Minimum Payment Calculator
See the real cost — in years and dollars — of paying only the minimum on a credit card balance, using the same declining-minimum formula issuers use.
Your Balance
Why the "minimum payment trap" is so expensive
Credit card issuers don't set the minimum payment as a fixed dollar amount forever — they typically calculate it fresh every month as the greater of a small dollar floor (often $25–$35) or a percentage of your current balance (commonly 1%–3%). That design means your required payment shrinks every single month right along with your balance. Less dollars paid means less progress on principal, which means it takes dramatically longer — often 15 to 25+ years on a high-interest card — to reach zero.
Worked example
Imagine a $4,500 balance at 23.9% APR with a 2% minimum payment and a $25 floor. The first month's minimum is about $90. As the balance slowly drops, so does 2% of it — eventually the payment shrinks toward the $25 floor and stays there for years, barely denting a balance that's still accruing significant interest every month. This is exactly the scenario modeled above.
Minimum payment = max(Dollar floor, Balance × Minimum %)
New balance = Balance + Interest − Payment
The law requires issuers to warn you
Under the U.S. Credit CARD Act of 2009, every credit card statement must include a "Minimum Payment Warning" box disclosing how many years and how much total interest it would take to pay off your current balance at the minimum payment, alongside the payment amount required to clear it in 36 months instead. This calculator lets you run that same math for any balance, rate, or payment structure — not just what's printed on your last statement.
How to escape the trap
- Pay a fixed amount above the minimum every month, even a small one — see the comparison panel above.
- Use the Credit Card Payoff Calculator to test specific fixed payment amounts and payoff dates.
- Target your highest-rate balances first with the Debt Avalanche Calculator if you carry more than one card.
- Stop adding new charges to a card you're actively paying down.
Frequently Asked Questions
Most issuers set the minimum payment as the greater of a flat dollar floor (often $25–$35) or a small percentage of your balance (typically 1%–3%), sometimes plus that month's interest and fees. As your balance shrinks, the required minimum shrinks too, which is what stretches payoff out for years.
Because the minimum payment is recalculated as a percentage of a shrinking balance, the dollar amount you pay gets smaller every month, so less and less goes toward principal over time. On a high-APR card, it can easily take 15 to 25+ years to pay off a balance this way.
Yes. Under the U.S. CARD Act of 2009, credit card statements must include a "minimum payment warning" box showing how many years it would take to pay off your balance making only minimum payments, and how much you'd pay in total, plus what a payment would need to be to pay it off in 36 months.
That's called negative amortization — your balance grows every month instead of shrinking, even though you're making payments. This calculator will flag this scenario clearly if your inputs produce it.