Credit Card Balance Transfer Calculator

When you’re carrying debt on a bank card that costs typical bank card rates of interest, it’s possible you’ll be paying a whole lot and even 1000’s of {dollars} a yr in curiosity. Transferring that debt to a steadiness switch bank card with a 0% introductory APR interval may scale back your curiosity prices to zero. That not solely can prevent cash, but additionally can let you get out of debt extra shortly, since each greenback you pay will go towards eliminating your steadiness fairly than paying curiosity.

Our bank card steadiness switch calculator can provide you a way of how a lot cash you would save by doing a steadiness switch. Inform us how a lot debt you are carrying, the rate of interest on that debt, and a few particulars in regards to the steadiness switch bank card you are , and we’ll estimate your potential financial savings.

The outcomes you get from the bank card steadiness switch calculator are an estimate of how a lot you would save in the event you moved your debt to a card with a 0% supply for steadiness transfers, in contrast with what you’d pay in the event you left the debt the place it’s. The outcomes are based mostly on two assumptions:

1. You’d repay the debt throughout the 0% intro APR interval on the steadiness switch card.

Say the cardboard you are provides 18 months of 0%. Our steadiness switch calculator makes use of this as the time-frame for estimating prices. In different phrases, you will both:

• Go away the debt in your present card and pay it off over 18 months, or

• Transfer it to the 0% card and pay it off over 18 months.

The calculated financial savings is the distinction between these two.

2. You’d repay the debt with equal funds over that interval.

If you’re paying off debt on a card that is charging you curiosity, your reimbursement schedule has an enormous impact on the entire quantity of curiosity you pay. The extra you pay every month, the much less you will finally be charged in curiosity and the sooner you will remove the debt. For instance, say you are beginning with $3,000 in debt on a card that costs 16% curiosity:

There are numerous methods you would select to pay down your debt. You may pay an equal quantity every month (the situations within the chart above), or you would pay a variable quantity based mostly on what you could have accessible. You may pay as soon as a month or a number of instances a month. You may even simply pay the “minimal quantity due” proven in your assertion, which can maintain your account in good standing however can even maintain you in debt for years.

No calculator can account for each single potential cost possibility. Our steadiness switch calculator, due to this fact, assumes that your cost would be the similar each month and that it will likely be the precise quantity essential to repay the debt inside the time-frame.

To offer you a greater sense of the price of carrying bank card debt with out doing a steadiness switch, we have created a second calculator that tells you precisely how a lot you would want to pay each month to remove your debt inside a given time-frame.

This isn’t so simple as dividing your debt by the variety of months within the reimbursement interval. When you’ve got $1,000 in debt, for example, paying $100 a month for 10 months received’t get you within the clear, since you’ll be charged curiosity. At 16% curiosity, you’d must pay $107.48 a month to fully remove the debt in 10 months.

Inform us how a lot debt you could have, the rate of interest on that debt and what number of months you’d have to pay it off, and we’ll inform you your required month-to-month cost, the entire quantity of your funds over your time-frame and the entire quantity you’d pay in curiosity.

A steadiness switch supplies the reply to a standard query: “Can I take advantage of one bank card to repay one other?” If you request a switch, the financial institution that issued your new bank card sends a cost in your outdated card after which provides that quantity to the steadiness on the brand new card, together with the steadiness switch price. You possibly can generally request a switch on the time you apply for the brand new card; you too can name the issuer after you get the cardboard, or use a comfort verify.

Steadiness switch playing cards typically work the identical manner. The important thing differentiating elements are:

• Steadiness switch price. This price will usually be 3% to five% of the quantity transferred, which interprets to $30 to $50 per $1,000 transferred. The decrease the price, the higher, however even with a price on the excessive finish, your curiosity financial savings may simply make up for the associated fee.

• Size of 0% introductory interval. steadiness switch bank card may have a 0% interval of 15 months or longer. Some provide you with shut to 2 years at 0%. You may not want that a lot time, however the longer the 0% interval, the extra flexibility you could have.

• Card issuer. As a common rule, you may’t switch debt between playing cards from the identical issuer. In case your present debt is on a Citi card, you may’t switch it to a different Citi card. You possibly can’t switch debt from one Wells Fargo card to a different, and so forth.

• Rewards. It is price occupied with what you are going to do along with your steadiness switch bank card down the street, after you’ve got paid off your debt. Many steadiness switch playing cards do not supply a really compelling motive to maintain utilizing them after the 0% interval runs out — they provide no rewards, and their ongoing rates of interest aren’t significantly low. Nevertheless, a variety of glorious rewards bank cards supply steadiness switch promotions of 15 to 18 months.

NerdWallet’s finest steadiness switch bank cards will present you the playing cards rated as finest for steadiness transfers by our editorial workforce. The checklist consists of “pure” steadiness switch bank cards with extra-long 0% intro intervals, in addition to rewards playing cards with strong steadiness switch provides. You possibly can apply for many of those playing cards instantly from NerdWallet.