How long will it take to pay off your credit card?

You can work out roughly how many months it will take to pay off a credit card, or several, and see how a bigger payment changes that number. It's trickier than it looks, because the answer depends on the balance, the rate and the payment together, and interest keeps landing while you pay.

Three things to know up front. The examples below are made up ("Say you owe..."). The answers are numbers of months from now. And each answer is an estimate. If you'd like a calendar date, add the months to today's date yourself.

About the example rates

The examples use rates on the high side, so the months are on the long side. For context, the Federal Reserve's G.19 Consumer Credit release puts the average rate on credit card accounts assessed interest at 22.15 percent in Q2 2026. The CFPB's December 2025 report to Congress on the consumer credit card market gives two figures for 2024. The average APR reached 25.2 percent for general purpose cards. It reached 31.3 percent for private label credit cards. The same report puts the average APR for new general purpose accounts opened in 2024 at 27.5 percent. The two sources use different data, and the years differ.

1. List each debt

Grab your latest statement for each card. Write down three things: the balance, the APR and the minimum payment. That's the whole list. If you're not sure which box holds which, How to read your credit card statement points to each one.

2. Choose a monthly amount

Pick the total you want to put toward your debts each month. Choose one you can keep up, since the estimate only holds while the payments keep coming. Nothing here says what amount is right. You choose, and the steps below show what your choice does.

3. Estimate one card

For a single card, this formula gives the number of months. It comes from Stan Brown's page of loan formulas (equation 3).

months = -ln(1 - i x A / P) / ln(1 + i)

Here i is the rate per month (the APR divided by 12), A is the amount you owe and P is your monthly payment. The "ln" is the natural log, which a calculator or spreadsheet has.

Say you owe $6,000 on a card at 27% APR. The monthly rate is 27% / 12 = 2.25%, or 0.0225. Say you pay $250 a month.

• 1 - (0.0225 x 6,000) / 250 = 1 - 0.54 = 0.46
• -ln(0.46) is about 0.7765, and ln(1.0225) is about 0.0222
• 0.7765 / 0.0222 is about 35

That gives roughly 35 months. When the answer has a fraction, round it up to the next whole month, and the last payment is a little smaller than the others.

One limit is worth knowing. The first month's interest on this card is $135. A payment at or below $135 never pays the balance down, and the formula has no answer there. A minimum payment that covers only the interest works the same way.

4. See what a bigger payment does

Same card, same rate, bigger payment. At $300 a month, the estimate is 27 months. At $400 a month, it's 19 months.

Each extra bit you put in moves the number. Nice work, that's the what-if step done. If you free up a subscription's cost, that's a bigger monthly amount too, and How to find hidden subscriptions walks through finding one.

5. Estimate several cards

With more than one card, the payments roll. Say you owe $6,000 at 27% (minimum payment $195) and $2,400 at 30% on a store card (minimum payment $85). Each month, interest is added to each balance and both minimums are paid. What's left of your monthly amount goes to one card. When a card is paid off, the payment that was going to it goes to the other.

The first month's interest is $135 on the $6,000 card (6,000 x 0.27 / 12) and $60 on the store card (2,400 x 0.30 / 12).

• Putting $400 a month in total toward both cards gives about 30 months. Which card gets the extra can move the answer by a month in this example (29 or 30), so the answer is "about 30".
• Putting $450 a month gives 25 months, whichever card gets the extra.

Doing this by hand for many months is what a spreadsheet is for. You keep one row per month, add the interest, subtract the payments, and carry on until the balances reach zero.

6. Compare it with your statement's minimum payment estimate

Your statement has an estimate of its own. Under Regulation Z, statements from US card issuers show how long it would take to pay off the balance if you made minimum payments and added nothing new. The statement gives the time in months when it's under 2 years, and in whole years otherwise.

That estimate is in months or years, like yours, so it makes a handy comparison. The CFPB explains that these amounts are calculated based on your current balance and do not take into consideration any future purchases. Your own estimate uses the monthly amount you chose, so the two can differ.

7. Treat it as an estimate

Treat your answer as a rough guide. The CFPB says that many credit card companies calculate the interest you owe daily, based on your average daily account balance. A daily periodic rate is generally used by multiplying the rate by the amount owed at the end of each day. The monthly method in this post divides the APR by 12 instead.

That's the same kind of estimate the regulator's own method allows. Regulation Z, Appendix M1 says a monthly or daily periodic rate may be assumed. It also treats an estimate as accurate if it falls within 2 months above or below the regulator's calculation. Real cards, the way interest is calculated and the day a payment posts can move the answer.

The method also assumes the rate stays put and no new charges land. If either changes, run it again with the new balances. Checking again every few months keeps your number current.

Where Unspending Spree fits

We estimate when you could be debt-free from the plan you set, and show how a bigger payment moves the date. Credit cards, loans, and balances live in one place, where you can track interest rates, minimum payments, and estimated payoff dates without logging into multiple sites. Link your bank through Plaid with read-only access.

There are milestones too. Halfway to debt-free, three-quarters, the day you get there: Today notices. Calculations are estimates based on your data and current rates. Not financial advice.