Consumer credit
Consumer credit by the dollar and by delinquency
How much credit Americans hold outside their mortgage, what it costs, and how much of it goes bad. The Federal Reserve's G.19 release measures total consumer credit outstanding, seasonally adjusted, at $5,154.5 billion in May 2026, split into revolving credit (mostly cards, $1,344.2 billion) and nonrevolving credit (auto and student loans, $3,810.3 billion). Cards carried a 20.94% average rate that quarter; the bank delinquency rate on card loans was 2.92%. Every figure on this page is computed from the Fed data at build, and the two headline values are anchored verbatim to the releases.
Data as of G.19 volumes through May 2026, delinquency rates through 2026:Q1 (Federal Reserve via FRED)
The stock of credit: revolving and nonrevolving, 1943 to 2026
Nonrevolving credit, the auto and student loans that dominate the total, stands at $3,810.3 billion; revolving credit, mostly card balances, at $1,344.2 billion, 26.1% of the $5,154.5-billion total. Revolving credit is the cyclical leg: it fell outright after 2008 as households deleveraged and again in 2020, while nonrevolving credit kept climbing on student and auto lending. Over the year to May 2026 the total changed +2.1%.
Source: Federal Reserve G.19 Consumer Credit, via FRED (TOTALSL, REVOLSL, NONREVSL, TERMCB*) Monthly, seasonally adjusted; FRED serves these in millions, converted to billions here. Total consumer credit is defined as revolving plus nonrevolving (the identity is checked at every build). Shaded bands are the 2001, 2007-09, and 2020 recessions (NBER reference dates). Consumer credit excludes loans secured by real estate. Methodology
What the credit costs
The G.19 terms-of-credit table prices two very different debts. In 2026:Q2 the average credit-card rate across all accounts was 20.94%, and across accounts actually assessed interest it was 22.15%; the finance rate on a 48-month new-car loan at commercial banks was 7.47%. The card-to-car gap, roughly 13.5 points, is the price of unsecured revolving credit over a loan backed by collateral.
Source: Federal Reserve G.19 Consumer Credit, via FRED (TOTALSL, REVOLSL, NONREVSL, TERMCB*) Quarterly prints (the G.19 terms table is quarterly), not seasonally adjusted. The new-car rate begins in 1972 and the credit-card rate in 1994, so the card line starts later. A third series, the card APR on accounts assessed interest, is cited in the text and available on FRED as TERMCBCCINTNS. Methodology
How much goes bad, 1985 to present
The Federal Reserve's Charge-Off and Delinquency release measures loans past due at commercial banks. In 2026:Q1 the credit-card delinquency rate was 2.92%, consumer loans overall 2.64%, single-family mortgages 1.89%, and all loans 1.48%. Card delinquency is structurally the highest of these, unsecured and revolving; its record is 6.77% in 2009:Q2, the 43rd percent of that peak today. The card charge-off rate, the share written off as a loss, ran 3.84% the same quarter.
Source: Federal Reserve, Charge-Off and Delinquency Rates on Loans and Leases at Commercial Banks, via FRED Quarterly, seasonally adjusted, all commercial banks. A loan is delinquent when 30+ days past due and still accruing, plus nonaccrual loans. These call-report rates exclude credit unions and finance companies; the NY Fed panel on the conditions page covers a broader lender set through Equifax. The mortgage line here is the bank-book rate, a different construction from the household-panel delinquency shown on conditions. Methodology
Related: complaints about these products on consumer complaints; the household balance sheet and the NY Fed 90+ day delinquency panel on financial conditions; mortgage originations and denials on mortgage. Every series links to FRED: TOTALSL, DRCCLACBS. See the methodology for series definitions, the identity check, the two verified anchors, and every limitation.