What Happens If You Stop Paying Your Credit Cards?

One missed due date on a credit card can cost you a late fee as soon as the next day: up to $30 under Regulation Z's pre-2024 safe harbor for card penalty fees, and up to $41 if you're late again within the next six billing cycles. Interest keeps running on the balance. Next month's minimum payment will typically include the one you skipped. And no credit bureau hears about any of it yet, because an account is usually still reported as current if it's paid within 30 days of the due date, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's guide to reading a credit report.

In lenders' language, the account is now delinquent. A delinquent credit card is one whose minimum payment wasn't received by its due date, and the delinquency is counted in 30-day steps until the account is paid, brought current, or charged off. Those steps run on a schedule that federal rules and bank-regulator policy mostly fix in advance. The issuer can report you late at 30 days, can start moving the balance you already owe to a penalty interest rate once you're more than 60 days behind, and is expected to charge the account off at 180 days.

Charge-off ends nothing. The bank can keep collecting, hand the account to an agency, sell it to a debt buyer or sue, and the record can stay on your credit reports for about seven and a half years from the first payment you missed. None of this is advice to stop paying. It's what happens if you do.

What happens if you stop paying your credit cards?

If you stop paying your credit cards, each issuer can add late fees and interest, can report the account late once it's 30 days past due, can move your existing balance to a penalty APR after you're more than 60 days late, usually blocks or closes the card, and generally charges the account off at 180 days. After charge-off, the debt can be collected by the bank, an agency or a debt buyer, sued on within your state's statute of limitations, and reported on your credit for seven years plus 180 days.

The exact dates shift a little with your billing cycle and your issuer; the skeleton comes from federal rules and the bank regulators' charge-off policy.

1. Day 1

   Late fee, interest and a bigger minimum

   A payment that misses the issuer's cutoff on its due date, no earlier than 5 p.m., is late. The fee can be up to $30, never more than the minimum due, and the next minimum typically includes the past-due amount.

2. Day 30

   Reported 30 days late

   Paid within 30 days, an account is usually still reported as current. After that, the late mark goes to the credit bureaus.

3. Day 60+

   Penalty APR notice possible

   More than 60 days late, the issuer can send a notice moving the existing balance to a penalty rate 45 days later.

4. Day 90

   Deeper delinquency

   A 90-day mark is reported, bank policy classifies the account Substandard, and collection contact intensifies.

5. Day 180

   Charge-off

   Federal banking policy says an open-end account should be charged off at 180 days past due. The balance is still owed.

6. After

   Recovery, sale or lawsuit

   Collected in-house, placed with an agency, sold to a debt buyer, taken to court, or warehoused.

7. Years 3–6

   Lawsuit deadline in most states

   Most states' statutes of limitations on debts run three to six years, some longer.

8. ~7.5 years

   Off your credit reports

   Seven years after a 180-day lead-in from the first missed payment, the charge-off and any collection entry must come off.

Regulation Z (12 CFR 1026.10, 1026.52, 1026.55); CFPB; FFIEC Uniform Retail Credit Classification and Account Management Policy (65 FR 36903); Fair Credit Reporting Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1681c.

If the account has already reached a collector, the same story told from the collector's side, including what happens if it's never paid at all, is in what happens if you never pay a collection.

How much is a credit card late fee in 2026?

A credit card late fee in 2026 can most likely be up to $30 for a first late payment and up to $41 for another late payment within the next six billing cycles. Those are the safe-harbor amounts the CFPB set for 2022 in Regulation Z (12 CFR 1026.52(b)(1)(ii)), which let a card issuer charge that much without showing what lateness actually costs it. A 2024 rule that would have replaced them was vacated, and no CFPB document since restates them.

Two limits sit underneath those numbers. A late fee can't exceed the minimum payment that was due: Regulation Z's official interpretation uses a $15 minimum as its example, which caps that fee at $15. And an issuer can't charge more than one penalty fee based on a single event.

The $8 late fee you may have read about never happened. The CFPB published a rule on March 15, 2024 that would have cut the safe harbor to $8 for issuers with one million or more open card accounts. A federal court in Texas stayed it on May 10, 2024, four days before its effective date, and on April 15, 2025 it was vacated by court order in Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (N.D. Tex., No. 4:24-cv-00213-P). It never took effect.

Large issuers' fees sat near the top of the safe harbor. In the 2024 rule, the CFPB reported that every larger issuer in its data charged a maximum late fee between $38 and $41 in 2023, and that the average late fee across the issuers in its data was $32 in 2022. Across the issuers in the Bureau's data, late fees totaled $17.0 billion in 2024, according to its December 2025 report to Congress.

You can sometimes avoid the first fee. Card issuers generally can't treat a payment as late if it arrives by 5 p.m. on the due date, in the time zone on your statement, or by the next business day if the due date is a Sunday or holiday, the CFPB explains, and it suggests asking the issuer to waive a fee if your payment came in late. Skip the payment entirely and the next minimum grows, because the minimum payment due typically includes any amount already past due, the CFPB's December 2025 report notes.

When does a late credit card payment show up on your credit report?

A late credit card payment usually shows up on your credit report once it's 30 days past due. The CFPB's credit report guide puts it plainly: "An account is usually still reported as current if paid within 30 days of the due date." Lenders typically update accounts monthly, and the report shows the number of payments 30, 60 and 90 days late.

After the first mark, lateness is recorded in 30-day steps. The New York Fed's Consumer Credit Panel, built from Equifax data, defines them as 30 days late (30 to 59 days), 60 days late (60 to 89), 90 days late (90 to 119), 120 days late (at least 120), and severely derogatory, meaning any of those combined with a reported charge-off. A card that's never brought current moves one step deeper with each monthly update until the charge-off appears.

How much that costs your score depends mostly on where you start. Payment history is the largest category in a FICO Score, at 35%, and FICO's own simulation shows a missed payment costing far more on a clean file than on one that already has late payments.

FICO's example profile	Score before	One payment 30 days late	One payment 90 days late
No delinquencies, 12% revolving utilization	793	710–730	660–680
A 30-day late in the past year, a charge-off in the past two years, 67% utilization	607	570–590	560–580

• FICO's example profileNo delinquencies, 12% revolving utilization

  Score before

  793

  One payment 30 days late

  710–730

  One payment 90 days late

  660–680

• FICO's example profileA 30-day late in the past year, a charge-off in the past two years, 67% utilization

  Score before

  607

  One payment 30 days late

  570–590

  One payment 90 days late

  560–580

myFICO, How Credit Actions Impact FICO Scores. Simulated FICO Score 9 values for two of five representative profiles; FICO says results may vary.

Those are FICO's illustrations, not a forecast for your file. The clean file loses more points because, as FICO explains, the lower score already reflects past missed payments. Either way the mark has a limit: the Fair Credit Reporting Act generally bars reporting adverse information more than seven years old (15 U.S.C. § 1681c(a)(5)).

When can a credit card company charge a penalty APR?

A credit card company can move the balance you already owe to a penalty APR only after your minimum payment is more than 60 days late, under Regulation Z's delinquency exception (12 CFR 1026.55(b)(4)), and only after giving you written notice at least 45 days before the higher rate takes effect (12 CFR 1026.9(g)). Put the two rules together and the earliest a penalty rate can reach an existing balance is roughly three and a half months after the payment you missed.

That notice has to say why the rate is going up, and that the increase will stop applying if you make six consecutive minimum payments on time, starting with the first one due after it takes effect. Make them, and the issuer must bring the rate on those older balances back to what it was. Miss them, and the issuer still has to review the increase, first no later than six months after the sixth payment due date following it (12 CFR 1026.59(e)).

New purchases follow a separate rule. After the account's first year, an issuer can raise the rate on new transactions with 45 days' written notice, including as a penalty for a late payment of any length, but not on transactions made before the notice or within 14 days after it, and not while the account is closed or blocked from new transactions (12 CFR 1026.55(b)(3)). Whether your card has a penalty APR at all, and how high it is, is in your cardholder agreement.

Fees and a higher rate are only the first layer.

Above the surface

Your balance

What your last statement said you owed

Below the surface

Plus

What can pile on as the months pass

• Late fees: up to $30, then up to $41 within six billing cycles
• Interest added to the debt each month
• A penalty APR on the existing balance after 60+ days late
• Collection costs, interest and attorney's fees a court judgment can add

Regulation Z (12 CFR 1026.52, 1026.55); CFPB, What should I do if I'm sued by a debt collector or creditor? (August 2023). Categories only; amounts depend on your agreement, your state and any court order.

Will the credit card company close your account if you stop paying?

A credit card company can block or close your card once you stop paying, and it doesn't have to warn you: the CFPB says card issuers "generally can close an account without giving you notice," and its 2019 advice on falling behind notes that an issuer may block your ability to use the card. Closing the account doesn't close the debt. The balance stays yours to pay.

An issuer can also cut your credit limit, even to the point of leaving no available credit. It can't charge an over-the-limit fee or a penalty rate just because you went over the new, lower limit until at least 45 days after it gave you notice of the cut (12 CFR 1026.9(c)(2)(vi)). And the rate-increase protections above don't lapse when a card is closed: Regulation Z says they continue to apply after the account is closed or acquired by another creditor (12 CFR 1026.55(d)).

Losing the card is normal: in a 2020 study of debt settlement, the CFPB observed that most lenders cut off credit access on accounts far enough into delinquency for settlement to occur.

Who calls you about a late credit card, and how often can they call?

Before charge-off, calls about a late credit card often come from the card issuer itself, and Regulation F's seven-calls-in-seven-days limit doesn't cover a creditor collecting its own account in its own name, because the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act's definition of a debt collector excludes a creditor's employees collecting in the creditor's name (15 U.S.C. § 1692a(6)(A)). The limit starts to matter when an outside agency or a debt buyer takes over.

Issuers set their own caps. Every issuer in the CFPB's survey of eight major card companies for its December 2025 report to Congress ran some collections in-house before charge-off, by methods that can include calls, texts, emails, letters and web chat. Their policies capped phone attempts at one to four per account per day, they averaged 1.2 call attempts per account per day in 2024, and none allowed more calls that day once they'd reached the right person. More than half also used third-party agencies before charge-off that collected in the agency's own name, which is why a collector can appear well before day 180.

Once a third-party debt collector is involved, Regulation F presumes a violation if it calls you about one debt more than seven times within seven consecutive days, or within seven days after a phone conversation with you about that debt (12 CFR 1006.14(b)(2)). How to count those calls is laid out in the Regulation F 7-in-7 rule explained, the wider list of what collectors may not do is in your rights under the FDCPA, and what to say, and not say, to a debt collector covers the call itself.

When does a credit card get charged off, and do you still owe it?

A credit card is generally charged off at 180 days past due, and you still owe the balance afterward. The federal banking agencies' Uniform Retail Credit Classification and Account Management Policy says open-end retail loans "that become past due 180 cumulative days from the contractual due date should be classified Loss and charged off," and that retail loans 90 cumulative days past due should be classified Substandard. Under the same policy, a loan in bankruptcy, a fraudulent loan and a deceased borrower's loan can be charged off sooner.

A charge-off is a write-off on the bank's books, not forgiveness. The CFPB's December 2025 report describes the next step plainly: once an account charges off, it's placed into a recovery channel "to facilitate further collections of the balance owed." One visible change is that your statements may stop, because Regulation Z doesn't require a periodic statement once a creditor has charged off an account and won't add more interest or fees (12 CFR 1026.5(b)(2)(i)). How the charged-off line differs from a separate collection entry is covered in charge-off vs. collection.

National figures show how many accounts reach that point.

Over the four quarters ending in June 2026, 6.97% of credit card balances transitioned into serious delinquency, meaning 90 or more days late, in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York's Consumer Credit Panel (August 2026 report). Commercial banks charged off credit card loans at an annualized 3.82% of balances, net of recoveries, in the second quarter of 2026, and 2.85% of their card loans were 30 or more days delinquent, according to Federal Reserve data last updated August 25, 2026. The eight large issuers in the CFPB's survey charged off about $61 billion of card debt in 2024, 39% more than in 2023. Balances by age, income and state are in the 2026 credit card debt statistics.

What happens to a credit card debt after it's charged off?

After a credit card is charged off, the issuer moves the debt into one of several recovery channels: the CFPB's December 2025 report lists internal recovery, placement with a third-party agency, pre-litigation and litigation, and sale to a debt buyer, and says issuers may also "warehouse" accounts they consider unlikely to be repaid. Which channel yours lands in decides who contacts you and who can agree to a settlement.

Fewer than half of the issuers the CFPB surveyed sold charged-off debt in 2023 and 2024, and those that did generally used "forward-flow" contracts, selling accounts that meet preset criteria every month or quarter. Their prices fell: the debt those issuers sold went for an average of 11% of the account balance in 2024, down from 13% in 2023 and 16% in 2022, and freshly charged-off accounts for about 15%. Those are prices debt buyers paid the issuers, not a measure of what a buyer will accept from you.

Warehoused accounts are the other surprise. The CFPB describes them as balances issuers generally "do not actively seek to collect," including older accounts that may be past the statute of limitations, and some issuers park accounts there between placements. In 2023 and 2024, issuers that sold debt held 42% of their charged-off balances there, against 15% for issuers that didn't. Warehousing isn't forgiveness.

Recovery after charge-off is slow, and the first year brings in the most. For card debt charged off in the last quarter of 2020, issuers recovered nearly 9% of balances in the first year and about 19% after 51 months, the CFPB found. The practical difference between an agency collecting for the bank and a buyer that owns the account outright is laid out in original creditor vs. debt buyer vs. collection agency, and the letters and calls you can expect are in what happens when a debt goes to collections. Issuer-by-issuer patterns are in our guides to Chase credit card debt, Citi credit card debt and American Express debt.

Can a credit card company sue you for not paying?

A credit card company can sue you over an unpaid balance, and so can a debt buyer that owns the account; the CFPB's December 2025 report describes litigation as a recovery method typically used for accounts where other collection efforts have failed, and your state's statute of limitations limits how long either one has to sue.

In the CFPB's national survey of consumers, conducted from December 2014 to March 2015 and published in January 2017, 15% of people contacted about a debt in collection said they'd been sued by a creditor or collector in the previous year. The share rose with the number of debts: 6% of those contacted about one debt, 14% of those contacted about two to four, and 35% of those contacted about five or more. Only 26% of the people who were sued said they went to the court hearing.

At the large issuers that track it, most card judgments are won by default. About half the issuers in the CFPB's December 2025 survey tracked default judgments separately, and at those, more than 72% of all judgments entered were default judgments, entered because the person sued didn't respond or appear.

72%

More than 72% of judgments on card debt were defaults, at large issuers that tracked them separately

The CFPB says the ratio was consistent with its previous reports.

CFPB, The Consumer Credit Card Market: Report to Congress, December 2025.

The CFPB's advice if you're sued is to respond by the date in the court papers, yourself or through a lawyer. Responding doesn't mean you agree you owe the debt, and it makes the collector prove it to the court. If you don't respond, the CFPB says a judgment will likely be entered for the amount claimed "as well as lawful additional fees to cover collections costs, interest, and attorney fees as allowed by the judgment." You may still be able to settle before a judgment is entered.

What can a credit card company take after a court judgment?

After a court judgment, a credit card company or debt buyer may be able to garnish your wages, freeze money in your bank account, or place a lien on your property, depending on your situation and your state's laws, the CFPB says. Without a judgment, most creditors can't garnish wages or benefits at all.

Wages first. Federal law caps a garnishment for an ordinary consumer debt at the lesser of 25% of your disposable earnings for the week or the amount by which those earnings exceed 30 times the federal minimum hourly wage (15 U.S.C. § 1673), and some states protect more. How that plays out in a real paycheck is in wage garnishment for consumer debt.

A bank levy works differently, and the main federal protection there is for benefits. When a garnishment order arrives, your bank must review the account and protect two months' worth of directly deposited federal benefits, such as Social Security, Supplemental Security Income and veterans' benefits, before freezing anything, under 31 CFR part 212, and the CFPB's garnishment answer adds that state exemptions may protect more. Every step of a levy is in can a debt collector take money from your bank account.

Your card issuer can't simply sweep a checking or savings account you keep at the same bank, though. Regulation Z says a card issuer "may not take any action, either before or after termination of credit card privileges, to offset a cardholder's indebtedness" against your funds on deposit with it (12 CFR 1026.12(d)(1)). The exceptions are a payment plan you authorized in writing, such as autopay, a deposit you specifically pledged as security, as on a secured card, and the court processes any creditor can use, such as a levy under a judgment.

Your house isn't collateral for a credit card, so a card issuer can't foreclose on it the way a mortgage lender can. After a judgment, a lien against property is one of the tools the CFPB lists, and state exemption laws decide how much of what you own is protected. That's a question for a lawyer in your state, ideally before a judgment exists.

Can you go to jail for not paying credit card debt?

You can't be jailed simply for not paying credit card debt: the CFPB says a debt collector "can't threaten to or have you arrested for an unpaid debt," and that doing so is harassment under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, which lists among false or misleading practices "the representation or implication that nonpayment of any debt will result in the arrest or imprisonment of any person" (15 U.S.C. § 1692e(4)).

The exception is a court order. If a creditor sues and the court orders you to appear or to provide information and you don't comply, the CFPB says, "a judge may issue a warrant for your arrest." In some cases a judge may also issue one if you don't comply with a court-ordered installment plan. The CFPB's bottom line: "You should never ignore a court order." What a court can order after a judgment, and how to respond, is a question for a lawyer or legal aid office in your state.

How long can a credit card company collect, and how long does it stay on your credit report?

A credit card company or debt buyer can usually keep asking you to pay, but it has a limited time to sue you, set by your state's statute of limitations, which runs three to six years for debts in most states according to the CFPB, while credit reporting runs on a separate federal clock: seven years, starting 180 days after the delinquency that led to the charge-off or collection.

The reporting rule is written into the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

Say the first payment you missed was due on March 1, 2026, and you never caught up. The 180 days run out around the end of August 2026, and the seven years run from there, so the charge-off, and any collection account that grows out of it, can be reported until about the end of August 2033. Selling the debt doesn't restart that clock, and neither does paying it; how long collections stay on your credit report works through more examples.

The lawsuit clock is messier. The CFPB's answer on old debts says its length depends on the type of debt, your state and the state law named in your credit agreement, and that in some states it starts when a payment is missed and in others from the most recent payment. After it runs, collectors in most states can still contact you, but Regulation F says a debt collector "must not bring or threaten to bring a legal action against a consumer to collect a time-barred debt" (12 CFR 1006.26(b)). A partial payment or an acknowledgment of an old debt may restart the period, the CFPB warns.

Question	Statute of limitations	Credit reporting limit
What it limits	How long a creditor or collector can sue you	How long the account can appear on your credit reports
How long	Three to six years for debts in most states, some longer (CFPB)	Seven years, after a 180-day lead-in
When it starts	When a payment is missed in some states, the most recent payment in others	The start of the delinquency that preceded the charge-off or collection, plus 180 days
Can a payment restart it?	It may, depending on state law	No
Who sets it	State law, and sometimes the state named in your agreement	Federal law: 15 U.S.C. § 1681c
When it runs out	In most states a collector can still ask you to pay but, under Regulation F, can't sue or threaten to	The charge-off and collection entries have to come off

• QuestionWhat it limits

  Statute of limitations

  How long a creditor or collector can sue you

  Credit reporting limit

  How long the account can appear on your credit reports

• QuestionHow long

  Statute of limitations

  Three to six years for debts in most states, some longer (CFPB)

  Credit reporting limit

  Seven years, after a 180-day lead-in

• QuestionWhen it starts

  Statute of limitations

  When a payment is missed in some states, the most recent payment in others

  Credit reporting limit

  The start of the delinquency that preceded the charge-off or collection, plus 180 days

• QuestionCan a payment restart it?

  Statute of limitations

  It may, depending on state law

  Credit reporting limit

  No

• QuestionWho sets it

  Statute of limitations

  State law, and sometimes the state named in your agreement

  Credit reporting limit

  Federal law: 15 U.S.C. § 1681c

• QuestionWhen it runs out

  Statute of limitations

  In most states a collector can still ask you to pay but, under Regulation F, can't sue or threaten to

  Credit reporting limit

  The charge-off and collection entries have to come off

CFPB, Can debt collectors collect a debt that's several years old? (December 2024); Fair Credit Reporting Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1681c; Regulation F, 12 CFR 1006.26(b).

180 days

3–6 yrs

7.5 yrs

First missed payment to charge-off

Time to sue in most states

Credit reporting limit

FFIEC Uniform Retail Credit Classification and Account Management Policy (65 FR 36903); CFPB (December 2024); 15 U.S.C. § 1681c. Limitations periods vary by state and debt type.

That long tail shows in the national data: in the second quarter of 2026, 12.92% of credit card balances on credit reports were 90 or more days late or severely derogatory, a category that includes charged-off accounts, according to the New York Fed. A court judgment won't add a public record to the pile, because the CFPB's credit report guide says bankruptcies and, in some cases, foreclosures are the only public records on reports from the three nationwide credit bureaus. State-by-state deadlines are in the statute of limitations on debt, and what an expired deadline does and doesn't do is in time-barred debt explained.

Do you owe taxes if a credit card company forgives part of the balance?

If a credit card company forgives $600 or more of what you owe, for example in a settlement, it generally has to file Form 1099-C, and the IRS treats canceled debt as taxable income unless an exclusion applies. IRS Topic 431 says that "if your debt is canceled, forgiven, or discharged for less than the amount owed, the amount of the canceled debt is taxable," and lists debt canceled to the extent you're insolvent among the exclusions.

The form is tied to what the IRS calls an identifiable event, and the instructions for Forms 1099-A and 1099-C, revised April 2025, list them. They include "[a] discharge of indebtedness under an agreement between the creditor and the debtor to cancel the debt at less than full consideration," which is a settlement, and a discharge "because of a decision or a defined policy of the creditor to discontinue collection activity and cancel the debt." The expiration of the statute of limitations counts only when a debtor's statute-of-limitations defense is upheld in a final court judgment and the appeal period has passed. Charge-off isn't on the list.

One more line from Topic 431 is worth knowing: if a creditor keeps trying to collect after sending you a 1099-C, "the debt may not have been canceled and you may not have income from a canceled debt." How the form and the insolvency exclusion work is covered in taxes on settled debt, and whether card issuers ever simply forgive balances is the subject of credit card debt forgiveness. IRS Publication 4681 is the official guide, and a tax professional should apply it to your own return.

What can you still do at each stage of falling behind?

What you can still do on a credit card you've stopped paying depends on the stage: in the first 30 days you can usually keep the account off your credit report, before charge-off the issuer's hardship programs are the main tool, and after charge-off you negotiate with whoever holds the debt.

Stage	What the card issuer does	What it does to your credit	What you can still do
Days 1–29	Late fee (up to $30 the first time); interest accrues; the next minimum typically includes the past-due amount	Usually nothing yet: paid within 30 days, an account is usually reported as current	Pay the minimum, ask for the fee to be waived, ask about hardship programs
Days 30–59	Calls and letters, often from the issuer itself; the card may be blocked	Reported 30 days late; FICO's clean-file example falls from 793 to 710–730	Catch up before day 60; ask for a hardship plan in writing
Days 60–89	Past 60 days late, can send a 45-day notice moving the existing balance to a penalty APR	Reported 60 days late	Six on-time minimum payments in a row after an increase restore the old rate
Days 90–179	Classifies the account Substandard at 90 days; heavier contact, sometimes from an outside agency	Reported 90, then 120 days late; FICO's clean-file example at 90 days: 660–680	Ask about a workout plan, or re-aging after three consecutive minimum payments
Day 180	Charges the account off; may stop sending statements	Shows as charged off	Negotiate a settlement or payment plan with whoever holds the account
After charge-off	Collects in-house, places with an agency, sells, sues, or warehouses the account	A separate collection entry may appear	Confirm who owns the debt, ask a collector for validation, negotiate in writing
If you're sued	Asks a court for a judgment; at large issuers that track it, most are defaults	A judgment isn't a public record on the three nationwide reports	Respond by the summons deadline and call legal aid or a lawyer; settling stays possible
After a judgment	May garnish wages, levy a bank account or place a lien, as state law allows	Existing entries keep their own clock	Get legal help with exemptions; two months of direct-deposited federal benefits are protected
Years 3–6 (most states)	The statute of limitations may expire; Regulation F bars collectors from suing after that	Still reported until the seven-year limit	Get advice before paying on an old debt; a payment may restart the lawsuit clock
About 7.5 years	The reporting limit doesn't cancel the debt	Charge-off and collection entries have to come off	Check your reports and dispute anything listed past the limit

• StageDays 1–29

  What the card issuer does

  Late fee (up to $30 the first time); interest accrues; the next minimum typically includes the past-due amount

  What it does to your credit

  Usually nothing yet: paid within 30 days, an account is usually reported as current

  What you can still do

  Pay the minimum, ask for the fee to be waived, ask about hardship programs

• StageDays 30–59

  What the card issuer does

  Calls and letters, often from the issuer itself; the card may be blocked

  What it does to your credit

  Reported 30 days late; FICO's clean-file example falls from 793 to 710–730

  What you can still do

  Catch up before day 60; ask for a hardship plan in writing

• StageDays 60–89

  What the card issuer does

  Past 60 days late, can send a 45-day notice moving the existing balance to a penalty APR

  What it does to your credit

  Reported 60 days late

  What you can still do

  Six on-time minimum payments in a row after an increase restore the old rate

• StageDays 90–179

  What the card issuer does

  Classifies the account Substandard at 90 days; heavier contact, sometimes from an outside agency

  What it does to your credit

  Reported 90, then 120 days late; FICO's clean-file example at 90 days: 660–680

  What you can still do

  Ask about a workout plan, or re-aging after three consecutive minimum payments

• StageDay 180

  What the card issuer does

  Charges the account off; may stop sending statements

  What it does to your credit

  Shows as charged off

  What you can still do

  Negotiate a settlement or payment plan with whoever holds the account

• StageAfter charge-off

  What the card issuer does

  Collects in-house, places with an agency, sells, sues, or warehouses the account

  What it does to your credit

  A separate collection entry may appear

  What you can still do

  Confirm who owns the debt, ask a collector for validation, negotiate in writing

• StageIf you're sued

  What the card issuer does

  Asks a court for a judgment; at large issuers that track it, most are defaults

  What it does to your credit

  A judgment isn't a public record on the three nationwide reports

  What you can still do

  Respond by the summons deadline and call legal aid or a lawyer; settling stays possible

• StageAfter a judgment

  What the card issuer does

  May garnish wages, levy a bank account or place a lien, as state law allows

  What it does to your credit

  Existing entries keep their own clock

  What you can still do

  Get legal help with exemptions; two months of direct-deposited federal benefits are protected

• StageYears 3–6 (most states)

  What the card issuer does

  The statute of limitations may expire; Regulation F bars collectors from suing after that

  What it does to your credit

  Still reported until the seven-year limit

  What you can still do

  Get advice before paying on an old debt; a payment may restart the lawsuit clock

• StageAbout 7.5 years

  What the card issuer does

  The reporting limit doesn't cancel the debt

  What it does to your credit

  Charge-off and collection entries have to come off

  What you can still do

  Check your reports and dispute anything listed past the limit

Regulation Z; Regulation F; FFIEC Uniform Retail Credit Classification and Account Management Policy; myFICO; CFPB guides and December 2025 report; 15 U.S.C. § 1681c; 31 CFR part 212.

Call before you miss, or as soon as you have. The CFPB's 2019 advice is direct: "When you think you might miss a credit card payment, or you already have, contact your credit card company as soon as possible." Issuers run hardship programs, which the CFPB says often let you "postpone a set number of monthly payments or pay a lower monthly payment at a reduced interest rate, until you repay the balance in full." Every issuer in the CFPB's December 2025 survey offered long-term programs, lasting 13 months or longer, in 2023 and 2024; those generally require repayment within 60 months, which can mean much lower rates, waived fees and smaller payments. Most issuers don't let their outside collection agencies enroll anyone in a hardship program, so ask while the issuer still holds the account, and "get written confirmation of any alternative repayment option to which you agree," as the CFPB puts it. What to have ready is in creditor hardship programs.

Plenty of late accounts recover before charge-off. At the large issuers the CFPB surveyed, an average of 47.6% of delinquent, not-yet-charged-off balances were back to current by the end of the quarter in 2024, down from 54.7% in 2022. One route back is re-aging, which the federal banking agencies define as "[r]eturning a delinquent, open-end account to current status without collecting the total amount of principal, interest, and fees that are contractually due." Their policy allows it only on an account at least nine months old, after at least three consecutive minimum monthly payments, and no more than once in twelve months or twice in five years. Whether to offer it is the issuer's call.

If money is short across the board, the card usually isn't the first bill to protect: what bills to pay first ranks housing, utilities and a car you need for work ahead of unsecured cards.

After charge-off, the conversation becomes a negotiation. In the CFPB's 2020 study of settled accounts, more than 70% of accounts settled since 2013 had been charged off first, and the median settled account had spent 14 months in delinquency in 2019. The mechanics are in how to negotiate a debt settlement on your own, opening numbers are in what percentage to offer to settle a debt, and judging an offer that arrives first is in whether to accept a debt collector's settlement offer.

Should you stop paying your credit cards to get a better settlement?

Stopping payments on purpose to get a better settlement exposes you to every cost on this page, and the CFPB warns about exactly this pattern: "Debt settlement companies typically encourage you to stop paying your credit card bills. If you stop paying your bills, you will usually incur late fees, penalty interest and other charges, and creditors will likely step up their collection efforts against you." The same CFPB answer adds a blunt line: "Debt settlement may well leave you deeper in debt than you were when you started."

The issuer data explains why. The CFPB's December 2025 report found that most issuers don't agree to settlements before charge-off, except for accounts identified as high value at-risk or where the consumer can demonstrate severe hardship, and that when people enroll accounts with a settlement company before charge-off, "it is most common for the account to reach charge-off before a negotiated settlement is agreed to with the issuer." So the stop-paying route runs through every stage on this page, lawsuit risk included: stopping payments "could also result in a lawsuit being filed against you by the credit card company or a debt collector," the CFPB warned in 2019. The credit side of that trade is in whether settling a debt hurts your credit.

Felix isn't that kind of program. It never tells anyone to stop paying a creditor, it never holds your money, and when an offer is accepted you pay the creditor directly.

Where does Felix fit if you've fallen behind on a credit card?

Felix is a debt negotiation platform that negotiates the unsecured accounts you choose to enroll: credit cards and store cards, including ones already with a collection agency or a debt buyer, plus personal loans, medical bills and private student loans. It doesn't negotiate mortgages, auto loans or other secured debt, federal student loans, or government debts. Checking which of your accounts qualify uses a soft credit pull that doesn't affect your score.

Felix drafts each letter to the creditor or collector in your own voice. You read and e-sign every one, and it's mailed in your name from your own return address, so replies come to you. Felix negotiates by mail, never by phone, and holds no power of attorney. When an offer comes back, you see it with the numbers written out and decide whether to accept; if you do, you pay the creditor directly. No creditor is obliged to settle, and Felix can't remove accurate information from a credit report. If court papers arrive on an enrolled account, Felix pauses the letters on it and points you to a lawyer or legal aid.

Pricing is a subscription whose base covers up to three enrolled accounts at a time, with a smaller amount for each account after that, never a percentage of your debt. The FAQ covers what the service does and doesn't do, and the privacy policy explains how your credit data is handled.