Your Card Statement Already Shows the Way Out. On $5,000 at 22%, the 36-Month Line Saves About $6,300.

If you carry a balance, the most useful number on your credit card statement is in a box most people skip. It’s labeled “Minimum Payment Warning,” and the line that matters is the 36-month payment printed underneath.

On a $5,000 balance at today’s average rate, the gap in interest between those two lines is about $6,300.

The box the bank has to print

Federal rules make card issuers put this box on the monthly statement for most card accounts that carry a balance. Regulation Z spells out the wording, down to the bold heading. The issuer has to show how long you’ll be paying if you send only the minimum, what that costs in total, and what monthly payment clears the balance in three years instead.

Then it has to do the subtraction for you and print the savings. The bank tells you, in writing, how much extra interest it expects to collect if you take the slow road.

Translation: the bank is showing you its bet.

Run it at 22%

The Fed’s latest consumer credit report, out October 7, puts the average APR at commercial banks on card accounts that paid interest at 22.36% for August, a preliminary figure.

Minimum payment formulas vary by card. U.S. Bank describes a common one: about 1% of the balance plus that month’s interest and fees, with a floor around $25 to $35. We ran $5,000 through that formula at 22.36% with a $25 floor.

The first minimum is about $143. Pay just the minimum every month and you finish in about 19 years, paying roughly $8,240 in interest. That’s more than the balance you started with.

The 36-month payment is about $192. Total interest: about $1,910.

That’s $49 more a month, and it saves about $6,330.

Here’s the catch

Read the fine print in the rule and you’ll see the box is the optimistic version. Appendix M1 lets the issuer assume you never charge another dollar, never miss a payment, and your rate never changes. If your card has a variable APR and the Fed raises rates, the real timeline stretches.

The other trap is quieter. A minimum built as 1% plus interest shrinks as your balance shrinks, so following it keeps you in the slow lane. Freeze the payment instead. Keep paying that first $143 every month and the same $5,000 is gone in about 57 months, with roughly $3,160 in interest. You’d pay no more than you already do and finish 14 years sooner.

Do this with your next statement

Find the box. Write down the 36-month figure. Set your autopay to that amount, not to “minimum payment due.”

If the 36-month number won’t fit your budget, set autopay to a fixed dollar amount equal to this month’s minimum and never let it drop. On the $5,000 example, that alone cuts the payoff from about 19 years to under five.

Got a cash advance or an expired promo sitting on the same card? Your issuer decides where the minimum goes, but federal rules send every dollar above the minimum to the highest-rate balance first. Plug your own balances into the debt payoff calculator to see your own dates, and if a lower rate would get you there faster, start with our best credit cards page.

The detail

The repayment estimate is rounded to the nearest year once it passes two years, and the issuer is allowed a two-month margin of error. Charge cards are exempt. So is any cycle after two straight months paid in full. If your payment wouldn’t even cover the interest, the box has to say you will “never pay off the balance.” If you see that line, call the counseling number printed in the box.

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