel and PDF exports are all produced by JavaScript running on your own device — you can disconnect from the internet and everything still works.
Questions
How is credit card interest calculated?
The APR is divided by twelve to give a monthly periodic rate, which is applied to the balance you carry into the month. A 22.9% APR is 1.908% a month — on a 6,400 balance that is 122 of interest before a penny of the payment touches the debt.
Why does the minimum payment take so long?
Because it is recalculated from the falling balance every month, so it shrinks as fast as the debt does. A 2%-of-balance minimum on a card charging nearly 2% a month barely outruns the interest, which is why minimum-only payoff runs to decades.
What payment do I need to be debt-free by a certain date?
Switch the calculator to "payment from a deadline", enter the number of months, and it solves the annuity formula for the required monthly payment — then verifies it against the month-by-month simulation.
Does paying in full every month avoid interest?
On purchases, yes — the grace period means a statement cleared in full is charged no interest at all. Cash advances and balance transfers usually have no grace period and start accruing immediately.
Is my balance stored anywhere?
No. Everything is computed in this tab, there is no account, and nothing is written to disk unless you download the plan yourself.