How long until your card is paid off?

What the Credit Card Payoff Calculator Does

This credit card payoff calculator tells you how many months it will take to clear a card balance based on three inputs: your current balance, the card's annual percentage rate (APR), and the fixed monthly payment you plan to make. Instead of guessing, you get a concrete timeline so you can plan your debt-free date.

It is built for anyone carrying a revolving balance who wants a realistic repayment schedule: people deciding how much extra to pay each month, those comparing a payoff plan against a balance-transfer offer, or anyone simply tired of seeing the same balance roll over. The math assumes a constant payment and a fixed APR, which mirrors how most cards charge interest.

How It Works: The Payoff Formula

Credit card interest compounds on the remaining balance, so each payment is split between interest and principal. The calculator uses the standard amortization formula to solve for the number of months:

months = -ln(1 - balance * r / payment) / ln(1 + r)

Here r is the monthly interest rate, found by dividing the APR by 12 (and by 100 to convert from a percent): r = APR / 100 / 12. The ln() function is the natural logarithm.

One condition matters above all: your payment must exceed the first month's interest, which equals balance * r. If the payment is equal to or less than that interest charge, the balance never shrinks (or grows), and the formula returns no valid result.

A Worked Example With Real Numbers

Suppose you owe $5,000 at a 20% APR and pay $200 every month.

First, find the monthly rate: r = 20 / 100 / 12 = 0.0166667. Check that the payment beats the monthly interest: balance * r = 5,000 * 0.0166667 = $83.33, and $200 is comfortably above that, so the balance will fall.

Now plug into the formula: months = -ln(1 - 5,000 * 0.0166667 / 200) / ln(1 + 0.0166667) = -ln(1 - 0.41667) / ln(1.0166667) = -ln(0.58333) / 0.0165293 = 0.53899 / 0.0165293 = about 32.6 months. So it takes roughly 33 months, and you pay close to $1,520 in total interest over that period.

Factors That Change Your Payoff Date

Small changes to the inputs move the timeline a lot, because interest compounds. The biggest levers are the monthly payment and the APR.

• Payment size: raising the $200 payment to $300 in the example above cuts the payoff from about 33 months to roughly 19 months and saves several hundred dollars in interest.
• APR: a higher rate sends more of each payment to interest and stretches the timeline. Paying down high-APR cards first (the avalanche method) minimizes total interest.
• New charges: the formula assumes you stop adding to the balance. Every new purchase resets the math and pushes the date back.
• Minimum payments: these are usually a small percentage of the balance and shrink as you pay down, so a true minimum-only payoff takes far longer than a fixed payment.

Tips and Common Mistakes

Use the calculator as a planning tool, then verify against your statement, since real cards may apply slightly different rounding, fees, or daily compounding.

• Always pay more than the monthly interest charge; a payment at or below balance * r will never retire the debt.
• Enter the APR, not the monthly rate, and let the tool convert it. Mixing the two is the most frequent input error.
• Round the result up. A 32.6-month answer means the last payment lands in month 33 and will be smaller than the others.
• Re-run the numbers after any large purchase or rate change, and consider whether a lower-rate transfer would shorten your timeline before you commit to a payment amount.