Support for Struggling Consumers in 2026

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Americans have a record amount of credit card financial obligation $1.252 trillion, to be exact. This credit card debt data page tracks Americans' credit card use each month.

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While credit card debt tends to increase year over year, it typically falls from Q4 of one year to Q1 of the next. The last time we saw card financial obligation increase in Q1 was in 2001. (The only time it didn't fall in Q1 considering that then was 2023, when it remained the same.) Even with this quarter's reduction, charge card balances have increased by $482 billion because Q1 2021, when credit card debt bottomed out at $770 billion during the pandemic.

Americans' credit card financial obligation is $325 billion greater than the pre-pandemic record set in Q4 2019, when balances stood at $927 billion. (That's a 35% increase.) Credit card balances have actually traditionally rebounded after first-quarter decreases, though future loaning trends will depend on aspects consisting of rates of interest, inflation and wider financial conditions.

Will Debt Management Help Your Financial Future?

Charge card financial obligation increased progressively till the financial crisis, then declined from $866 billion in Q4 2008 to $660 billion in Q1 2013 before resuming its upward trajectory. When the pandemic took hold in 2020, credit card balances plunged once again from $927 billion in Q4 2019 to $770 billion in Q1 2021.

Credit cardholders in Connecticut have the greatest average credit card financial obligation of any state, according to LendingTree data, while those in Mississippi have the most affordable. Source: LendingTree analysis of the anonymized credit reports of more than 400,000 LendingTree users in the third quarter of 2025 and more than 410,000 in Q3 2024.

Joint accounts were divided in half to reflect shared responsibility between the account holders. LendingTree experts evaluated anonymized credit report information from Q3 2025 for more than 400,000 LendingTree users to compute these averages and create a list of states with the most financial obligation. The analysis was also compared with Q3 2024 information from more than 410,000 reports.

Eleven states had typical balances of at least $9,000. Washington has the fastest-growing card debt in the duration analyzed.

Support for Struggling Consumers in 2026

Three other states saw double-digit increases, consisting of South Dakota (up 11.7%), Nebraska (up 11.3%) and Wisconsin (up 10.2%). New Mexico saw the largest year-over-year decrease in debt, with its citizens' financial obligation falling 10.3% from $6,543 to $5,871. In all, seven states saw charge card balances decrease in the past year.

Fewer than half of adult credit cardholders (45%) brought a balance on a charge card for at least one month in the previous year, according to a May 2026 Federal Reserve study utilizing 2025 information. Paying a charge card balance in full monthly is the most effective way to prevent interest charges and keep debt from collecting.

For cards accruing interest, the average in Q2 2026 was 22.15%. For new credit card uses, the average is 23.79%.

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Customers opening a new credit card account may deal with greater rates than the averages for existing accounts. The most recent LendingTree data on charge card APRs shows that the typical APR with a brand-new charge card deal is 23.79%, with the typical card using an APR variety of 20.18% to 27.41%.

When the Fed raises or reduces rates, a lot of credit card APRs in the U.S.No matter when the Fed acts next, any movement is likely to be small, meaning credit card APRs would likely remain elevated by historical standards. Simply 2.92% of Americans' impressive credit card balances were at least 30 days overdue in the first quarter of 2026., the 30-day delinquency rate the share of exceptional credit card balances that were at least 30 days past due dipped to 2.92% in the first quarter of 2026, the seventh straight quarterly decline.