Credit Card Payoff Calculator
Find out how many months it will take to pay off a credit card balance at your APR and monthly payment.
About the Card Payoff Calculator
Credit card interest compounds monthly on a revolving balance, and paying only the minimum can stretch payoff for years while interest quietly outpaces your progress. This calculator tells you exactly how many months it will take to reach zero at your chosen monthly payment, plus the total interest that payment schedule will cost.
How It Works
Each month, the calculator charges interest on the remaining balance at your APR divided by 12, then applies the rest of your payment to principal, repeating until the balance reaches zero. If your monthly payment does not exceed the interest being charged, the balance would never shrink, so the calculator flags that case instead of returning a misleading result.
Interest(month) = Balance × (APR/12); Principal(month) = Payment − Interest(month); repeat until Balance ≤ 0.
Example
Scenario: A $6,000 balance at 22% APR, paying $250 per month.
Result: About 28 months to pay off in full, with roughly $986 in total interest paid along the way.
Assumptions & Limitations
- Assumes no new purchases are added to the balance while paying it down.
- Assumes the monthly payment stays exactly the same every month until payoff.
- Real card issuers may use average daily balance methods that produce slightly different interest amounts than this simplified monthly model.
- Late fees or promotional rate changes are not factored in.