Credit Card Minimum Payment Calculator

Enter your statement balance, APR, and the minimum-payment formula you want to use. The calculator estimates the current minimum, then projects what happens when that payment declines as the balance falls. If you enter the minimum shown on your statement, you can also compare the issuer's amount with the estimate and see what happens if you keep today's payment fixed.

Issuer formulas vary, so use your statement and card agreement when you know the actual percentage, dollar floor, balance base, fees, or rounding rule.

Assumptions used

• Current minimum estimate: the two common estimate methods use either 1% of the statement balance plus interest and entered fees, or 2% of the statement balance, then compare that amount with the selected minimum-payment floor. The default floor is $40, and the final payment is capped at the statement balance.
• Minimum-payment floor: today's estimate and the long-term payoff projection use the floor entered in Payment details, which is preloaded at $40. Change it when your card agreement uses another amount. The selected floor also applies when you customize the issuer formula.
• Estimated statement interest: when billed interest is left blank, the tool uses statement balance × APR ÷ 365 or 360 × billing-cycle days. This is a simplified fixed-balance estimate, not an issuer reconstruction of average daily balance. If you enter billed interest, it's used for the current estimate or payment breakdown only; future payoff cycles still use the APR-based calculation.
• Declining-minimum projection: estimates each billing cycle's interest from APR ÷ the selected 365- or 360-day divisor × billing-cycle days, recalculates the future minimum from the selected benchmark or custom formula, and applies the selected payoff floor once the formula falls below it. For the common 1% of balance + interest benchmark, the projection applies 1% to the opening balance before that cycle's new interest, then adds the estimated interest. This keeps the default benchmark consistent with the common payoff-calculator convention that treats the percentage portion as principal reduction. When you customize an interest-plus-percentage formula, “Full statement balance” uses the projected balance after interest, while “Balance before interest and fees” uses the opening balance.
• Past-due amounts, fees used in an interest-plus-percentage estimate, and promotional payment requirements are treated as current-cycle adjustments and aren't repeated in future months.
• Fixed-payment comparison: keeps today's current payment constant—your statement minimum when you enter one, otherwise the estimated minimum—and uses the same selected billing-cycle interest assumption as the declining-minimum projection.
• 3-year payment: uses fixed-payment amortization over 36 projected billing cycles using the same selected billing-cycle interest assumption. It's an educational comparison, not a reconstruction of the issuer's Regulation Z Appendix M1 disclosure.
• The calculator stops instead of showing a payoff date when a selected declining-minimum or fixed-payment assumption doesn't reduce the balance after interest.
• No new purchases, new fees, penalty APR changes, variable rates, multiple APR buckets, payment allocation rules, or issuer-specific daily-balance compounding are included in the payoff comparisons.