Americans' Credit Card Debt Climbs to Record $1.29 Trillion While US Household Debt Rises to $19.1 Trillion, Says New York Fed

U.S. credit-card balances rose $22 billion in the third quarter to a record $1.29 trillion, according to a report released Tuesday by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Credit Card Balances Reach Record

Balances were up 4.2% year over year. Total household debt, including mortgages, auto loans and student loans, rose $334 billion from July through September to $19.1 trillion.

New York Fed Researchers said the increase "does reflect financial hardship out there," CNBC reported Tuesday.

TransUnion Reports Higher Credit Card Balances

The average credit-card balance per consumer reached $6,678 in the third quarter, up 2.4% from a year earlier. The number of consumers carrying a credit-card balance also increased 2% to 178 million from 174.8 million, according to TransUnion’s third-quarter 2026 Credit Industry Insights Report.

Borrowing costs also remained high, with LendingTree data putting the average annual percentage rate (APR) on new credit-card offers at about 24%. TransUnion’s Senior Vice President of Global Research and Consulting Charlie Wise described credit cards as "one of the most expensive ways to borrow," CNBC reported.

The New York Fed’s accompanying research found that a growing share of new credit cards had gone to borrowers with lower incomes and credit scores, with those accounts showing higher levels of distress.

Meanwhile, the Consumer Price Index (CPI), a measure of consumer prices, rose 0.4% in October from the previous month, following a 0.6% increase in September, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Tuesday.

Higher prices and borrowing costs were also weighing on household finances, said Money Management International Principal Consumer Finance Analyst Ted Rossman, adding that they had pushed more people into debt, according to the report.

Q2 Debt Had Already Reached $1.26 Trillion

Credit-card balances had already climbed to $1.26 trillion in the second quarter, increasing $21 billion from the previous quarter. New York Fed researchers also reported elevated late-stage delinquencies, with 12.8% of credit-card balances more than 90 days past due in the first quarter.

A separate Achieve survey conducted in June among 2,000 consumers found that 55% carried credit-card balances to cover essential expenses, while 56% of borrowers surveyed said it would take at least six months to repay their credit-card debt.

Despite those pressures, Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC) CEO Charlie Scharf said in October that consumer credit was still holding up. He noted that early-stage delinquencies remained at historically low levels and the bank’s charge-off ratio had declined from the previous quarter and a year earlier. Scharf said the bank did not yet see signs of weakening consumer credit, although he expected conditions could weaken at some point.

Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.

Image via Shutterstock