United States President Donald Trump has announced plans to cap credit card interest rates at 10 percent for one year, effective January 20. Trump said Americans were being “ripped off” with interest rates as high as 30 percent.
Trump said credit card companies had “really abused the public”. “We’re putting a one-year cap at 10 percent. And that’s it. They know it,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One.
Why Trump wants to cap interest rates?
Americans owe credit card companies an enormous amount of money. Outstanding credit card debt stood at $1.23 trillion as of September, up from $1.17 trillion the previous year, according to the Centre for Microeconomic Data at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
That figure does not include other common forms of debt that put pressure on household finances, such as auto loans and mortgages.
The average credit card debt was $6,555 in November, according to TransUnion, a US credit reporting agency. As credit card debt has grown, so has the cost of borrowing. The average interest rate stood at 22.83 percent in August, according to the Federal Reserve, up from 16.28 percent in 2020.
In 2023, credit card rates began shooting to new highs. As of November 2025, the average rate was at 22.3%, according to the Federal Reserve, though many cards have terms well above that. A decade earlier, the credit card rate average was 13.9%.
