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Credit Card Payoff Calculator

Find out how long it will take to pay off a credit card balance with a fixed payment, or the payment needed to hit a target payoff date.

Choose a calculation

Find out how many months a fixed monthly payment will take to pay off your balance.

Result

How to Use

  1. Choose whether you want to know how long a payment will take, or what payment you need to hit a target payoff date, from the options above the form.
  2. Enter your current balance and the card's APR — the ongoing interest rate on purchases/balances, not a promotional rate (see the Balance Transfer Calculator for promo-rate scenarios).
  3. For "How long will it take," enter the fixed amount you plan to pay every month. For "What payment do I need," enter how many months you want to be debt-free in.
  4. The result shows total interest paid and the total amount you'll pay over the full payoff period, not just the monthly figure.

Formula

How long will it take
monthly_rate = APR ÷ 100 ÷ 12; each month, interest = balance × monthly_rate, then your payment is applied (capped at what's actually owed) until the balance reaches $0
What payment do I need
monthly_rate = APR ÷ 100 ÷ 12; payment = balance × monthly_rate ÷ (1 − (1 + monthly_rate)^−months)

Worked Example

A $5,000 balance at 18% APR, paying a fixed $200 every month.

  1. Monthly rate: 18 ÷ 100 ÷ 12 = 0.015
  2. Month 1: interest = $5,000 × 0.015 = $75.00, payment reduces balance to $4,875.00
  3. ...continuing month by month until the balance reaches $0...
  4. Total time to pay off: 32 months

Result: Time to pay off: 32 months (2.67 years) / Total interest paid: $1,313.96 / Total amount paid: $6,313.96

About This Tool

What this tool does

This calculator projects how a credit card balance is paid down month by month, either finding how long a fixed payment will take to reach $0, or the fixed payment needed to reach $0 by a target date.

When to use it

Use "How long will it take" to see the real cost of only paying a set amount each month, or "What payment do I need" to work backward from a payoff goal (e.g. "debt-free before an event 18 months from now").

What the result means

Total interest paid is money spent on interest alone, on top of your balance — it's the clearest number for seeing how much a slower payoff actually costs you. Total amount paid is your balance plus that interest.

Assumptions & limitations

This is an estimate, not your card issuer's actual calculation: real issuers often use daily or average-daily-balance interest methods that can differ slightly from this month-by-month model, and real minimum payments are often a formula based on your balance (commonly 1–3% of it) rather than a fixed dollar amount, so your issuer's actual required minimum may be different from any amount you enter here. This tool assumes no new purchases are added to the balance and that the APR stays constant for the entire payoff period — a real card's APR can change, and new charges reset the math. This is not financial advice, credit counseling, or a payoff guarantee from any card issuer.

Frequently Asked Questions

How is credit card interest actually calculated?
Most issuers charge interest on your average daily balance, compounded daily, then billed monthly — this calculator simplifies that to a month-by-month model (interest once per month on the balance, then your payment applied), which is very close for a steady balance but can differ slightly from your real statement.
What if my payment barely covers the interest?
If your payment doesn't exceed that month's interest charge, your balance can't go down — it can even grow. This calculator flags that case directly rather than showing a payoff time that will never actually happen.
Does paying more each month really make a big difference?
Yes, often dramatically — try the "How long will it take" mode with a couple of different payment amounts on the same balance and APR to see both the payoff time and total interest paid drop.

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