Credit Card Payoff Calculator
Find out how long a credit card balance will take to pay off, and how much interest you'll pay.
How it works
Each month the calculator adds a month of interest to the outstanding balance at your annual rate divided by 12, then applies your payment. It repeats this month by month until the balance reaches zero. If your payment doesn’t even cover the interest charged each month, the balance never shrinks and the calculator flags that the card may never be paid off.
Worked example
A $5,000 balance at 19.9% p.a. paying $200 a month:
- Monthly interest
- 19.9% ÷ 12 ≈ 1.66%
- Time to pay off
- ≈ 33 months
- Interest paid
- ≈ $1,520
- Total repaid
- ≈ $6,520
Frequently asked questions
If your monthly payment is at or below the interest charged that month, the balance never shrinks — you're only covering interest, sometimes not even that. You'll need to pay more than the interest-only amount for the balance to go down.