Months to clear the balance
3y 10m (46 months)
Enter your card balance and what you pay each month. The calculator reports the interest and the months to clear it, and the page sets those figures against the deposit rate the same money earns.
Assumptions this tool makes. The minimum payment is 2% of the outstanding balance with a floor of $25, which is a common formulation among issuers and not a term of any particular account; what is entered in the extra field is added to it each month, and the plan rows in the table compare that with the minimum alone and with two fixed-percentage plans. Interest is charged monthly on the balance outstanding at the start of the month, and the balance is reduced by whatever is paid; no new spending is added, no fee is charged, and no promotional or penalty rate is applied. What the calculator reports is interest paid to the issuer, and it says nothing about the deposit side of the comparison — the rates in the text above come from published national averages and the calculator does not compound a deposit. The savings rate used in the comparison is a national average rather than the best available rate, and it is before tax, so a depositor in a higher bracket keeps less of the $18.53 than the page states. Nothing here models a balance transfer, a hardship programme, a settlement offer, or a debt-management plan, and none of those is recommended or evaluated.
| Repayment plan | Months to clear | Interest paid |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum only | 55y 3m | $27,388 |
| Minimum + $50 | 7y 1m | $3,746 |
| Minimum + $100 | 3y 10m | $2,045 |
| Fixed 3% of balance | 4y 3m | $2,557 |
| Fixed 5% of balance | 2y 1m | $1,203 |
A dollar held in a savings account and a dollar owed on a credit card are the same dollar facing opposite sides of the same market, and the two published averages that describe them are far apart. The FDIC's national rate on savings deposits is 0.37% a year; the Federal Reserve's average rate on commercial bank credit card plans, all accounts, is 20.94%. The difference is 20.57 percentage points, and it is the single largest gap between two headline rates in ordinary household finance.
Neither number is an offer. Both are averages of what institutions were paying or charging, and an individual account can sit on either side of them. What the pair does establish is the direction and the size of the gap, and the fact that it is not a few tenths of a point — it is more than the whole range of deposit products the same agency surveys.
The stakes only become visible when the same amount is put through both rates. On $5,000 held for a year the savings side earns $18.53 at 0.37%, and $5,000 carried at 20.94% accrues $1,153.57 of interest over the same year. The ratio is about 62 to 1.
The savings figure is the FDIC national rate for savings deposits, which the agency publishes monthly as an average of what insured institutions pay. The card figure is from the Federal Reserve's G.19 consumer credit release, which reports commercial bank credit card rates quarterly. Two different publishers, two different reporting periods, and two different populations of accounts — a monthly survey of deposit products against a quarterly average of credit card plans.
The card release publishes two rates, and they are not the same number. All accounts averages 20.94%, and accounts assessed interest averages 22.15% — higher, because that series counts only the accounts that carried a balance and were charged interest. An account that pays in full every month holds no balance to be assessed, so it never enters the second figure. Which of the two belongs in a comparison depends on whether the reader is asking what the market charges or what a balance-carrying account pays.
The FDIC publishes a range as well as an average: the national rate on savings is 0.37%, and the national rate cap on the same product is 4.38%. The cap is the highest rate the survey found among the institutions it covers, not a ceiling imposed by regulation. Choosing the cap instead of the average moves the spread from 20.57 points to 16.56, which is a smaller number but still a wide one, and switching the card side from all accounts to assessed interest moves it the other way, to 21.78 points.
That range is the reason this page states both ends rather than one figure. A spread quoted as a single number is a choice of two series dressed up as a fact about the market, and the choice is large enough to matter.
Applying each published rate to $5,000 for a year, with interest compounded monthly and nothing repaid, gives a table rather than a slogan.
| Where the $5,000 sits | Rate | Interest over one year |
|---|---|---|
| Interest checking | 0.07% | $3.50 |
| Savings deposits, national average | 0.37% | $18.53 |
| Money market deposit account | 0.63% | $31.59 |
| 12-month certificate of deposit | 1.73% | $87.19 |
| Savings deposits, national rate cap | 4.38% | $223.45 |
| Credit card balance, all accounts | 20.94% | $1,153.57 |
| Credit card balance, accounts assessed interest | 22.15% | $1,227.15 |
The five deposit rows and the two card rows were computed the same way, so the comparison is like for like on the arithmetic: one principal, one year, monthly compounding, no withdrawals. The gap between the best deposit row and the worst card row is $1,003.70 on a $5,000 balance, and the best deposit rate covers 18% of the interest the worst card rate charges — the deposit side does not take back a fifth of it.
Two qualifiers belong here. The card rows assume the balance is left alone for a year, which is what makes the two sides comparable and is also the one assumption no cardholder should accept: a balance that is being repaid shrinks, and the interest charge shrinks with it. And the deposit rows are before tax, while card interest is paid out of income that has already been taxed.
The rate matters twice over, because it also decides how long the balance survives its own minimum payment. A minimum payment is usually set as a percentage of the balance with a floor in dollars, so as the balance falls the payment falls with it, and the loan approaches zero without arriving. On a $5,000 balance at 20.94% with a 2% minimum floored at $25, paying only that minimum takes 663 months and costs $27,388.20 in interest — more than five times the amount originally borrowed.
The calculator above puts a number on that gap. With $100 a month added to the minimum, the same balance clears in 46 months and the interest falls from $27,388.20 to $2,044.54. The table of five repayment plans shows the same effect at other payment levels, and the pattern is the point: the interest is not set by the rate alone, it is set by the rate multiplied by the time the balance is allowed to sit there.
The term is where the spread in the first section stops being abstract. A rate gap of 20.57 percentage points, left alone, converts a $5,000 purchase into a 55-year repayment schedule; the same rate on a balance that is being cleared does not, because the balance the rate is applied to disappears.
Four spreads can be computed from the figures on this page, and all four are defensible: 20.57 points using the savings average and all accounts, 21.78 using the savings average and accounts assessed interest, 16.56 using the savings rate cap and all accounts, and 17.77 using the cap and assessed interest. Which one is quoted depends on what question is being asked, and the honest answer is that the choice should be stated rather than hidden.
For a reader deciding whether to move money, the relevant comparison is the rate their own deposit account pays against the rate their own card charges, and neither of those is a national average. The averages are a starting point for judging whether a given pair of rates is normal; they are not an input to any individual decision.
The same caution applies in the other direction. A deposit rate above the national cap is not impossible — the cap is the top of a survey of FDIC-insured institutions, and institutions outside the survey, or with conditions such as a minimum balance or a promotional period, can pay more. This page does not compare specific accounts, and it does not rank them.
Take $5,000 at 20.94% with the 2% minimum floored at $25 and $100 a month on top of it. The first month's minimum is 2% of $5,000, which is $100, above the $25 floor, so $200 is paid in month one and $5,000 compounds at one twelfth of 20.94%.
Repeating that month by month, with the minimum recalculated on the lower balance each time and the $100 held fixed, clears the balance in 46 months and charges $2,044.54 of interest — $0.41 for every dollar originally borrowed. Removing the $100 leaves $100 a month against a balance that also shrinks, and the term goes to 663 months with $27,388.20 of interest.
The deposit side is a single multiplication: $5,000 at 0.37% compounded monthly earns $18.53 over a year. Setting the two against each other is what the table in the middle section does, and it is the only place on this page where the two sides are put in the same units.
Using the two most-cited figures, the FDIC national rate on savings deposits of 0.37% a year against the Federal Reserve's average rate on commercial bank credit card plans of 20.94%, the spread is 20.57 percentage points. It moves with the series chosen: 22.15% on accounts assessed interest against the same savings average gives 21.78 points, and using the FDIC savings rate cap of 4.38% instead of the average gives 16.56.
$18.53 at the FDIC national savings average of 0.37%, compounded monthly, before tax. The same $5,000 earns $31.59 at the money market average of 0.63%, $87.19 in a 12-month certificate of deposit at 1.73%, and $223.45 at the savings rate cap of 4.38%, which is the highest rate the FDIC's survey found rather than a regulatory limit.
This page states the gap and does not explain it, because the explanation is not in the data it uses. What the data does show is the arithmetic consequence: on $5,000 left alone for a year at 20.94% the interest is $1,153.57, against $18.53 earned on the same amount at 0.37%. That is about 62 times as much, and it is a fact about the two published rates rather than about any particular account.
No, and they are not measured over the same period either. The FDIC deposit rates are published monthly, and the figures here are for 2026-09. The Federal Reserve card rates are published quarterly and the figures here are for 2026 Q2. Both are averages across institutions rather than rates at any one of them, and neither is an offer.
On a $5,000 balance at 20.94%, a 2% minimum floored at $25 takes 663 months to clear the balance and costs $27,388.20 in interest. Adding $100 a month above the minimum cuts that to 46 months and $2,044.54. The minimum falls as the balance falls, so the balance approaches zero without arriving quickly; the interest is the rate multiplied by the time the balance is left in place.
No. It performs arithmetic on published averages and on the balance you enter, and it recommends nothing. It does not know your income, your other obligations, your tax position or your goals, it does not rank deposit accounts or card issuers, and it does not model balance transfers, hardship programmes or debt-management plans. The averages are a reference point for judging whether a pair of rates you have been quoted is normal, not an input to a decision about your own money.
Savings Rates vs Credit Card Rates lists each external figure it uses once, with the publisher that issues it and the date it was retrieved. The calculator takes these as its defaults, so any of them can be replaced with a number of your own; a figure that is not in the list is one this page did not take from anywhere.
| Figure | Value | Published by | Retrieved |
|---|---|---|---|
| Credit card plans, all accounts, commercial bank average | 20.94% | Federal Reserve, G.19 Consumer Credit | 2026-08-07 |
| National rate, savings deposits | 0.37% | FDIC, National Rates and Rate Caps | 2026-09-21 |
| Credit card accounts assessed interest, commercial bank average | 22.15% | Federal Reserve, G.19 Consumer Credit | 2026-08-07 |
| National rate cap, savings | 4.38% | FDIC, National Rates and Rate Caps | 2026-09-21 |
| National rate, interest checking | 0.07% | FDIC, National Rates and Rate Caps | 2026-09-21 |
| National rate, money market deposit accounts | 0.63% | FDIC, National Rates and Rate Caps | 2026-09-21 |
| National rate, 12-month certificate of deposit | 1.73% | FDIC, National Rates and Rate Caps | 2026-09-21 |
Values are the ones this page is built with, not a live feed. Where a figure is revised on a schedule, the retrieval date above is when it was read, and the next scheduled refresh is shown at the top of the page.
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Cluster us/savings · Unit us-savings-rates-vs-debt · Engine revolving-debt / payoff · Method: The two rates are published by different agencies on different definitions and neither is a quote for an individual account. The savings rate is a national average of what FDIC-insured institutions pay on savings deposits, surveyed for a single month; the card rate is the average interest rate on commercial bank credit card plans across all accounts, computed for a calendar quarter, and the same release also publishes a separate figure for accounts assessed interest, which is higher because it counts only accounts that carried a balance. The spread is the card figure less the savings figure, and it is stated as a difference of two averages rather than as an offer available anywhere. The dollar comparison applies each published rate to the same balance for one year with monthly compounding: the savings side compounds a single deposit, and the card side compounds a balance on which nothing is repaid, which is what isolates the rate from the repayment schedule and is not what a cardholder who pays monthly experiences. The calculator below models the other half of the picture — a balance being repaid at a rate the reader enters, with a minimum payment of 2% of the balance floored at $25 and the extra amount added on top — and reports total interest, the number of months to clear, and the same balance carried at minimum payments only. Interest is the only cost counted: no fees, no annual charges, no promotional rates, no rewards, and no tax on the savings interest, which for a US depositor would be ordinary income.