Credit card delinquency is when you fall behind on your monthly bills. Delinquency doesn’t mean that you’ve failed to pay off your full balance in a given month, but rather that you did not make at least the required minimum payment by the due date. Charge cards are the exception, as they do require you to pay in full each month and will consider you delinquent if you don’t.
Key Things to Know About Credit Card Delinquency
- It affects millions: While overall credit card delinquency rates have declined from their Great Recession peak, millions of Americans still struggle with past-due credit card bills. Worryingly, delinquency rates are now close to the highest they’ve been since 2011.
- Acting quickly prevents too much damage: It’s important to get current on your credit card bills as soon as possible. If you make at least your required minimum payment before you’re 30 days delinquent, you won’t be reported as late to the credit bureaus and can avoid credit score damage.
- It can hurt your credit score: If you’re at least 30 days late on your payments, you’ll start to see credit score damage, which will get worse and worse the longer you go without paying.
- It’s expensive: Credit card delinquency comes with several major consequences. You’ll owe late fees, and future purchases can be subject to a penalty APR. Your issuer can also apply that penalty APR to your existing balance if you’re at least 60 days delinquent.
The information in the sections below will help you avoid late payments and credit score damage as well as mitigate the impact of past-due bills and ultimately keep your credit card account in good standing.
What Happens When Your Credit Card Is Delinquent?
When you’re delinquent on your credit card payments, several bad things happen. These negative consequences put both your wallet and your credit score in danger.
- Late fee: Any amount of delinquency on a credit card payment, even just a day, will likely trigger a late fee from your credit card issuer. Late fees cost $33.76, on average. If you get your account current quickly and it’s your first time being late or it’s been a long time since you last were, you might be able to get the late fee waived.
- Penalty APR: Once you’re late on your payment by any amount of time, your issuer may apply a penalty APR that’s higher than your regular APR to future purchases. They can apply this same APR to your existing balance if you become 60 days delinquent. To get rid of a penalty APR, you’ll have to make six consecutive credit card payments on time, paying at least the minimum due each time.
- Lower likelihood of credit limit increases: Paying late makes you look less trustworthy to your credit card issuer. That means you might be less likely to get approved for credit limit increases in the future, until you’ve built up a long history of on-time payments again.
- Lost rewards: Your issuer might take away rewards you’ve earned on purchases if you don’t pay for those purchases on time.
- Credit score damage: If you’re late on your payment by less than 30 days, you won’t see any credit score damage because your issuer won’t report you to the credit bureaus as late. However, being late by 30+ days will lower your credit score.
- Suspended account: If you’re late on your payments for multiple months, your credit card issuer might choose to suspend (or restrict) your account. This usually means you won’t be able to make any new purchases on your card. You likely won’t have this suspension reversed until you’ve gotten current on your bills and have demonstrated consistent on-time payments.
- Closed account: Eventually, your credit card issuer might close your account altogether. However, you will still owe the debt. It could get sent to collections, or your issuer could sue you directly for the money, potentially garnishing your bank account or wages.
Let’s take a deeper look at how one of the most serious consequences, credit score damage, plays out.
How Different Levels of Delinquency Affect Your Credit
Credit card delinquency is measured in terms of how many days late your payment becomes. This dictates when credit card companies will report you as being late to the credit bureaus, as well as how much credit score damage you incur.
1 - 29 days
At this point, you will have missed only one payment. If you can make the required minimum payment before the 30th day, you will avoid credit score damage, as credit card companies do not report this level of delinquency to the credit bureaus. You’ll still likely owe a late fee and have a penalty APR kick in, though.
30 - 59 days
In this case, you’re behind on two payments – one of which is at least 30 days late. Credit card companies will report delinquency, but it won’t hurt your credit too badly.
60 - 89 days
You’re now behind on three payments. One is at least 60 days late, another is at least 30 days late, and the last one is at least one day late. At this point, your credit score will be hit hard. If you previously always paid your bill on time, your score could drop as much as 100 - 125 points.
90 - 119 days
You’re now behind on four payments – the first being at least 90 days late, the second at least 60 days late, the third at least 30 days late, and the fourth at least one day late. Depending on the credit card company, your account could be turned over to collections at this point. Either way, your credit score will continue to drop.
120-179 days
At this point, you’re late on at least five different payments. The volume of collections calls will mount, and the impact on your credit score will be even more significant.
180 days
When your credit card account becomes 180 days delinquent, the credit card company is required to declare your account as being charged-off. Charging-off on an account causes the biggest blow to your credit score. Aside from bankruptcy and foreclosure, a charge-off is the worst thing one can do to their creditworthiness.
However, even when your debt gets charged-off, you still owe it. You’ll still have debt collectors trying to get you to pay up, or you might even get sued by the original credit card company.
How to Get Out of Delinquency
While you may assume that you should pay what you can when you can, that’s not necessarily the case, and the last thing you want is to make a payment that won’t actually benefit your situation. Rather, the amount that you can afford to pay will dictate whether or not doing so is wise since a minimum payment – at the very least – is required to prevent delinquency from progressing.
For example, suppose your minimum payment is $50 and you only have $25:
- Even if you pay $25, your credit card company will still consider you delinquent and will assess late fees accordingly.
- It’s therefore in your best interest to save the money until you have the full $50. This will help you avoid falling too far down the slippery slope of delinquency.
Now, let’s say you’ve missed two $50 payments and have another due date coming up:
- In order to fully climb out of delinquency and become current on your bill, you would need to pay $150 total (to cover the two missed payments as well as your current month’s bill).
- With that said, you don’t need to wait until you have the full $150 to make a payment that will benefit your situation.
- Having missed two minimum payments, you will be in the 30-59 day delinquency range, which means making one minimum payment will effectively cover the current month’s bill and keep you in that range. In other words, you won’t fall further down the delinquency slope, but your situation won’t get any better.
- Paying $100, on the other hand, will cover the current month’s minimum payment as well as one of the payments that you missed, bringing you into the 1-29 day delinquency range.
- In order to go back to current status, you would need to pay the two missed payments plus the current payment due – a total of three minimum payments.
Once you become current on your credit card bill, you should start counting the months. After six months of on-time payments, you have the right to request an interest rate reduction under the CARD Act (assuming your rate went up in the first place). In order to get current in the first place, though, you’ll have to be strategic and figure out ways to set aside money for debt payments each month.
Things You Can Do to Help Yourself Get Current
When you’re behind on credit card bills, getting back on track might take sacrifices. Examine your budget and your schedule to see what you can do to save money. Here are a few ideas:
Work extra hours: If you’re paid by the hour, picking up a few extra shifts can help you make a dent in your debt.
Cut out any luxuries: There’s probably at least something you spend money on that you can cut out of your budget until you’re current on your payments, even if that’s just a $5 cup of coffee or a $15 streaming service subscription.
Sell things you don’t need: You might have some unwanted, unused items lying around your home that you can turn into extra cash.
Consider borrowing from family or friends: Chances are that people who know you will charge you a lot less interest on money than a credit card company will. However, not paying back a friend or family member can ruin your relationship, so it’s important to take the matter seriously and have a written contract.
How to Improve Your Credit Score After Delinquency
Delinquency can trigger significant credit score damage, depending on how long you let it go on. If you’ve experienced a credit score drop, you’ll need to rebuild your finances and credit standing. Depending upon the extent of the damage caused by your delinquency, this might entail:
- Exploring Debt Solutions: From payment plans to debt forgiveness to bankruptcy, there are a number of ways in which consumers who are experiencing financial hardship can garner a measure of relief and improve their payment status. WalletHub’s Debt Solutions Overview will help you compare these options.
- Scrimping & Saving: If you have the financial means to pay your bills but simply made some unwise spending-related choices in the past, you probably won’t be eligible for debt relief. As a result, you will need to put your nose to the grindstone and gradually pull yourself back to current payment status.
- Requesting a Credit Limit Increase: If your credit line was cut due to your payment problems and you have since demonstrated a consistent ability to pay on time (at least 6-12 months), you can request that your issuer re-instate your spending power. You can learn more about that process in our article on asking for a higher credit limit.
- Rebuilding Your Credit: Responsible credit card use, including making on-time payments and maintaining low credit utilization, is the best way to rebuild your credit. If your credit card account was deactivated due to delinquency and you are having trouble getting approved for a new credit card, there are certain nearly guaranteed approval credit cards that offer the same credit building benefits as any other type of card. These cards require a security deposit that doubles as your spending limit, preventing you from overspending and reducing issuer risk.
How to Avoid Credit Card Delinquency in the Future
Now that you know how to get out of and even recover from credit card delinquency, let’s talk about how to avoid becoming delinquent again in the future. Of course, unexpected financial emergencies can always happen, but the following strategies can help you be prepared:
- Build an emergency fund: When making your budget, set aside money for emergency fund contributions each month until you’ve built up enough to cover at least three to six months’ worth of expenses. That way, when a financial emergency hits, you can draw from that fund and you won’t have to fall behind on your bills.
- Communicate with your issuer: Credit card issuers are often understanding about financial difficulties. Your credit card company may allow you to participate in a temporary hardship program until you get back on your feet. A hardship program may defer payments while still marking your account as “current,” or it could temporarily lower your interest rate or your minimum payment amount.
- Only charge what you can afford to pay back. Overspending is one of the biggest reasons people get behind on credit card payments. If you only charge to your card what you can afford to pay off by the due date each month, you’ll minimize the chances that you’ll get behind.
- Set up automatic payments. Sometimes people simply forget to make a credit card payment. By setting up automatic payments from a linked checking account, you’ll ensure that you’re never late on a payment unless you don’t have enough money in your checking account. You can also decide whether to automatically pay your full balance, just the minimum due, or any amount in between.
- Cut up your card. If you’re facing too much temptation to spend beyond your means, you can always cut up your card to temporarily restrict access to it, then get a replacement card when you’re ready. Less extreme options include locking your card in a safe that only a trusted family member or friend knows the combination to, or asking your credit card issuer to freeze/lock your account and prevent purchases (though this is less effective as you can still reverse it yourself).
- Change your due date. Many credit card companies let you choose your own due date. Pick a day that’s right after you get paid, so you can immediately cover the bill before you’re tempted to spend money on anything that’s non-essential.
Credit Card Delinquency Statistics
If you’re delinquent on credit card payments, you’re certainly not alone. Many Americans share the same issue.
- The overall credit card delinquency rate is 3.02%, as of Q3 2025.
- The share of credit card accounts that are charged-off (180+ days delinquent) is 3.92%, as of Q3 2025.
- Over the past 20 years, delinquency rates have ranged from around 1.6% to 6.5%, with the highest delinquency rates naturally occurring during the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting economic downturn.
- People ages 18-29 have the highest delinquency rate, at nearly 10%. People ages 60-69 years old have the lowest delinquency rate, at just 5.5%.
You can learn more from WalletHub’s full guide on Credit Card Delinquency Rates and Charge-Offs.
Bottom Line
At the end of the day, the one thing you should not do is let unopened bills pile up while you get bombarded with calls from creditors. Continuing to ignore delinquency will simply make your problems worse, as fees and credit score damage accrue.
If you can’t make your minimum payments due to temporary financial difficulties, talk to your credit card company about a hardship program. If you have long-term debt that’s spiraling out of control, there are various other debt solutions that you can consider, such as debt settlement and debt management.
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