Minimum Payment Calculator
Card & minimum
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Fill in the fields on the left and this updates as you type.
Know what this estimate is based on
- Jurisdiction
- United States card and lending practice
- Scope and limitations
- Educational estimate only. Your issuer sets the minimum-payment formula, how a payment is allocated across balances, when interest is charged, and any fees or promotional terms — check your cardholder agreement for the figures that bind.
- Source links checked
- Jul 30, 2026
Built and regression-tested by Smart Tools Lab. It has not been individually reviewed by a licensed financial, tax, or legal professional.
How to use
- 01
Enter the balance you are carrying and the APR on your statement.
- 02
Leave the minimum-payment rule at its defaults unless your cardholder agreement says otherwise — the interest plus 1% of the balance, never below $25, is what most U.S. issuers use.
- 03
Read the payoff time and the total interest: this is the slow case, the one that happens if you never pay a dollar more than you are asked to.
- 04
Compare it with the three-year row — the same comparison your statement is required to print beside the minimum — to see what a fixed payment buys.
- 05
If the gap looks worth closing, take the balance and APR to the Credit Card Payoff Calculator and try a payment you could actually sustain.
Formula
A U.S. minimum payment is not a flat percentage of the balance. Almost every issuer sets it as this month's interest plus a small slice of the principal — commonly 1% — and never lets it fall below a dollar floor, usually $25 to $35. In formula terms each month's payment is max(floor, interest + balance x principal percentage). The engine runs that as a loop. Interest for the month is the balance times the APR divided by 12. The minimum is recalculated on the balance that remains, so it covers the interest in full and puts the rest against principal. What is left carries into the next month, where a smaller balance produces a smaller minimum. That is the whole trap: the payment shrinks as fast as the balance does, so the amount of principal retired each month barely moves. The tool counts the months until the balance clears, sums every finance charge, records the first minimum and reports total paid as the original balance plus all the interest. It also rebuilds the comparison the CARD Act requires on your statement — what the same balance costs if you instead clear it in 36 months.
Example
Take a $6,000 balance at 22% APR, with the minimum set to interest plus 1% of the balance and a $25 floor. The monthly rate is the APR divided by 12: 22% / 12 = 1.8333% a month. Month 1. Interest is $6,000 x 1.8333% = $110.00. The minimum is that interest plus 1% of the balance: $110.00 + $60.00 = $170.00. Because the interest is covered first, only $60.00 comes off the principal, leaving $5,940.00. Month 2. The balance is smaller, so the minimum is smaller: interest is $108.90 and 1% of $5,940 is $59.40, a minimum of $168.30 — $1.70 less than last month. Principal falls by $59.40. That is the pattern. The payment shrinks every month because it is pegged to a falling balance, so the principal retired each month shrinks with it. Run the loop to the end and the card takes 249 months to clear — 20 years and 9 months. Total interest is about $9,933, and total paid is $6,000 + $9,933 = about $15,933. The $6,000 borrowed costs more than $9,900 to carry. The statement box makes the alternative concrete: paying $229 a month instead clears the same card in 36 months for $8,249 in total — $7,684 less, and 17 years and 9 months sooner.
Definitions
- Minimum payment
- The least your issuer will accept without the account going delinquent. Normally the greater of a fixed floor or this month's interest plus a slice of the principal.
- Payment floor
- The fixed dollar amount a minimum never drops below, commonly $25 to $35. Without it, a percentage-based minimum shrinks forever and the balance never clears.
- Principal slice
- The portion of the minimum above the interest — typically 1% of the balance. It is the only part that actually reduces what you owe.
- CARD Act statement box
- The disclosure U.S. issuers must print on every statement: payoff time at the minimum, and the payment that would clear the balance in three years.
- Amortizing
- A payment structure that retires the debt on a schedule. A minimum payment is deliberately not amortizing, which is why it has no fixed end date.
- Penalty APR
- A higher rate — often near 30% — an issuer may apply after a payment is 60 days late. It can persist until six consecutive payments arrive on time.
- Delinquency
- A payment 30 or more days late. It is reported to the credit bureaus and is among the most damaging single events for a credit score.
- Interest share
- Interest as a proportion of everything you pay. At the minimum on a high-APR card it commonly exceeds half.
- Three-year payoff
- The fixed payment that clears the balance in 36 months. The reference point your statement prints because it is achievable and dramatically cheaper.
- Revolver
- A cardholder who carries a balance from month to month rather than paying in full. Roughly half of U.S. cardholders do.
- Average daily balance
- The basis most issuers charge interest on — your balance averaged across every day of the cycle, not the amount showing on the statement date.
- Cardholder agreement
- The contract that states your exact minimum-payment formula, APRs, fees and grace-period rules. The authority when it disagrees with any calculator.
Good to know
What this calculator actually measures
This tool answers one focused question: if a credit card balance is paid using only its required minimum, month after month, how long does it take to clear and what does it cost? It is not a budgeting tool and not a fixed-payment planner. It isolates a single behaviour -- always paying exactly the minimum -- and follows it to the end. The required minimum here is defined the way most card issuers define it: a percentage of the current balance, with a small absolute floor so the payment never collapses to nothing. Starting from the default inputs of a 100,000 balance at 20% APR with a 2% minimum, the engine adds interest, pays the recalculated minimum, and repeats until the balance reaches zero. It then reports four numbers: years to pay off, total interest, the first minimum payment, and total paid. Each output is chosen to expose the trap from a different angle. Years to pay off shows the sheer duration. Total interest shows the cumulative price. The first minimum anchors how deceptively small the starting payment is. Total paid combines principal and interest into the full lifetime cost. Together they tell a story that a single monthly statement never does, because a statement only shows the next minimum -- never the hundreds of minimums still to come, nor the mountain of interest they conceal. The purpose of this page is to make that hidden trajectory visible and concrete, so the consequence of a seemingly harmless habit becomes a number you can see.
Why a percentage minimum shrinks every month
The heart of the minimum-payment trap is that the payment is not a fixed amount -- it is a percentage of whatever you still owe. With a 2% minimum, a 100,000 balance requires 2,000. But the moment that payment lands and the balance falls to about 99,667, next month's minimum is recalculated on the smaller figure: 99,667 x 2% is about 1,993. The payment has shrunk by roughly seven units in a single month, and it will shrink again the month after, and every month thereafter. This is the opposite of how a loan is structured. A standard loan fixes the payment up front so that an ever-larger slice goes to principal as interest falls. A percentage-of-balance minimum does the reverse: as the balance falls, the payment falls too, so the slice going to principal never gets the chance to grow. The debt enters a long, gentle glide rather than a decisive descent. Crucially, the shrinkage is self-reinforcing. A smaller payment leaves a larger balance, which produces a larger interest charge next month, which leaves even less room for principal, which keeps the balance high, which keeps the minimum from falling fast enough to matter. The percentage rule quietly engineers a payoff that decelerates exactly when you would most want it to accelerate. Understanding this single mechanic explains every surprising number this calculator produces.
The anatomy of one month inside the loop
It helps to watch a single month in slow motion, because the whole multi-decade outcome is just this one step repeated hundreds of times. Begin month one with the default 100,000 balance. First, interest is applied: the APR of 20% divided by 12 gives a monthly rate of about 1.6667%, and 100,000 x 1.6667% is 1,666.67. That charge is added, briefly lifting the balance. Next, the minimum is calculated on the balance: 100,000 x 2% equals 2,000.00, the first minimum payment. That 2,000 is then applied. The first 1,666.67 of it merely cancels the interest just added -- it buys no progress at all. Only the remaining 2,000 - 1,666.67 = 333.33 actually reduces what you owe. The balance ends the month at 100,000 + 1,666.67 - 2,000, which is 99,666.67. So a 2,000 payment moved the needle by just 333. The ratio is the whole problem in miniature: at the start, more than four-fifths of the payment is consumed by interest, and barely a sixth reaches principal. Because the next month's minimum is smaller and the next interest charge is nearly as large, that thin sliver of principal repayment shrinks further. Multiply this lopsided split across hundreds of months and the long payoff stops being mysterious. Every month is a small, honest transaction; it is their accumulation under a shrinking payment that produces the trap.
How a manageable balance becomes a multi-decade obligation
Run the default scenario to its conclusion and the result is striking: about 799 months, or roughly 66.6 years, to clear a 100,000 balance. A debt that feels ordinary becomes a lifelong companion. The reason is the tail. For the first year, paying only the minimum reduces the balance from 100,000 to about 96,073 -- under 4,000 of progress across twelve months, because interest in that year alone is nearly 19,600. After five years the balance is still about 81,846; after ten years, about 66,987; after twenty years, about 44,873. The balance does not so much fall as erode, and the erosion slows the lower it goes, since the minimum keeps shrinking alongside it. This is why the duration is measured in decades rather than years. A fixed-payment loan of the same size and rate would carve a steep, predictable path to zero. The shrinking minimum instead traces a long, flattening curve that approaches zero with agonizing slowness. The headline years-to-pay-off figure is the single most important output of this tool precisely because it converts an abstract habit -- 'I just pay the minimum' -- into a vivid, almost unbelievable span of time. Seeing that a routine card balance could outlast a career reframes the minimum from a convenience into a cost, and that reframing is the entire point of running the calculation.
Reading the total-interest figure honestly
In the default scenario the total interest reaches about 461,679 -- more than four and a half times the 100,000 originally borrowed. That number can look like an error, but it follows directly from the mechanics. Total interest is nothing more than every monthly finance charge added together, and when the payoff runs for roughly 799 months, there are 799 finance charges to add. More importantly, those charges stay large for a very long time because the balance stays large for a very long time. Interest is always calculated on the outstanding balance, so a debt that lingers near 80,000 or 70,000 for years generates substantial interest year after year. The shrinking minimum is what keeps the balance elevated, and the elevated balance is what keeps the interest flowing. Total paid pulls this together: 100,000 of principal plus about 461,679 of interest equals roughly 561,679 handed over in total. Put differently, for every unit borrowed, more than five and a half units leave your pocket before the debt is gone. This is the figure that should anchor any decision about minimum payments. It is not a penalty or a fee -- it is the natural arithmetic of a high balance left outstanding for decades under a payment that was designed to decline. The calculator surfaces it so the trade-off between convenience now and cost over time is impossible to ignore.
The fixed-payment contrast that defines the trap
The clearest way to feel the trap is to compare paying the shrinking minimum against simply freezing that first minimum in place. In the default scenario the first minimum is 2,000. If you let it shrink as the balance falls, payoff takes about 66.6 years. If instead you commit to paying a flat 2,000 every month -- the exact same starting amount, just never reduced -- the same balance clears in roughly nine years, with total interest near 117,000 instead of 461,679. The starting payment is identical; only the willingness to let it fall differs. That single difference is worth tens of years and hundreds of thousands in interest. The mechanism is intuitive once seen: in the later months, when the percentage-based minimum would have collapsed to a trickle, a held-flat payment is throwing its full weight at a small remaining balance, demolishing it quickly. The shrinking version, by contrast, eases off precisely when finishing strong would matter most. This contrast defines the lane of this tool. It does not plan the fixed-payment path in detail -- a dedicated payoff planner does that -- but it makes unmistakably clear that the decline of the payment, not the size of the starting payment, is the engine of the disaster. The escape is not necessarily paying more at the outset; it is refusing to pay less over time.
What the minimum percentage does to the timeline
The minimum percentage is the most powerful single dial on this calculator, and small changes to it produce enormous swings. At the default 2%, the first payment on a 100,000 balance is 2,000 and payoff runs about 66.6 years. Raise the minimum to 4% and the first payment doubles to 4,000, but the effect on the timeline is far more than double: payoff collapses from roughly 66.6 years to about 13.3 years, and total interest falls from around 461,679 to roughly 69,379. The reason is that the percentage governs how aggressively principal is attacked in the crucial early months when the balance, and therefore the interest, is at its peak. A higher percentage means a larger early payment, which retires more principal before interest can compound against it, which lowers next month's balance more steeply, which feeds a faster, self-reinforcing descent. The same self-reinforcement that traps you at a low percentage works in your favour at a higher one. This is why two cards with identical balances and rates can have wildly different real-world costs depending solely on how their minimums are defined. When you adjust the minimum-payment input on this tool and watch the years-to-pay-off figure swing by decades, you are seeing the single most consequential term in the entire minimum-payment structure -- and the one borrowers most often overlook because the statement only ever shows the comfortably small number.
The role and limits of the payment floor
Every percentage-of-balance minimum eventually runs into a problem: as the balance shrinks toward zero, a fixed percentage of it shrinks too, and without a backstop the payment would dwindle to a few units and the debt would crawl on almost forever. The floor solves that. It is a small absolute amount the payment can never fall below, so once the percentage-based minimum drops under the floor, the flat floor amount takes over and finally retires the remaining balance at a steady, non-shrinking pace. In principle the floor is the mechanism's safety valve. In practice, in the default scenario, it barely matters -- and understanding why is instructive. The floor only engages once 2% of the balance falls below it, which happens at a very low balance, reached only after more than fifty-seven years of payments. By then the overwhelming majority of the damage -- the decades of elevated balance and the hundreds of thousands in interest -- has already been done. The floor rescues the final, nearly empty stretch of the journey, not the long, expensive middle where the trap actually operates. This is a deliberate point: the existence of a floor offers false reassurance. It guarantees the debt will eventually end, but it does nothing to prevent the years of slow erosion that make the minimum-payment path so costly. The protection arrives far too late to be protection at all.
Why the statement minimum hides the real cost
A monthly card statement is built around a single, soothing number: the minimum due this month. It is, by design, the smallest payment that keeps the account in good standing, and on a large balance it looks almost trivial -- 2,000 against 100,000 in the default case. What the statement never shows is the trajectory. It does not reveal that this minimum is the largest one you will ever see, that next month's will be smaller, or that hundreds more lie ahead. It does not total the interest those payments will accrue or name the decade in which the balance might finally clear. Each statement presents a fresh, manageable figure in isolation, and isolation is exactly what makes the trap invisible. This calculator exists to break that isolation. By projecting the entire path from the first minimum to the last, it converts a series of small, comfortable monthly numbers into the figures that actually matter: 66.6 years, 461,679 in interest, 561,679 paid in total. None of those appear on any statement, yet all of them are the inevitable consequence of accepting the statement's invitation every month. The behavioural lesson is that affordability in the moment is not the same as affordability over time. A payment that always feels easy is precisely the payment most likely to keep you in debt the longest, because ease is the bait and duration is the cost.
Turning the numbers into a decision
The value of this tool is not in admiring how bad the minimum-payment path is, but in using its outputs to act. Start with the years-to-pay-off figure: if it spans decades, that alone signals the current path is unsustainable, regardless of how comfortable each monthly minimum feels. Next, look at the gap between the shrinking-minimum total interest and what a held-flat payment would cost -- the difference, often hundreds of thousands, is the prize for changing behaviour. The most reliable move suggested by the mechanics is simple: stop letting the payment shrink. Pick a payment at least equal to the first minimum and hold it steady, or larger if your budget allows, and the long tail disappears. From there, a dedicated fixed-payment payoff planner can show the precise new timeline, and for several balances at once a strategy tool can order them by interest rate to minimise total cost. A balance transfer to a low-rate offer can pause the interest entirely while you attack the principal. This tool's specific contribution is the diagnosis: it quantifies exactly how much the minimum-payment habit is costing in time and money, so the case for switching is no longer a vague sense that minimums are bad but a concrete figure you have seen for your own balance. Run your real numbers, note the years and the interest, then compare them against any alternative. The decision usually makes itself once the hidden trajectory is finally on the screen in front of you.
Frequently asked questions
How is a minimum payment calculated?
Most U.S. issuers use the greater of a fixed floor — commonly $25 to $35 — or this month's interest plus roughly 1% of the balance. Some use a flat 2% to 3% of the balance instead. Your cardholder agreement states the exact formula.
Why does the minimum get smaller every month?
Because it is a percentage of a shrinking balance. As the balance falls, so does the interest and so does the 1% slice, which is exactly what stretches the payoff out — you are paying less each month precisely because you are making progress.
Why does the payoff take twenty years?
Because the minimum is designed to cover the interest and only a sliver of principal. On a $6,000 balance at 22%, the first minimum is about $170 of which $110 is interest — only $60 comes off what you owe.
Is paying the minimum bad for my credit score?
Paying the minimum on time keeps your payment history clean, which is the largest scoring factor. The damage is indirect: the balance stays high for years, so credit utilization stays high, and that is the second-largest factor.
What is the box on my statement that shows this?
The CARD Act of 2009 requires issuers to print, on every statement, how long the balance takes at the minimum and what a three-year payoff would cost instead. This calculator reproduces that comparison from your own numbers.
What happens if I pay slightly more than the minimum?
The extra lands entirely on principal, and the effect compounds — a smaller balance generates less interest next month, so more of the following payment goes to principal too. Even $25 a month above the minimum changes the payoff by years.
Can the minimum ever fail to clear the card?
A percentage-only minimum with no fixed floor never technically reaches zero — 1% of a shrinking balance approaches zero without arriving. The $25 floor is what finishes the job; enter zero for the floor and this tool will tell you it never lands.
Does the minimum change if my APR goes up?
Yes, upward. The interest portion is larger, so the minimum is larger — but the principal slice stays the same 1%, so a higher APR means paying more each month and still clearing the card no faster.
What if I miss a payment?
Expect a late fee added to the balance and, after 60 days, a possible penalty APR that can run near 30% until you have made six consecutive on-time payments. A payment more than 30 days late is also reported to the credit bureaus.
Is it better to pay the minimum on everything, or clear one card?
Pay the minimum on every card — missing one is expensive and hits your credit report — then put every spare dollar on a single card. Which card to pick is what the Debt Avalanche and Debt Snowball calculators compare.
Does the calculator include fees?
No. It models interest and the minimum-payment rule only. Annual fees, late fees and cash-advance fees are added to the balance by your issuer and would extend every figure here.
Why does total paid exceed the balance so much?
Because two decades of interest accumulate on a balance that barely moves. At the defaults, $6,000 becomes $15,933 paid — $9,933 of it interest, which is more than half of everything you hand over.