Credit cards are $4.3 trillion away from being “tapped out.”
By Wolf Richter for WOLF STREET.
The 30-plus days delinquency rate on credit cards issued by all commercial banks declined to 2.85% in Q2, seasonally adjusted, the lowest since Q2 2023, down from 3.04% a year ago, and from 3.22% two years ago, according to Federal Reserve data released today, based on regulatory reports filed by all commercial banks (red in the chart).
The 60-plus days delinquency rate by all credit cards, including private label credit cards (such as store cards), and subprime credit cards, declined to 2.69%, at the end of Q2, down from 2.87% a year ago, and down from 3.04% two years ago, according to Equifax whose public data only goes back to June 2020 (blue line, not seasonally adjusted).
During the Free Money era, cash rained down upon households, while credit card spending for travel and other activities was limited by restrictions, and delinquency rates dropped to ultra-low levels. When that party came to an end, there was a bit of a hangover, but that hangover has been getting worked off.
For prime-rated cardholders, the 60-plus days delinquency rate declined to 0.84%, the lowest since the free-money era, and well below any time before the free-money era, according to data from Fitch Ratings, which tracks the performance of Asset Backed Securities (ABS) backed by prime credit card balances.
The mystery of the 90-day plus delinquency rate. There has been some hullabaloo over the past year, based on the rising 90-plus days delinquency rate for credit cards, published by the New York Fed and based on Equifax credit reports. This rate was endlessly cited as Exhibit A of how consumers are cracking before our very eyes.
However, when the New York Fed released its Q2 Households Debt and Credit Report earlier in August, it clarified that issue in an interesting blogpost:
These were “stale, charged-off debts” that banks haven’t yet removed from their customers’ credit reporting as they might still be trying to collect those charged-off debts. This was a new trend. In pre-pandemic years, banks removed those stale charged-off debts from their credit reporting sooner, and those old charged-off debts would disappear from the Equifax 90-plus day delinquency rate. The New York Fed in its blogpost:
“We find that the stock delinquency rate is rising because of a pool of stale, charged-off debts that lenders have been reporting for longer durations, rather than a fundamental worsening in the incidence of delinquency.”
Credit card balances measure spending, not borrowing.
Credit card balances are statement balances before payments are made. They’re a measure of spending, not a measure of borrowing. Most of these charges get paid off every month by due date and never accrue interest.
Credit cards are the dominant consumer payments method for smaller purchases, such as for restaurants, travel reservations, online purchases, purchases at point-of-sale retail terminals such as at stores and stalls, wireless bills and streaming subscriptions charged automatically to the credit card, etc.
Credit card payment volume runs well ahead of debit card payment volume. Payments where credit cards are generally not accepted (rents, mortgage payments, etc.) and very large payments (down payments for a house, tax payments, auto purchases, etc.) tend to be made via check or ACH bank transfers. Cash is still being used by some holdouts, but mostly for small purchases.
In 2024, consumers in the US paid for $6.51 trillion in goods and services with their credit cards, up by 11.7% from two years earlier, according to the Federal Reserve’s payments study, released in July.
The study does not provide data for 2025. But the Nilson Report estimated that in 2025, credit card payments grew by 6.1%. Credit card platforms, such as Visa, Mastercard, and American Express, have reported strong annual growth rates in credit card payments. For example, Visa reported in its most recent quarterly financials that payments volume by US cardholders rose by 9% year-over-year through Q1 2026, after somewhat slower growth rates last year (+6.8%).
So we can estimate that credit card payments grew by about 6.1% in 2025, which would amount to $6.9 trillion (estimate for 2025 indicated in blue). This is how much money flowed through US consumers’ credit cards per year:
Credit card balances.
Credit card statement balances rose by $54 billion (+4.5%) year-over-year to $1.26 trillion, according to the New York Fed’s Household Debt and Credit report based on Equifax data (red line in the chart below).
The majority of those balances get paid off by due date and never accrue interest as cardholders are using the credit cards solely as a payment method, and not as a borrowing method/
While nearly $7 trillion flowed through credit cards in 12 months, statement balances rose by only $54 billion over the 12-month period.
“Other” consumer loans including BNPL (blue line) rose by $28 billion, or by 5.2%, year-over-year, to $568 billion. This category includes personal loans, Buy-Now-Pay-Later (BNPL) loans, payday loans, etc. These balances, except current BNPL balances, accrue interest.
The balances have barely risen over the past 23 years, despite population growth, income growth, spending growth, inflation, and now BNPL loans.
The burden of credit cards.
Credit card balances (red in the chart above) and “other” consumer debt (blue above) combined rose to $1.83 trillion.
The debt-to-income ratio is a classic way of evaluating the burden of a debt. Household disposable income, released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, consists of after-tax wages, plus income from interest, dividends, rentals, farm income, small business income, transfer payments from the government, etc.
But it excludes capital gains, which is where the wealthy make most of their money. Excluded are thereby income from stock-based compensation plans and capital appreciation where billionaires make their billions.
The debt-to-disposable income ratio for credit cards and “other loans” combined was 7.75% in Q2, up a hair from a year ago (7.68%), and remains historically low, except for the free money era that distorted household disposable income out of all proportion.
How much room left on those credit cards?
The aggregate credit limit rose by $324 billion year-over-year to a record $5.56 trillion (blue in the chart below). With credit card balances at a measly $1.26 trillion (red), the total available credit rose by $270 billion year-over-year to a record $4.30 trillion.
Banks make money on the swipe fees they earn every time a customer uses their credit card to pay. The merchant pays the swipe fees. In addition, many cards come with annual fees. These fees are a big profit center for banks, and so banks and their affiliate partners, such as airlines, aggressively market their cards to get people to set up new accounts. As inducement, they offer kickbacks to cardholders, such as 1% or 2% cash-back or miles or whatever.
This chart shows that credit cards are $4.3 trillion away from being “tapped out” (gray arrow). Households have been racking up hardly any credit card debts (red line), compared to their soaring credit limits (blue line). They’ve been so prudent with their credit cards, despite banks shoving huge credit limits down their throats, that it’s practically scandalous. Now if the federal government, the biggest drunken sailor of them all, could just be a quarter as prudent!
This rounds off my four-part quarterly analysis of household debt. Here are the other three parts:
The State of Americans’ Auto Debt
Enjoy reading WOLF STREET and want to support it? You can donate. I appreciate it immensely. Click on the mug to find out how:
Why didn’t “Credit Card and “Other” balances as a % of disposable income” spike during the great financial crisis?
What explains what looks like a post-2009 structural shift in that time series to a lower and somewhat stable percentage?
Is the story that the crisis wiped a lot of people off credit cards entirely?
It was sky-high before the Financial Crisis — consumers were already losing it by 2005 — and was a (small-ish) factor that contributed to the Financial Crisis. The mortgage-debt-to-income ratio was obviously a much bigger factor in the Financial Crisis. Consumers were massively over-indebted in 2005/6.
Have a look at the mortgage-debt-to-income ratio before the Financial Crisis, that’s why there was a Mortgage Crisis and a near collapse of the financial system.
https://wolfstreet.com/2026/08/12/here-come-the-helocs-mortgages-housing-debt-to-income-ratio-serious-delinquencies-and-foreclosures-in-q2-2026/
The under-utilization of total credit limit is interesting. Seems like prime rate customers at least have figured out how to work the system. Opening up more credit cards to get sign up bonuses (resulting in higher aggregate limit) and paying them off on time.
Meanwhile credit card companies are likely relying more on merchant fees. Which aren’t only paid by the merchant anymore! Many restaurants charge credit card fees now.
The DMV in San Francisco offered me a discount for paying cash last year. I said, Yes! That’s the result of 20 years of US litigation that the credit card companies finally lost. Before, merchants in the US were prevented from offering discounts to cash-payers or charging card-payers more.
According to the CA DMV, the California DMV does not offer discounts for cash payments, though paying with cash or debit can help you avoid the credit/debit service fees or credit card surcharges charged by some third-party partners or digital options.
Same as a discount. I paid less in cash than by card 🤣
15% of restaurants are charging a fee and growing. As a consumer, I find it offensive for various reasons.
My company accepted MILLIONS in credit card payments monthly… never passed along any “fees”.
Take it up with the bank – not the customer. Just bad business IMO.
Carry On…
Great stuff, Wolf. Our drunken sailors seem to be staying in bounds! (For now).Thank you so much!
The problem is the drunken sailors in Washington.