Credit Card Debt in America: 2026 Statistics

Two totals get quoted for American credit card debt, and they disagree. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York's household-debt panel put credit card balances at $1.25 trillion at the end of March 2026. The Federal Reserve Board's G.19 consumer credit release put revolving credit at $1.34 trillion in May 2026. Both are official, both are current, and they are not measuring the same object. The New York Fed reads bank-card balances off a nationally representative sample of consumer credit reports; the G.19 collects revolving balances from lenders and, by its own definition, includes revolving credit that is not a credit card at all. Most articles quote the two interchangeably. Use the New York Fed's figure when the question is what households owe, and the G.19's when the question is what lenders are carrying.

Every number below carries its source, the period it covers, and the release date. On this subject those three things are the difference between a figure and a rumor.

How much credit card debt do Americans have in 2026?

$1.25 trillion, on the measure most people mean by the question.

$1.25T

U.S. credit card balances, first quarter of 2026

Down $25 billion from the fourth quarter of 2025, and 5.9% above the $1.182 trillion recorded a year earlier. The quarterly dip is seasonal: holiday balances get paid down in the first quarter, and these figures are not seasonally adjusted.

Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit, 2026:Q1, released May 2026.

That total sits inside $18.79 trillion of overall household debt, which barely moved in the quarter. Credit cards are 7% of what American households owe. Mortgages are 70%.

The long arc is the part worth keeping. Balances fell during the pandemic, bottomed at $819 billion at the end of 2020, and have climbed every year since.

2019202020212022202320242025

Federal Reserve Bank of New York Consumer Credit Panel / Equifax, Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit, 2026:Q1 data files. Not seasonally adjusted; fourth-quarter values are seasonal highs.

Now the reconciliation, because the two headline totals get mixed up constantly and the difference is not rounding.

Measure	Latest reading	What it includes	What it leaves out
NY Fed: credit card balances	$1.25 trillion (2026:Q1)	Bank-card balances reported to Equifax on a 5% sample of consumer credit files	Retail and store cards, which sit in the report's $562 billion 'Other' category with consumer finance loans; accounts in bankruptcy; accounts not reported in the last three months
Federal Reserve G.19: revolving credit	$1.34 trillion (May 2026, seasonally adjusted)	Revolving consumer credit reported by lenders, of which credit cards are most but not all	Anything secured by real estate; the lender-side view means it cannot be broken out by household
CFPB: cycle-ending card balances	Over $1.2 trillion (year-end 2024)	General purpose cards (over $1.1 trillion) plus private label store cards ($90.4 billion)	Issuers outside the supervisory samples the Bureau draws on
Philadelphia Fed: large-bank card balances	$948.7 billion (2026:Q1)	Balances at the largest bank card issuers, from FR Y-14M supervisory filings	Credit unions, smaller banks and non-bank issuers

• MeasureNY Fed: credit card balances

  Latest reading

  $1.25 trillion (2026:Q1)

  What it includes

  Bank-card balances reported to Equifax on a 5% sample of consumer credit files

  What it leaves out

  Retail and store cards, which sit in the report's $562 billion 'Other' category with consumer finance loans; accounts in bankruptcy; accounts not reported in the last three months

• MeasureFederal Reserve G.19: revolving credit

  Latest reading

  $1.34 trillion (May 2026, seasonally adjusted)

  What it includes

  Revolving consumer credit reported by lenders, of which credit cards are most but not all

  What it leaves out

  Anything secured by real estate; the lender-side view means it cannot be broken out by household

• MeasureCFPB: cycle-ending card balances

  Latest reading

  Over $1.2 trillion (year-end 2024)

  What it includes

  General purpose cards (over $1.1 trillion) plus private label store cards ($90.4 billion)

  What it leaves out

  Issuers outside the supervisory samples the Bureau draws on

• MeasurePhiladelphia Fed: large-bank card balances

  Latest reading

  $948.7 billion (2026:Q1)

  What it includes

  Balances at the largest bank card issuers, from FR Y-14M supervisory filings

  What it leaves out

  Credit unions, smaller banks and non-bank issuers

Sources and dates listed at the end of this page. Figures are not additive; each is a different slice of the same market.

The retail-card exclusion is the one that surprises people. A Synchrony or Comenity store card does not show up in the New York Fed's credit card line at all, which matters if you are trying to reconcile a household's own balances with the national number, and it is one reason store card debt behaves differently once it goes bad. The New York Fed's data dictionary sets out the rest of the exclusions: accounts in bankruptcy, medical trades, authorized-user accounts, and any account a creditor has not reported on in the last three months.

Balances are only half of the picture. Aggregate credit card limits reached $5.484 trillion in the first quarter of 2026, up $60 billion or 1.1% in the quarter, leaving $4.232 trillion of unused credit against the $1.252 trillion actually drawn. That works out to national utilization of roughly 23%. The panel also counted 648 million open credit card accounts, a figure the New York Fed cautions is not de-duplicated for jointly held cards and therefore overstates the true count.

Available credit matters for a specific reason. Utilization is one of the largest inputs into a credit score, so an issuer cutting a limit on an account you have not touched can move your score without you spending a dollar. If that has happened to you, reading your own credit report line by line is the fastest way to see which account changed.

What is the average credit card debt per person?

Somewhere between $2,700 and $7,300, and the spread is not disagreement. It is four different questions.

Figure	Source and period	Who is in the denominator
$2,700 (median)	Survey of Consumer Finances 2022, published October 2023	Families that carried a credit card balance after their last payment
$6,100 (mean)	Survey of Consumer Finances 2022, published October 2023	The same families, averaged instead of ranked
About $5,300	CFPB Consumer Credit Card Market Report, December 2025 (2024 data)	Every cardholder's average monthly balance, including people who pay in full
$7,279	Federal Reserve SHED 2025, published May 2026	Survey respondents with a credit card, matched to their credit records

• Figure$2,700 (median)

  Source and period

  Survey of Consumer Finances 2022, published October 2023

  Who is in the denominator

  Families that carried a credit card balance after their last payment

• Figure$6,100 (mean)

  Source and period

  Survey of Consumer Finances 2022, published October 2023

  Who is in the denominator

  The same families, averaged instead of ranked

• FigureAbout $5,300

  Source and period

  CFPB Consumer Credit Card Market Report, December 2025 (2024 data)

  Who is in the denominator

  Every cardholder's average monthly balance, including people who pay in full

• Figure$7,279

  Source and period

  Federal Reserve SHED 2025, published May 2026

  Who is in the denominator

  Survey respondents with a credit card, matched to their credit records

The gap between the $2,700 median and the $6,100 mean in the same survey is the clearest illustration on this page of why the two are not interchangeable.

The median and the mean come from the same 2022 survey, the same families, and the same question. One is more than double the other because a minority of very large balances drags the average upward. When a headline says "the average American owes," check which one it means.

The CFPB's per-cardholder figure moves with credit score. The Bureau put the average monthly balance at about $5,300 across all cardholders in 2024, and about $8,700 for cardholders with prime scores, who tend to hold more credit and use more of it. The Fed's 2025 SHED took a different route, matching survey answers to actual credit files, and found an average balance of $7,279 among respondents with cards, up $748 in two years.

What is the average credit card debt by age?

Balances peak in middle age and the peak is flatter than most "by generation" charts suggest.

Age	Share with a card balance	Median balance	Mean balance
Under 35	48.5%	$1,700	$4,070
35–44	52.6%	$2,900	$6,370
45–54	57.0%	$3,000	$6,660
55–64	44.3%	$3,500	$7,530
65–74	33.9%	$3,500	$7,720
75 or older	29.8%	$1,700	$3,990
All families	45.2%	$2,700	$6,120

• AgeUnder 35

  Share with a card balance

  48.5%

  Median balance

  $1,700

  Mean balance

  $4,070

• Age35–44

  Share with a card balance

  52.6%

  Median balance

  $2,900

  Mean balance

  $6,370

• Age45–54

  Share with a card balance

  57.0%

  Median balance

  $3,000

  Mean balance

  $6,660

• Age55–64

  Share with a card balance

  44.3%

  Median balance

  $3,500

  Mean balance

  $7,530

• Age65–74

  Share with a card balance

  33.9%

  Median balance

  $3,500

  Mean balance

  $7,720

• Age75 or older

  Share with a card balance

  29.8%

  Median balance

  $1,700

  Mean balance

  $3,990

• AgeAll families

  Share with a card balance

  45.2%

  Median balance

  $2,700

  Mean balance

  $6,120

Federal Reserve Board, 2022 Survey of Consumer Finances, historical tables in 2022 dollars, published October 2023. Balances are for families that hold credit card debt.

Two things in that table run against the usual telling. The share of families carrying a balance peaks at 45 to 54, while the median and mean balance peak later, in the 55-to-74 range. And the youngest group is not the most indebted: families under 35 carried a $1,700 median balance, the same as families over 75 and roughly half what 55-to-74-year-olds owed.

The aggregate picture matches. In the first quarter of 2026 the New York Fed's panel put $291.6 billion of credit card debt on people in their forties and $275.5 billion on people in their fifties, against $75.2 billion on everyone aged 18 to 29.

18–29

$75B

30–39

$218B

40–49

$292B

50–59

$276B

60–69

$214B

70+

$167B

Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit, 2026:Q1 data files. Balances may not sum to the national total because of consumers with unknown birth years.

People in their forties and fifties hold 46% of all credit card debt in the country. People under 30 hold 6%.

A caution about the "credit card debt by generation" tables that circulate every year. Generations are a moving target: the same person crosses from one band to the next while the label stays put, so a rising "Gen X average" can reflect Gen X getting older as easily as Gen X borrowing more. Age bands do not have that problem, which is why both the Fed's survey and its credit panel publish by age rather than by generation name. Where you see a generation table, check whether it is built from a primary release at all. Many are not.

How does credit card debt break down by income?

Higher earners owe more in dollars. The middle of the distribution is where a balance is most common, and the bottom is where one does the most damage relative to income.

Income percentile	Share with a card balance	Median balance	Mean balance
Bottom 20%	33.4%	$1,400	$3,630
20–39.9%	46.4%	$1,600	$3,840
40–59.9%	56.9%	$2,500	$5,950
60–79.9%	54.4%	$3,500	$7,440
80–89.9%	44.7%	$5,000	$8,900
Top 10%	25.5%	$6,000	$11,210

• Income percentileBottom 20%

  Share with a card balance

  33.4%

  Median balance

  $1,400

  Mean balance

  $3,630

• Income percentile20–39.9%

  Share with a card balance

  46.4%

  Median balance

  $1,600

  Mean balance

  $3,840

• Income percentile40–59.9%

  Share with a card balance

  56.9%

  Median balance

  $2,500

  Mean balance

  $5,950

• Income percentile60–79.9%

  Share with a card balance

  54.4%

  Median balance

  $3,500

  Mean balance

  $7,440

• Income percentile80–89.9%

  Share with a card balance

  44.7%

  Median balance

  $5,000

  Mean balance

  $8,900

• Income percentileTop 10%

  Share with a card balance

  25.5%

  Median balance

  $6,000

  Mean balance

  $11,210

Federal Reserve Board, 2022 Survey of Consumer Finances, historical tables in 2022 dollars, published October 2023.

The middle of the income distribution is where card debt is most common: 57% of families in the 40th-to-60th percentile carried a balance, against 25% in the top decile. The bottom quintile's low 33% is partly a statement about access rather than restraint, since fewer of those families hold a card in the first place. The top decile's median balance is four times the bottom quintile's, and its income is many times larger again, which is the whole story of who a balance actually hurts. If your household is triaging, the ordering question is covered in what to pay first when there isn't enough to cover everything.

Which states have the highest credit card debt per person?

Alaska leads the 50 states at $5,250 per capita, and the District of Columbia is higher at $5,500. Mississippi is lowest at $3,030.

• Under $3,500
• $3,500–3,999
• $4,000–4,499
• $4,500–4,999
• $5,000 and up

Federal Reserve Bank of New York, State Level Household Debt Statistics 2003–2025, published February 2026. Per capita across all individuals with a credit file, not per cardholder, so a state with more non-borrowers shows a lower figure.

Read that map as a cost-of-living map more than a discipline map. The high end is coastal and high-price, and the low end tracks lower median incomes and lower prices. It is also per capita across everyone with a credit file, so a state where fewer people hold cards posts a lower number even if its cardholders owe the same.

What is the average credit card APR in 2026?

Between 21% and 25% on general purpose cards, and above 31% on store cards, depending on which accounts the measure counts. That range is not sloppiness. Each figure answers a different question, and quoting the wrong one is the most common error in credit card coverage.

G.19: all credit card accounts, May 2026

20.94%

G.19: accounts assessed interest, May 2026

22.15%

Philadelphia Fed: large-bank general purpose, 2026:Q1

24.0%

CFPB: general purpose, non-promotional, 2024

25.2%

CFPB: private label store cards, 2024

31.3%

Federal Reserve G.19 released July 8, 2026; Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia Q1 2026 Insights Report, July 13, 2026; CFPB Consumer Credit Card Market Report, December 2025.

The G.19's two credit card series come from the same survey of commercial banks and are defined in its own footnotes. "All accounts" is the stated APR averaged across every credit card account at every reporting bank, including the zero-percent promotional ones. "Accounts assessed interest" is the annualized ratio of finance charges to the balances those charges were assessed against, which excludes accounts that paid no interest at all. If you carry a balance, the second number is the one describing you.

The CFPB's 25.2% is higher because the Bureau defines a non-promotional APR as anything above 4% and averages only those, using account-level supervisory data from large issuers rather than a bank survey. The Philadelphia Fed's 24.0% comes from the same family of supervisory filings, and the Bank notes that the pre-2022 historical average for that series was 18.2%.

Promotional rates explain a good deal of the gap. Cards carrying a zero-percent introductory offer accounted for $899 billion of purchase volume in 2024 and $352 billion of end-of-year balances, roughly a third of each. A measure that averages every account together, as the G.19's all-accounts series does, gets pulled down by all of that zero-rate paper. A measure that strips it out, as the CFPB's does, does not. Neither is describing a cardholder who has been revolving the same balance for two years at the go-to rate.

The rate you pay also determines how much of a payment reaches principal, which is why the total cost of a card is worth looking at as a percentage rather than a dollar figure. The CFPB's combined measure of interest plus fees came to 19.9% of general purpose balances and 23.2% of store card balances at the end of 2024. Cardholders with subprime and deep subprime scores who revolve pay two to four times more per dollar borrowed than superprime revolvers do.

Store cards are their own category. The CFPB found the average private label APR reached 31.3% in 2024, and that more than 90% of retail cards reported a maximum APR above 30%. Those rates typically do not vary by credit score the way general purpose card rates do, which is why a shopper with excellent credit can end up paying the same 31% as anyone else. Your own card's rate and the rules for changing it are in your cardholder agreement, and the CFPB maintains a public credit card agreement database if you no longer have yours.

What does paying the minimum actually cost?

Most of the balance, again, in interest. This is the arithmetic that turns a manageable number into a decade-long obligation.

Take the CFPB's average cardholder balance of $5,300, and the G.19's 22.15% rate on accounts assessed interest. Apply the minimum payment structure the CFPB describes as standard: most issuers set the minimum at 1% of the balance plus the interest and fees for the cycle, with a fixed dollar floor, commonly around $35.

$5,300 at 22.15% APR, paying only the minimum

Starting balance

$5,300

First minimum payment due

$151

Months until the balance clears

203

Interest paid along the way

$8,284

Total paid

$13,584

Calculated from a 22.15% APR (Federal Reserve G.19, May 2026 survey) on a $5,300 balance (CFPB average monthly balance per cardholder, 2024), with a minimum payment of the greater of accrued interest plus 1% of the balance or $35. The same model reproduces the CFPB’s own published example of a $2,000 balance at 29% taking almost ten years and costing over $3,000 in interest.

Two hundred and three months is sixteen years and eleven months. The reason it takes that long is that the minimum shrinks as the balance does, so the payment falls faster than the debt.

Freezing the payment fixes most of it. Keep paying that same $151 every month instead of letting it decline and the balance clears in 58 months with $3,317 of interest. Push it to $200 and it clears in 37 months with $2,045.

16 yr 11 mo

4 yr 10 mo

3 yr 1 mo

The minimum, as it shrinks

$151 a month, held flat

$200 a month

Author's amortization of a $5,300 balance at 22.15% APR, using the minimum payment formula described in the CFPB's 2025 Consumer Credit Card Market Report.

Minimum-payment behavior is also getting more common. The CFPB found 15% of general purpose accounts and 20% of private label accounts paid only the minimum in 2024, both the highest since at least 2015, and roughly one-third of subprime and near-prime cardholders. The average minimum payment due climbed to $129 on general purpose cards and $81 on store cards, up from $102 and $69 two years earlier.

The Bureau also tracks what it calls persistent debt, meaning accounts where interest and fees exceed half of what the cardholder actually pays in a year. That share reached 13.0% of general purpose accounts in 2024, up from 9.9% in 2022. If you are in that group, extra payments matter more than payment order, though the ordering debate in snowball versus avalanche when you are already behind is worth knowing either way.

Payment rates tell the same story from the issuer's side. The CFPB measures how much of a starting balance gets paid each cycle: general purpose cards ran at 37% of balances at the end of 2024, down from a pandemic-era peak above 40% but still above the 27% to 32% range that was normal before 2020. Store cards sat at 12%, roughly where they have always been. A 12% payment rate on a 31% APR is close to the definition of a balance that does not move. Anyone in that position who cannot cover the payment at all should ask the issuer about hardship terms before missing one, and a written hardship letter is the usual way to open that conversation.

How many cardholders carry a balance?

Just under half, and the figure has been drifting down for a decade.

45%

of credit card holders carried a balance at least once in the past year

That is 37% of all U.S. adults, since 82% of adults have a credit card. The same survey put the cardholder figure at 57% in 2015, so it has fallen 12 points in a decade.

Federal Reserve Board, Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking, 2025 survey published May 2026.

Who carries one depends more on income than on age.

Group	Has a credit card	Carried a balance (cardholders)	Carried a balance (all adults)
Income under $25,000	46%	52%	24%
$25,000–$49,999	71%	57%	41%
$50,000–$99,999	88%	50%	44%
$100,000 or more	97%	37%	36%
Age 18–29	65%	46%	30%
Age 30–44	78%	50%	39%
Age 45–59	86%	52%	45%
Age 60 or older	92%	36%	33%
All adults	82%	45%	37%

• GroupIncome under $25,000

  Has a credit card

  46%

  Carried a balance (cardholders)

  52%

  Carried a balance (all adults)

  24%

• Group$25,000–$49,999

  Has a credit card

  71%

  Carried a balance (cardholders)

  57%

  Carried a balance (all adults)

  41%

• Group$50,000–$99,999

  Has a credit card

  88%

  Carried a balance (cardholders)

  50%

  Carried a balance (all adults)

  44%

• Group$100,000 or more

  Has a credit card

  97%

  Carried a balance (cardholders)

  37%

  Carried a balance (all adults)

  36%

• GroupAge 18–29

  Has a credit card

  65%

  Carried a balance (cardholders)

  46%

  Carried a balance (all adults)

  30%

• GroupAge 30–44

  Has a credit card

  78%

  Carried a balance (cardholders)

  50%

  Carried a balance (all adults)

  39%

• GroupAge 45–59

  Has a credit card

  86%

  Carried a balance (cardholders)

  52%

  Carried a balance (all adults)

  45%

• GroupAge 60 or older

  Has a credit card

  92%

  Carried a balance (cardholders)

  36%

  Carried a balance (all adults)

  33%

• GroupAll adults

  Has a credit card

  82%

  Carried a balance (cardholders)

  45%

  Carried a balance (all adults)

  37%

Federal Reserve Board, Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in 2025, published May 2026. 'Carried a balance' means at least once in the prior 12 months.

Read those three columns together. Only 46% of adults earning under $25,000 have a card at all, so their low share of all adults carrying a balance reflects access, not thrift. Among the people in that group who do hold a card, 52% carry a balance, behind only the $25,000-to-$49,999 band at 57%.

Two other measures of the same behavior are worth knowing, because they answer slightly different questions. The CFPB's account-level data shows the general purpose revolve rate hovering between 49% and 50% in 2023 and 2024, meaning about half of active accounts carry a balance from one month to the next. And the 2022 Survey of Consumer Finances found 57.5% of families used credit cards exclusively for convenience, down from 64.0% in 2019, which is the same trend viewed from the other side.

The Philadelphia Fed adds a genuinely encouraging note from the most recent quarter: the share of large-bank card accounts paying in full hit an all-time series high in the first quarter of 2026, and utilization at those banks fell to 19.1%, the lowest in three years.

How much are Americans paying in interest and fees?

Roughly $191 billion in 2024, and interest is doing almost all of the work.

Interest charges grew 52% between 2022 and 2024 while the number of cardholders grew 9%. The CFPB puts the gap plainly: about $45 billion of that increase is not explained by more people holding cards. It is higher rates on larger balances.

Fees are the smaller half, and they land unevenly. Late fees were $17.0 billion of the $31.3 billion total. Store cards generated $5.8 billion of those late fees, 34% of the national total, on 7.5% of national card balances. Cardholders with superprime and prime plus scores hold 59% of accounts and pay 7.8% of late fees; cardholders with deep subprime scores hold about 14% of accounts and generate 40% of them.

How many people are behind on their credit cards?

Between 2.9% and 13.1%, and the reason for that gap is worth understanding before you quote either end of it.

Measure	Latest reading	What it counts
NY Fed: flow into 30+ day delinquency	8.6% (2026:Q1)	Share of balances newly falling 30 or more days behind, as a four-quarter moving sum. Down from 8.7%
NY Fed: flow into 90+ day delinquency	7.1% (2026:Q1)	The same measure for balances newly falling seriously behind
NY Fed: share of balances 90+ days late	13.1% (2026:Q1)	The accumulated stock, including balances flagged severely derogatory after a charge-off
Federal Reserve: bank delinquency rate	2.92% (2026:Q1)	Delinquent card loans as a share of card loans on commercial bank balance sheets
Federal Reserve: bank charge-off rate	3.84% (2026:Q1)	Annualized rate at which banks write card balances off, down from a 4.21% peak in 2025:Q2

• MeasureNY Fed: flow into 30+ day delinquency

  Latest reading

  8.6% (2026:Q1)

  What it counts

  Share of balances newly falling 30 or more days behind, as a four-quarter moving sum. Down from 8.7%

• MeasureNY Fed: flow into 90+ day delinquency

  Latest reading

  7.1% (2026:Q1)

  What it counts

  The same measure for balances newly falling seriously behind

• MeasureNY Fed: share of balances 90+ days late

  Latest reading

  13.1% (2026:Q1)

  What it counts

  The accumulated stock, including balances flagged severely derogatory after a charge-off

• MeasureFederal Reserve: bank delinquency rate

  Latest reading

  2.92% (2026:Q1)

  What it counts

  Delinquent card loans as a share of card loans on commercial bank balance sheets

• MeasureFederal Reserve: bank charge-off rate

  Latest reading

  3.84% (2026:Q1)

  What it counts

  Annualized rate at which banks write card balances off, down from a 4.21% peak in 2025:Q2

Federal Reserve Bank of New York, 2026:Q1 household debt report and data files; Federal Reserve Board, Charge-Off and Delinquency Rates on Loans and Leases at Commercial Banks, updated May 19, 2026.

The 13.1% and the 2.92% are not contradicting each other. A bank stops counting a card loan once it charges it off, which by convention happens at about 180 days past due. A credit report keeps carrying that balance for years afterward, and the New York Fed's "90 or more days late" category explicitly includes severely derogatory accounts, meaning ones already charged off. So the bank series measures who is behind on a live account, and the credit-report series measures the accumulated wreckage. Both are correct. Only one belongs in a sentence about how many people are currently struggling.

That 180-day convention is worth holding onto, because it is the clock running on your own account if you are behind right now. It is not a legal deadline and nothing about it is announced. The account simply moves from the issuer's active book to its recovery process, and the tradeline changes to reflect it. What that switch means for you in practice, and why the balance can still be negotiated afterward, is the subject of charge-off versus collection. Whether the account is then worked in-house, placed with an agency, or sold outright determines who you will be dealing with, which is the distinction drawn in original creditor versus debt buyer.

Two separate clocks start around the same moment and get confused constantly. Credit reporting runs seven years from the first missed payment that led to the charge-off, covered in how long collections stay on your credit report. Your state's deadline for a lawsuit is a different length measured from a different date, and the statute of limitations on debt explains which one applies. The score damage arrives long before either expires, and how much a collection drops your credit score puts numbers on it.

The direction of the national data is the encouraging part. Card delinquency flows peaked in 2024 and have eased since. The charge-off rate at commercial banks fell for four consecutive quarters to 3.84% in the first quarter of 2026. The Philadelphia Fed reports large-bank card balances 30 or more days past due at 3.3%, down year over year for a sixth straight quarter, while noting the level is still above the series norm.

Age changes the odds substantially. Younger cardholders fall seriously behind at nearly twice the rate of people in their sixties.

Age group	Annual transition rate into 90+ days late
18–29	9.67%
30–39	8.68%
40–49	7.99%
50–59	6.26%
60–69	5.28%
70 or older	6.05%
All ages	7.12%

• Age group18–29

  Annual transition rate into 90+ days late

  9.67%

• Age group30–39

  Annual transition rate into 90+ days late

  8.68%

• Age group40–49

  Annual transition rate into 90+ days late

  7.99%

• Age group50–59

  Annual transition rate into 90+ days late

  6.26%

• Age group60–69

  Annual transition rate into 90+ days late

  5.28%

• Age group70 or older

  Annual transition rate into 90+ days late

  6.05%

• Age groupAll ages

  Annual transition rate into 90+ days late

  7.12%

Federal Reserve Bank of New York Consumer Credit Panel / Equifax, Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit, 2026:Q1 data files. Four-quarter moving sum.

What happens after that point is a separate subject with its own numbers, and it has its own page: the industry that buys, works and sues on charged-off accounts is covered in the 2026 debt collection statistics roundup. The sequence itself, from a missed payment to a collector's first letter, is laid out in what happens when a debt goes to collections, and the consequences of doing nothing about it are in what happens if you never pay a collection.

What does the household picture look like underneath the totals?

Fragile in the places where the balances are growing.

The Fed's 2025 SHED found 63% of adults could cover a hypothetical $400 emergency expense entirely with cash or its equivalent. That is unchanged for four years running and below the 68% peak in 2021. Of the rest, 15% of all adults said they would put the expense on a credit card and pay it off over time, and 12% said they could not cover it by any means right now.

The more striking finding is where the balance growth is concentrated. Matching survey answers to credit records, the Fed found average card balances among respondents rose $748 over two years. Split by how people described their own finances, the increase was $59 among those "living comfortably" and $2,530 among those "finding it difficult to get by." Respondents in the two hardest-pressed categories accounted for 65% of all balance growth in the 2025 survey, against 40% in the two prior surveys.

Two years earlier the two groups were $6,248 and $6,735. Almost the entire gap opened since 2023.

Federal Reserve Board, Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in 2025, published May 2026, box 1. Balances taken from credit records matched to survey responses.

Supply is moving in the same direction. Large banks issued $105.5 billion of new card credit in the first quarter of 2026, up 8.7% year over year, with the number of new accounts up 11.2%. The 10th-percentile credit score on those new accounts fell to 619, the lowest in more than four years, and applicants scoring under 660 took nearly one in five new accounts. Those borrowers are being kept on a short leash: the median credit limit for a new sub-660 account was $500, down from $700 a decade earlier, while limits for borrowers above 720 rose 53% over the same period.

Here is the sentence to carry away from a page of averages. National credit card debt is rising slowly. For the households already under pressure, it is rising fast, and the credit being extended to them is smaller and more expensive than what everyone else is offered. If you are in the second group, the practical options are ranked in is debt settlement worth it and compared against the alternatives in debt settlement versus consolidation, and negotiating directly with the creditor is walked through step by step in how to negotiate a debt settlement on your own. What a creditor is likely to accept is the subject of what percentage to offer to settle a debt, and the costs on the other side are in what settling does to your credit and the tax treatment of forgiven balances. If you are weighing whether to hire someone for it, what a settlement company charges against what doing it yourself costs is the comparison to run first, and how long the process actually takes sets expectations before you start.

How to read these numbers

Seven rules that will keep you out of trouble with almost any credit card statistic.

Check the denominator before the number. "Average credit card debt" can mean per adult, per cardholder, per cardholder with a balance, or per household. The same market produces $2,700 and $7,279 depending on which you pick.

Median or mean. Debt distributions are skewed, so the mean always runs higher. The 2022 SCF gap of $2,700 against $6,100 is the size of the effect.

Survey or administrative. The SCF and the SHED ask people. The New York Fed panel, the G.19, and the CFPB's supervisory data observe accounts. Surveys catch things credit files miss and understate balances people would rather not report; administrative data is precise about what it covers and silent about everything else.

Seasonal adjustment. The G.19's headline levels are seasonally adjusted; the New York Fed's are not. That is why credit card balances "fall" every first quarter in one series and not the other. Comparing a seasonally adjusted number to an unadjusted one across quarters produces nonsense.

Mind the release lag. The Survey of Consumer Finances runs every three years and the 2022 wave published in October 2023, so its balances are already several years old. The CFPB's card market report is biennial and its December 2025 edition covers 2024. Only the New York Fed's quarterly report, the G.19, and the bank delinquency series are close to current.

Per capita is not per borrower. Every state figure on this page divides by all individuals with a credit file, including people who owe nothing on cards.

Trace the number to a release, not to an article. A large share of the credit card statistics on the internet cite another article, which cites a third, which cites nothing. The rule that catches almost every bad figure is simple: if you cannot find the release, the table, and the date, do not repeat the number. Every figure on this page passes that test, and where a series would have been useful but no primary source publishes it, this page says nothing rather than borrowing an estimate.

If you quote a figure from this page, name the primary source and its date next to it rather than pointing here, and check the underlying release before publishing. Every one of them is linked in the sources block below. To cite the page itself: "Credit Card Debt in America: 2026 Statistics," Felix, August 4, 2026.

Where Felix fits

Felix negotiates debts. Nothing on this page changes what that means, and a statistics roundup is not advice about your account.

Where these numbers do connect to the work: the reason a settlement conversation is possible at all is visible in the delinquency and charge-off figures above. Once a card is charged off, the creditor has already written the balance down on its own books, and what it will accept afterward is a business decision rather than a moral one. That is the window Felix works in. We identify who holds each account, what the documentation supports, and what a realistic outcome looks like, then bring you offers to approve or decline. Every letter that goes out is one you have read and signed yourself, mailed in your own name.

There are no promised outcomes and no guaranteed timelines here, because there cannot be. Checking what you would qualify for is free and uses a soft credit pull, so it does not affect your score, and soft pulls and hard pulls affect your file differently if you want the mechanics. The FAQ covers what happens to your credit during negotiation, pricing is a flat subscription shown in full before you enroll anything, and the privacy policy explains what happens to the identity information a credit pull requires and when it is deleted.