At 19.99%, a $5,000 credit card balance takes 66 years to clear at a 2% minimum payment, 21 years at 3% and 10 years at Quebec’s legal 5% floor, and at any rate of 24% or higher a 2% minimum never clears it at all. Those are the headline results from running 60 Canadian scenarios, five balances ($1,000 to $20,000) across four rates (12.99% to 29.99%) and the three minimum-payment rules used in Canada, through the NotchUp payoff engine. Your own statement shows one of these numbers, for one balance at one rate. This is the whole grid.
Key Takeaways
- A $5,000 balance at 19.99% takes 20 years 11 months and $5,984 in interest to clear at a 3% minimum, 66 years 5 months and $23,016 at a 2% minimum, and 10 years and $2,443 at Quebec’s 5% floor.
- A 2% minimum never clears a balance at 24% or above, because monthly interest at 24% is 2% of the balance. At 29.99% the balance grows every month.
- At 19.99%, the split of the first payment is the same at every balance: 17% of a 2% minimum reaches principal, 44% of a 3% minimum and 67% of a 5% minimum.
- Quebec’s 5% floor saves 4.9 years and $545 against a 3% minimum on $1,000 at 19.99%, 10.9 years and $3,541 on $5,000, and 16.1 years and $14,775 on $20,000.
- Freezing the first 3% minimum as a fixed monthly payment clears any 19.99% balance in 4 years 2 months. On $5,000 that’s $2,357 in interest instead of $5,984.
- Rate matters more than balance: $5,000 at 29.99% with a 3% minimum takes 51 years and $23,679 in interest, while the same balance at 12.99% takes 15 years 2 months and $2,717.
This article reflects Canadian credit card rules as of September 2026, including Quebec’s 5% minimum payment. Rates and issuer formulas can change. Check your cardholder agreement for your card’s minimum payment formula.
Key Takeaway
Across 60 Canadian balance, rate and minimum-payment combinations, the minimum-payment percentage decides the outcome more than the balance does: at 19.99%, moving from a 2% to a 5% minimum cuts a $5,000 payoff from 66 years to 10 and the interest from $23,016 to $2,443.
The Full Map: 51 of 60 Timelines Run a Decade or Longer
Each cell shows the time to clear and the total interest paid when only the minimum is paid and nothing new goes on the card.
| Balance | Rate | 2% minimum | 3% minimum | 5% minimum (Quebec floor) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $1,000 | 12.99% | 12y 4m, $814 | 8y 3m, $459 | 5y 3m, $248 |
| $1,000 | 19.99% | 26y 4m, $3,076 | 10y 11m, $990 | 6y 0m, $445 |
| $1,000 | 22.99% | 82y 7m, $12,551 | 12y 11m, $1,381 | 6y 5m, $552 |
| $1,000 | 29.99% | Never clears; balance grows | 24y 4m, $3,719 | 7y 8m, $880 |
| $2,500 | 12.99% | 20y 7m, $2,583 | 12y 2m, $1,306 | 7y 2m, $662 |
| $2,500 | 19.99% | 49y 2m, $10,553 | 16y 8m, $2,862 | 8y 4m, $1,194 |
| $2,500 | 22.99% | 173y 3m, $46,694 | 19y 11m, $4,032 | 8y 11m, $1,483 |
| $2,500 | 29.99% | Never clears; balance grows | 39y 6m, $11,204 | 10y 8m, $2,379 |
| $5,000 | 12.99% | 26y 11m, $5,533 | 15y 2m, $2,717 | 8y 8m, $1,353 |
| $5,000 | 19.99% | 66y 5m, $23,016 | 20y 11m, $5,984 | 10y 0m, $2,443 |
| $5,000 | 22.99% | 241y 10m, $103,600 | 25y 3m, $8,449 | 10y 9m, $3,036 |
| $5,000 | 29.99% | Never clears; balance grows | 51y 0m, $23,679 | 13y 0m, $4,877 |
| $10,000 | 12.99% | 33y 2m, $11,432 | 18y 2m, $5,540 | 10y 1m, $2,735 |
| $10,000 | 19.99% | 83y 8m, $47,941 | 25y 3m, $12,227 | 11y 8m, $4,942 |
| $10,000 | 22.99% | Over 250 years (model cap) | 30y 6m, $17,285 | 12y 7m, $6,142 |
| $10,000 | 29.99% | Never clears; balance grows | 62y 6m, $48,629 | 15y 3m, $9,874 |
| $20,000 | 12.99% | 39y 5m, $23,231 | 21y 2m, $11,185 | 11y 6m, $5,498 |
| $20,000 | 19.99% | 100y 11m, $97,791 | 29y 6m, $24,713 | 13y 5m, $9,938 |
| $20,000 | 22.99% | Over 250 years (model cap) | 35y 10m, $34,956 | 14y 5m, $12,354 |
| $20,000 | 29.99% | Never clears; balance grows | 74y 0m, $98,529 | 17y 6m, $19,867 |
Read down the 3% column first. It’s the closest match to the FCAC’s description of a typical minimum, the greater of $10 or 3% of the balance. At 19.99%, the rate most bank cards charge on purchases, no balance on the map clears in under a decade, and $20,000 takes 29 years 6 months and $24,713 in interest. At 29.99%, a store-card rate, $5,000 takes 51 years. Someone who opened that account at 25 would clear it at 76.
The 2% column is the one that surprised us. It doesn’t just take longer. At 24% and above it stops being a repayment schedule at all. The 22.99% figures (82 years on $1,000, 241 years on $5,000) are what the arithmetic produces, but nobody lives that long, so in practice they belong with the cells marked “never clears.” The 5% column is the only one that looks like a repayment schedule: every balance on it clears in under 18 years.
A 2% Minimum Cannot Beat a Rate of 24% or Higher
The mechanism is one division. The model charges interest at the annual rate divided by 12, so at 24.00% that’s 2.00% of the balance per month, which is the entire 2% minimum. The payment covers the interest and nothing else, and the balance sits exactly where it was. At 29.99%, monthly interest is 2.50% of the balance, so a 2% payment falls short by half a percent every month and the balance grows. At 22.99%, monthly interest is 1.92%, leaving 0.08% of the balance for principal: about $4 a month on $5,000, which is why the engine returns 241 years.
Even at 19.99%, a 2% minimum sends only 17% of the first payment to principal. On $5,000, the first $100 payment contains $83.29 of interest and $16.71 of debt reduction: roughly $200 a year off a card charging $1,000 a year.
The $10 floor applies only once 2% of the balance is under $10, meaning a balance under $500, and at 29.99% it exceeds the monthly interest only under about $400. A balance that grows every month never gets there. The floor decides how the last few hundred dollars end. It does nothing for the first few thousand.
At 19.99%, Only 17% of a 2% Minimum Reaches Principal
We split the first minimum at 19.99% into interest and principal for every balance on the map. Two balances show the pattern.
| Balance | Minimum | First payment | Interest in it | Principal in it | Share to principal |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| $5,000 | 2% | $100.00 | $83.29 | $16.71 | 17% |
| $5,000 | 3% | $150.00 | $83.29 | $66.71 | 44% |
| $5,000 | 5% | $250.00 | $83.29 | $166.71 | 67% |
| $20,000 | 2% | $400.00 | $333.17 | $66.83 | 17% |
| $20,000 | 3% | $600.00 | $333.17 | $266.83 | 44% |
| $20,000 | 5% | $1,000.00 | $333.17 | $666.83 | 67% |
The share reaching principal doesn’t depend on the balance. At 19.99%, 17% of a 2% minimum reaches principal, 44% of a 3% minimum and 67% of a 5% minimum, whether the card carries $1,000 or $20,000. Interest and minimum are both percentages of the same balance, so the balance cancels out. The minimum rule fixes what fraction of each payment is doing any work, which is why the three columns behave like three different products.
Quebec’s 5% Floor Saves 4.9 to 16.1 Years at 19.99%
Quebec is the only province with a legislated minimum payment; a Bank of Canada staff working paper on the rule notes that no other province imposed one between 2018 and 2024. Under Quebec’s Consumer Protection Act, section 126.1, the minimum is 5% of the balance. For cards opened before August 1, 2019 it started at 2% and rose half a point every August 1 until it reached 5% on August 1, 2025; cards opened after August 1, 2019 started at 5%. That makes Quebec Canada’s only natural experiment in minimum payments, and as far as we can find nobody has measured it balance by balance. Here it is at 19.99%, against the 3% minimum most cardholders elsewhere face.
| Balance | 3% minimum | 5% minimum | Years saved | Interest saved |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $1,000 | 10y 11m, $990 | 6y 0m, $445 | 4.9 | $545 |
| $2,500 | 16y 8m, $2,862 | 8y 4m, $1,194 | 8.3 | $1,668 |
| $5,000 | 20y 11m, $5,984 | 10y 0m, $2,443 | 10.9 | $3,541 |
| $10,000 | 25y 3m, $12,227 | 11y 8m, $4,942 | 13.6 | $7,285 |
| $20,000 | 29y 6m, $24,713 | 13y 5m, $9,938 | 16.1 | $14,775 |
The saving scales with the balance. Quebec’s 5% floor saves 4.9 years on $1,000, 10.9 years on $5,000 and 16.1 years on $20,000. In dollars, the gap between a Quebec cardholder and an Ontario cardholder with the same $20,000 at the same rate is $14,775, more than half the original debt. The Quebec cardholder pays a higher minimum, and that’s the whole point: the extra goes to principal instead of to the bank.
Run your own balance through the same engine
Every figure on this page comes from the model behind the free NotchUp payoff calculator. Enter your balance, rate and what you can pay to get your own row of the map.
The Cheapest Fix Is a Frozen Number
The minimum shrinks as the balance shrinks, so the payment gets easier exactly as it should be getting more effective. We tested the simplest countermeasure: take the first 3% minimum and keep paying that dollar amount every month.
| Balance | First minimum | Shrinking minimum | Frozen at first minimum | Months saved | Interest saved |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| $1,000 | $30 | 10y 11m, $990 | 4y 2m, $471 | 81 | $519 |
| $2,500 | $75 | 16y 8m, $2,862 | 4y 2m, $1,179 | 150 | $1,683 |
| $5,000 | $150 | 20y 11m, $5,984 | 4y 2m, $2,357 | 201 | $3,627 |
| $10,000 | $300 | 25y 3m, $12,227 | 4y 2m, $4,714 | 253 | $7,513 |
| $20,000 | $600 | 29y 6m, $24,713 | 4y 2m, $9,428 | 304 | $15,285 |
Every balance clears in 4 years 2 months. We checked this three times. It holds because a payment that’s a fixed fraction of the starting balance produces the same schedule at any scale. $1,000 with $30 a month and $20,000 with $600 a month are the same loan in different units. Interest is 47% of the balance at every size, against 120% on $5,000 at the shrinking minimum.
On $5,000 the difference is $3,627 and 201 months saved compared with the shrinking minimum, and the first payment is identical in both cases. The saving comes entirely from refusing to let the number go down.
Rate Beats Balance for the Minimum Payer
Because the minimum scales with the balance, doubling the balance doesn’t double the timeline. At 19.99% and 3%, $1,000 takes 10 years 11 months and $20,000 takes 29 years 6 months: twenty times the debt, under three times the wait. Rate is different. Hold $5,000 at a 3% minimum and move it across the four rates: 15 years 2 months and $2,717 at 12.99%, 20 years 11 months and $5,984 at 19.99%, 25 years 3 months and $8,449 at 22.99%, and 51 years and $23,679 at 29.99%. From a low-rate card to a store card, the interest multiplies by 8.7.
The table shows total interest on $5,000 as a multiple of the original balance for every rate and minimum on the map.
| Rate | 2% minimum | 3% minimum | 5% minimum |
|---|---|---|---|
| 12.99% | 1.11x the balance | 0.54x | 0.27x |
| 19.99% | 4.60x | 1.20x | 0.49x |
| 22.99% | 20.72x | 1.69x | 0.61x |
| 29.99% | Never clears | 4.74x | 0.98x |
Read across the 19.99% row: a minimum payer hands the bank 4.6 times the original balance at 2%, 1.2 times at 3% and about half of it at 5%, and at 29.99% even the 3% minimum costs 4.7 times the balance. For someone paying the minimum, the single most valuable phone call is the one that lowers the rate. Moving $5,000 from 19.99% to 12.99% at a 3% minimum saves $3,267 in interest and nearly six years without changing a single payment habit.
What a Minimum Payer Should Take From the Map
Three things follow.
- With more than one card, rank by rate, not balance. That’s the avalanche order in Avalanche vs Snowball.
- If your card sets a 2% minimum and your rate is 22.99% or above, the minimum isn’t a repayment plan. Any fixed payment above it is the difference between clearing the card and never clearing it.
- The cheapest habit on this map is freezing the minimum, which costs nothing in month one and cuts the $5,000 timeline at 19.99% by 80%. The Minimum Payment Trap shows how the shrinking works on a real statement, and if even the frozen amount is a stretch, How to Pay Off Credit Card Debt on a Low Income covers what to do first.
For your own timeline in plain language, see How Long Does It Really Take to Pay Off a Credit Card in Canada?, and for how much revolving balance Canadians carry in aggregate, How Much Credit Card Debt Do Canadians Actually Have?.
Methodology
All figures were computed on September 15, 2026 with NotchUp’s payoff engine, which reproduces the live NotchUp Credit Card Payoff Calculator exactly. In the model, interest compounds monthly at the annual rate divided by 12. Card issuers generally calculate interest daily on the average daily balance instead, which comes out about $10 a year higher on a $5,000 balance at 19.99%; the exact method is in your cardholder agreement. The minimum each month is the greater of $10 or the stated percentage of the balance before that month’s interest. Payments continue until the balance is zero. The engine stops at 250 years; at 24% or above with a 2% minimum the balance never falls, and those cells are reported as never clearing.
Balances of $1,000, $2,500, $5,000, $10,000 and $20,000 span a first card to a serious revolving debt. Rates of 12.99%, 19.99%, 22.99% and 29.99% span the Canadian market from low-rate cards to retail store cards, which the FCAC notes usually carry higher rates. Minimums of 2% and 3% reflect issuer rules found outside Quebec; 5% is Quebec’s legal floor. The model assumes no new purchases, no fees, no rate changes and no promotional periods. Timelines are rounded to the month, dollars to the nearest dollar. Issuer formulas vary: some use accrued interest plus 1% of principal rather than a flat percentage. The 3% column is the closest match to the FCAC’s description of a typical minimum as the greater of $10 or 3%.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long does it take to pay off a credit card paying only the minimum in Canada?
At 19.99%, $5,000 takes 20 years 11 months at a 3% minimum, 66 years 5 months at a 2% minimum and 10 years at Quebec’s 5% floor. If your card comes from a federally regulated issuer, which includes every big bank, your statement must show the time to repay at the minimum for your exact balance and rate.
Is the minimum payment 2% or 3% in Canada?
Outside Quebec there’s no legislated minimum. The FCAC describes the typical formula as the greater of $10 or 3% of the balance, and some issuers use a lower percentage or interest plus a share of principal instead. Your cardholder agreement states the formula for your card.
Why does Quebec have a 5% minimum payment?
Quebec’s Consumer Protection Act sets a legal minimum of 5% to reduce long-term revolving debt. For cards opened before August 1, 2019 it started at 2% and rose half a point a year until it reached 5% on August 1, 2025. On $5,000 at 19.99%, the 5% floor clears the card in 10 years and $2,443 instead of 20 years 11 months and $5,984 at a 3% minimum.
What is the minimum payment on a $5,000 credit card balance?
On a $5,000 balance, the first minimum is $100 at a 2% rule, $150 at 3% and $250 at Quebec’s 5%. At 19.99%, $83.29 of that first payment is interest whichever rule applies, so only $16.71, $66.71 or $166.71 reduces the debt.
What happens if the minimum payment is less than the interest?
The balance grows even though you pay on time. This happens with a 2% minimum at any rate above 24%, because monthly interest at 24% is 2% of the balance. At 29.99%, interest is 2.5% a month against a 2% payment, so the account runs backwards. The only way out is a payment larger than the interest.
Does the $10 minimum payment floor change anything?
The $10 floor only applies once 2% of the balance is under $10, so on balances under $500. At 29.99% it only beats the monthly interest below about $400. It decides how the last few hundred dollars end and does nothing for a balance in the thousands.
Does paying a fixed amount instead of the minimum really help?
Yes, freezing the first 3% minimum as a fixed payment clears any balance at 19.99% in 4 years 2 months. On $5,000 that’s $150 a month, $2,357 in interest and 201 months saved compared with the shrinking minimum, and the first payment is the same either way.
How to Cite
NotchUp Research, The Minimum Payment Map (September 2026), https://notchup.app/learn/minimum-payment-map/. Figures may be reproduced with attribution.
This article is for informational purposes only and doesn’t constitute professional financial advice. If you’re experiencing financial difficulty, consider contacting a licensed insolvency trustee or a non-profit credit counselling agency for free, confidential support.
