Credit Card Payoff Calculator
With balance 6000 usd, apr 22.5 percent, monthly payment 250 usd, credit card payoff comes to 2 yr 8 mo — months to clear. It is reached in 4 steps, the last of which is -log(1 - 6000 * 0.01875 / 250) / log(1 + 0.01875), and each one is printed on the page with its numbers filled in. The formula is the one published by CFPB, not an approximation fitted to it.
How many months a card balance takes to clear at a fixed monthly payment, and what the interest costs.
Formula and sources checked · How we check
Balance 6000, APR 22.5, Monthly payment 250
2 yr 8 mo
Months to clear for the example below. Editing a field recomputes the calculator below; this figure holds the answer the page was loaded with.
It is written into the HTML rather than drawn by a script, so a search engine reading this page without running JavaScript still finds an answer.
- Interest in the first month
6000 * 0.01875112.5- Months to clear
-log(1 - 6000 * 0.01875 / 250) / log(1 + 0.01875)32.183 months- Total paid
250 * 32.1826338,045.658- Total interest
8045.6583 - 60002,045.658
Ask about this in the chatCompare: paying $250 against $400
What the debt costs
Payoff schedule
A fixed payment clears a card on a curve that steepens: as the balance falls, less of each payment goes to interest and more of it to the debt.
| Year | Interest | Off the balance | Remaining |
|---|---|---|---|
| Year 1 | $1,168.75 | $1,831.25 | $4,168.75 |
| Year 2 | $711.45 | $2,288.55 | $1,880.20 |
| Year 3 | $165.81 | $1,880.20 | $0.00 |
The table above groups the 33 months into 3. The amortisation schedule prints every one of them, with the split between interest and principal.
Worked example
$6,000 at 22.5% paid at $250/mo clears in 2 yr 8 mo and costs $2,046 in interest. Raise the payment to $350 and it clears in 1 yr 9 mo for $1,306, saving $740 for $100 a month.
How to work it out yourself
- 1.Take the statement balance and the APR from the card, not the promotional rate.
- 2.Divide the APR by 1,200 for the monthly rate, and multiply by the balance to see the interest accruing each month.
- 3.Your payment has to exceed that figure or the balance grows. Everything above it reduces the debt.
- 4.Fix the payment rather than paying the minimum — a minimum that shrinks with the balance is what stretches a card into decades.
Months to clear $6,000 at 22.5% by payment
| Monthly payment (usd) | Months to clear | Total interest |
|---|---|---|
| 150 | 6 yr 3 mo | 5,194.01 |
| 200 | 3 yr 9 mo | 2,900.32 |
| 250 | 2 yr 8 mo | 2,045.66 |
| 300 | 2 yr 1 mo | 1,590.34 |
| 400 | 1 yr 6 mo | 1,111 |
| 500 | 1 yr 2 mo | 860.65 |
| 750 | 9 mo | 561.51 |
Assumes no new charges. Below about $113 a month the interest exceeds the payment and the balance never clears.
The formula
- Interest in the first month
6000 * 0.01875 - Months to clear
-log(1 - 6000 * 0.01875 / 250) / log(1 + 0.01875) - Total paid
250 * 32.182633 - Total interest
8045.6583 - 6000
Source: CFPB — credit card payoff and minimum payments, Federal Reserve G.19 — credit card interest rates
Questions people actually ask
- What happens if my payment is below the interest?
- The balance grows and the maths has no answer — this calculator returns an error rather than a number. At 22.5% APR a $6,000 balance accrues $112.50 a month, so anything at or below that never pays the card off.
- Why are minimum payments so damaging?
- A typical minimum is 1–2% of the balance plus interest, which falls as the balance falls. That shrinking payment is what stretches a card into decades — most of the term is spent paying interest on a balance that barely moves.
- Avalanche or snowball?
- Avalanche — highest APR first — always costs less in interest. Snowball, smallest balance first, costs more but closes accounts sooner, which some people need to keep going. The gap is usually a few hundred dollars, not a few thousand.
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