Credit Card Payoff Calculator
Card details
Enter your balance to begin
Your payoff date will appear here
Enter your balance, APR and monthly payment to see the month you'd be debt-free and what the card costs you.
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 your current card balance and the APR from your statement — the purchase APR, unless the balance came from a cash advance or a promotional offer.
- 02
Enter what you plan to pay each month, and any extra you can add on top. Not sure what to type? Use a quick fill to see what a real statement minimum looks like at your balance.
- 03
Switch to "Pay off by a date" if you have a deadline instead of an amount, and the calculator solves for the payment that meets it.
- 04
Read the payoff month, the total interest, and the comparison against paying only the minimum — the difference is what your payment is buying you.
- 05
Open the month-by-month schedule to see the interest slice shrink and the principal slice grow, and to find the month your balance crosses a number you care about.
Formula
This calculator clears one revolving balance with a fixed monthly payment by simulating the balance month by month. Each month it does two things in order: (1) adds that month's interest, where monthly interest = current balance x (APR / 12), then (2) subtracts your fixed monthly payment. Whatever remains carries forward as next month's starting balance, and the loop repeats until the balance reaches zero. Monthly periodic rate = APR / 12. Month's interest = balance x (APR / 12). New balance = balance + month's interest - fixed payment. Outputs: - Months to payoff = number of monthly cycles until the balance reaches zero. - Total interest = sum of every month's interest charge. - Total paid = original balance + total interest. Never-pays-off rule: if the fixed payment is less than or equal to the first month's interest (balance x APR / 12), the payment cannot cover the interest, the balance never falls, and the result is reported as 'never pays off'. The payment must strictly exceed that first-month interest for the balance to clear.
Example
Inputs: balance $6,000, APR 22%, monthly payment $250. Step 1 - Find the monthly periodic rate. Monthly rate = 22% / 12 = 1.8333% = 0.018333. Step 2 - Check the never-pays-off threshold. First month's interest = $6,000 x 0.018333 = $110.00. The $250 payment exceeds $110, so the balance will clear. Step 3 - Run the monthly loop (add interest, then subtract the payment). Month 1: interest = $6,000 x 0.018333 = $110.00. Principal paid = $250 - $110.00 = $140.00. New balance = $6,000 + $110.00 - $250 = $5,860.00. Month 2: interest = $5,860.00 x 0.018333 = $107.43. Principal paid = $142.57. New balance = $5,717.43. Month 3: interest = $5,717.43 x 0.018333 = $104.82. Principal paid = $145.18. New balance = $5,572.25. ... the loop continues, with the interest slice shrinking and the principal slice growing every month ... Month 31: interest = $8.55, principal = $241.45, and $224.93 is still owed. Month 32: the balance is smaller than $250, so the final payment is trimmed to clear exactly to zero: $229.05 ($224.93 of principal plus $4.12 of interest), not a full $250. Step 4 - Read the outputs. Months to payoff = 32, so the payoff date is 32 months from the first payment. Total interest = $1,979.05 (the sum of all 32 monthly interest charges). Total paid = $6,000 + $1,979.05 = $7,979.05. Note: total paid is NOT $250 x 32 = $8,000, because the final payment is partial. Total paid is always the original balance plus total interest. A closed-form check confirms the timeline: -ln(1 - $6,000 x 0.018333 / $250) / ln(1.018333) = 31.92, which rounds up to 32 months — which is exactly why the last payment is smaller than the rest. For contrast, the same card left on its minimum payment — that month's interest plus 1% of the balance, never below $25 — takes about 249 months (20 years 9 months) and costs $9,933 in interest. The $250 payment is what turns two decades into under three years.
Definitions
- APR (annual percentage rate)
- The yearly cost of carrying a balance, before compounding. Divide by 12 for the monthly rate this calculator applies, or by 365 for the daily rate most statements use.
- Monthly periodic rate
- APR ÷ 12. On a 22% card that is 1.8333% a month — the figure applied to your balance before your payment is subtracted.
- Revolving balance
- A balance you carry from one statement to the next. Unlike a loan it has no fixed term: how long it lasts depends entirely on what you pay.
- Minimum payment
- The least your issuer will accept. In the U.S. it is normally the greater of a small fixed floor — $25 to $35 — or that month's interest plus about 1% of the balance.
- Extra payment
- Anything you pay above your planned monthly amount. Because it lands entirely on principal, it removes both the balance and every future month of interest that balance would have generated.
- Payoff date
- The month the balance reaches zero at your current payment. It moves earlier with every extra dollar and later with every new purchase.
- Principal vs interest split
- How one payment divides. Early on, most of it covers interest; as the balance falls the interest shrinks and the same payment retires more principal each month.
- Grace period
- The window in which new purchases accrue no interest, available only while you pay your statement balance in full. Carrying a balance normally suspends it.
- Statement balance
- What you owed on the closing date of the billing cycle. Paying this in full — not just the minimum, and not the current balance — is what keeps the grace period.
- Credit utilization
- Balances divided by credit limits. One of the largest factors in a credit score, and the channel through which paying down a card improves it.
- Deferred interest
- A promotional structure where waived interest is charged retroactively if any balance remains when the promo ends. Different from a true 0% APR offer, which only charges interest going forward.
- Never-pays-off threshold
- The payment equal to the first month's interest. Anything at or below it leaves the balance the same or larger every month, so the card never clears.
Good to know
How the fixed-payment payoff engine works
This calculator clears a single revolving balance using one payment that stays the same every month. Each month it runs the same two steps in order. First it adds that month's interest, found by multiplying the current balance by the APR divided by twelve. Then it subtracts your fixed payment, and whatever is left becomes the starting balance for the next month. It repeats this loop until the balance reaches zero. Because interest is charged on the balance that remains, the interest portion is largest at the start and shrinks every month as the balance falls. Your payment, by contrast, never changes, so a steadily larger slice of each payment goes toward the principal you actually owe. That shifting split is the whole story of payoff: early payments are mostly interest, later payments are almost all principal. The three results you see follow directly from this loop. Months to payoff is how many times the loop runs before the balance hits zero. Total interest is the sum of every monthly interest charge along the way. Total paid is your original balance plus that total interest. Understanding the loop matters because it explains why small changes to the payment have outsized effects: lifting the payment lifts the principal slice in month one, which lowers next month's balance, which lowers next month's interest, and the advantage compounds down the entire schedule rather than helping just once.
The never-pays-off threshold
There is a hard line every fixed payment must clear: it has to be larger than the first month's interest. The first month's interest equals the balance times the APR divided by twelve. With a balance of 80,000 at 18 percent, that is 80,000 times 0.015, or 1,200. If your fixed payment is exactly 1,200, the payment only covers the interest and removes nothing from the balance, so the balance stays at 80,000 forever and the calculator reports that the card never pays off. Pay even slightly less and the balance actually grows month after month. This is why the tool checks the threshold before it runs the loop and flags the never case immediately rather than counting to its internal limit. The threshold is unforgiving in a precise way: the payment must strictly exceed the interest, not merely match it. Crossing the line by a little is not the same as clearing the balance in reasonable time. Paying 1,300 against the same balance does eventually finish, but it takes about 173 months and costs far more in interest than the original balance itself, because almost the entire payment is swallowed by interest for years. The practical lesson is to treat the first-month interest figure as a floor you must comfortably clear, then aim well above it so that a meaningful share of every payment attacks the principal from the very first month.
What a missed or partial month does to the plan
Every projection here assumes the same payment lands on time, every month. Because interest is charged on whatever balance remains, skipping or underpaying a single month does more damage than simply adding one month to the end. The unpaid balance carries a full extra month of interest, and every later interest charge is then calculated on a higher figure, so the total cost rises and the payoff date slips by more than the month you missed. The clean number on screen only holds if the schedule is kept without interruption. The practical safeguard is to automate the payment for at least the amount you modeled, so a busy month never quietly breaks the plan. If you do fall behind, the honest way to see the new picture is to re-enter your current, higher balance and read the fresh timeline rather than assuming you can make it up later. A late payment can also add a fee or move you to a higher rate, both of which push the real outcome past this clean projection. Consistency, not heroics, is what turns the estimate into reality: the same payment, every month, until the balance reaches zero.
Reading months, total interest, and total paid
The calculator returns three numbers, and each answers a different question. Months to payoff is the timeline: how many monthly cycles it takes for the fixed payment to drive the balance to zero. Total interest is the price of borrowing: the sum of every monthly interest charge added along the way, on top of what you originally owed. Total paid is the full outlay: your starting balance plus that total interest. With the default inputs, the result is 24 months, 15,826.14 in interest, and 95,826.14 paid in total. A useful habit is to read the three together rather than fixating on one. A short timeline with modest interest is the goal, but two scenarios can share a payoff time and still differ in cost if their balances or rates differ. Total interest is the cleanest measure of how much the debt is costing you, because it strips out the principal you would have paid regardless. Total paid puts that cost in context against the original balance, making the markup obvious at a glance. Treat all three as planning estimates rather than an exact statement. Real accounts can add fees, change rates, or accrue interest on new purchases, any of which shifts the outcome. The value of the tool is in comparison: change one input, watch all three numbers move together, and you learn which lever matters most for your situation.
What share of your payments is interest
Beyond the three headline numbers sits a ratio that often tells the story more clearly: of everything you hand over, what fraction is the cost of borrowing rather than repaying what you actually spent. Dividing total interest by total paid gives that interest share. In the default scenario, 15,826 of the 95,826 paid is interest — about 16.5%, so roughly one unit in six goes to financing rather than to the balance. The share is a cleaner gauge than the raw total because it is expressed on a common scale, so two cards with very different balances can be compared fairly. It climbs steeply with the APR and with a slower payment, and it falls as you pay more each month, because a larger payment clears principal before that principal can accrue further interest. Watching the share move as you adjust the payment shows, at a glance, how hard the card is working against you. A low share means most of your money is reaching the balance; a high share means the card is mostly charging you to carry it. Pushing that figure down by clearing the balance faster is the whole aim of a payoff plan.
How paying a bit more each month collapses the timeline
A modest increase to the fixed payment pays off out of all proportion to its size, and the calculator makes that visible instantly. Start from the default: 80,000 at 18 percent, paying 4,000 a month, clears in 24 months and costs 15,826.14 in interest. Raise the payment to 5,000 a month and the same balance clears in just 19 months, with total interest falling to 12,172.48. That is five months shaved off and roughly 3,654 of interest saved, in exchange for paying 1,000 more in the months you were paying anyway. The reason the effect is so large is the chain reaction inside the loop. Every extra unit you pay this month reduces the balance, which reduces next month's interest, which means even more of next month's payment attacks principal, and so on down the schedule. The benefit compounds in your favor, the mirror image of how interest compounds against you. This is why financial advice so often emphasizes paying above the required amount: the marginal payment is far more powerful than its face value suggests. The practical experiment is to nudge the payment field upward in small steps and watch both the month count and the total interest drop together. You will usually find a comfortable payment level where the timeline shortens sharply before the gains start to flatten, which is a sensible target to aim for and then hold steady.
How a one-off lump sum shortens payoff
Beyond raising the monthly payment, a single lump sum applied to the balance can shorten the schedule dramatically, and sometimes it beats a recurring top-up. The mechanism is the same chain reaction, only front-loaded. Knocking the balance down once means every month that follows starts from a lower figure, so every future interest charge is smaller for the entire remaining schedule. Consider the default 80,000 at 18 percent paying 4,000 a month, which finishes in 24 months with 15,826.14 of interest. Apply a one-off 10,000 to drop the starting balance to 70,000, then continue the same 4,000 payment, and the card clears in 21 months with total interest of 11,811.96. That single payment saved three months and roughly 4,014 in interest. Notice that the lump sum saved slightly more interest than the recurring 1,000-per-month increase did, even though it was a one-time outlay, because it removed exposed principal earlier and all at once. The order in which money arrives matters: a unit applied today avoids more future interest than the same unit applied months from now. This is the case for directing windfalls, bonuses, tax refunds, or proceeds from selling something straight at a revolving balance rather than spreading them out. To model your own version, simply lower the balance input by the size of the lump sum, keep your usual payment, and compare the new month count and interest against the original.
Setting a payment from a target deadline
The natural way to use this tool is to pick a payment and read off the timeline, but you can also work the other way: decide when you want the balance gone, then find the payment that gets you there. Because the engine is a standard fixed-payment amortization, a payment exists for any sensible deadline, and the calculator surfaces this when a payment would otherwise never clear the balance by suggesting an amount that finishes within a set window. The relationship is intuitive once you have used the inputs a few times. A shorter deadline demands a larger payment, and the required payment rises steeply as the deadline gets very short, because there are fewer months to spread the principal across and the interest is compressed into less time. A longer deadline lowers the monthly amount but raises the total interest, since the balance stays alive longer. There is no single correct answer; it is a trade-off between monthly affordability and total cost. The honest way to choose is to settle on the largest payment you can sustain without missing it, then read the deadline that payment implies, rather than promising a payment you cannot keep. A payment you actually make every month beats an ambitious figure you abandon after two cycles, because a broken plan resets the math and leaves more balance exposed to interest for longer.
Limitations and how to read the result honestly
This calculator is a clean model of one situation: a single revolving balance, a fixed APR, and one unchanging monthly payment, with interest applied once per month as balance times APR divided by twelve. Real accounts can be messier, and knowing the gaps keeps you from over-trusting the numbers. The model assumes you add no new purchases to the card; every fresh charge raises the balance and pushes the finish line back, which is why pausing spending while you pay down is so effective. It assumes the APR holds steady, whereas a real rate can change, including a penalty rate after a missed payment. It does not include annual fees, late fees, or other charges that some accounts add. It also applies interest on a simple monthly cycle rather than tracking the exact day-by-day method some issuers use, so a real statement may differ slightly. None of this makes the output useless; it makes it a planning estimate rather than a contractual figure. Use it to compare scenarios and understand the levers, not to predict your statement to the cent. The comparisons are where it earns its keep: the difference between paying 4,000 and 5,000, or between applying a lump sum now versus later, is reliable even if the absolute totals shift by a little in practice. Read the result as a well-grounded guide to direction and magnitude, confirm the specifics against your own statement, and let the tool do what it does best, which is show how your choices change the timeline and the cost.
Frequently asked questions
Why won't my card ever pay off?
If your monthly payment is less than the first month's interest, the balance never shrinks — the payment does not even cover what was added. Raise the payment above that interest charge and the balance starts falling.
How is credit card interest actually charged?
Most U.S. issuers apply a daily periodic rate — the APR divided by 365 — to your average daily balance, then bill the total once a month. This calculator uses the monthly equivalent, APR ÷ 12, which lands within a dollar or two of a daily-rate statement on the same balance.
Is paying only the minimum a problem?
Usually, yes. A minimum is built to cover the interest plus a sliver of principal, so it clears the balance as slowly as the rules allow. On a $6,000 balance at 22% the minimum takes about 20 years and costs roughly $9,933 in interest; $250 a month clears it in under three years for under $2,000.
Does paying more than the minimum help my credit score?
Indirectly, and quite a lot. Paying more lowers your balance faster, which lowers credit utilization — the share of your limit you are using — and utilization is one of the largest factors in a FICO score. The amount you pay is reported too, and the bureaus keep about two years of it as trended data — newer scoring models use it to tell someone who clears the card each month from someone who revolves. The larger and faster effect, though, is the lower balance it leaves behind.
What if I keep using the card while I pay it down?
New purchases are added to the balance, so the payoff date this calculator gives you moves further out. The figures here assume you stop adding to the card. If you cannot stop entirely, enter your expected average balance rather than today's.
Should I pay twice a month instead of once?
It helps a little, because interest accrues daily and a mid-month payment lowers your average daily balance for the rest of the cycle. The effect is small — a few dollars a month on a typical balance — compared with simply paying more in total.
What is a grace period, and do I have one?
If you pay your statement balance in full every month, most cards charge no interest on new purchases — that is the grace period. Carry any balance and the grace period usually disappears until you pay in full again, so new purchases start accruing interest from the day they post.
Does the order my payment is applied in matter?
Yes. By law, anything you pay above the minimum must be applied to the highest-APR balance first. The minimum portion can be applied at the issuer's discretion, which is usually to the lowest rate — one reason a cash advance or an expired promo balance is expensive to carry.
What happens when a 0% promotional rate ends?
The remaining balance starts accruing at the regular APR from that day. Some deferred-interest offers go further and charge all the interest that was waived, retroactively, if any balance remains. Check which kind you have — the Balance Transfer Calculator models the promo window explicitly.
Will closing the card once it's paid off help?
It usually hurts. Closing removes that credit limit from your utilization calculation, which raises the ratio on your remaining cards, and it eventually shortens your average account age. Paying to zero and keeping the account open is normally the better move.
Why is my total paid less than my payment times the number of months?
The final payment is trimmed to whatever is left. Paying $250 for 32 months would be $8,000, but the last payment here is only $229 — the balance ran out first. Total paid is always the original balance plus the interest charged on it.
Should I pay off the card or build savings first?
At card rates, paying the card is nearly always the higher return: clearing a 22% balance is a guaranteed 22% saved, which no savings account matches. The common exception is a small starter emergency fund, so that the next unexpected bill does not go straight back onto the card.