Balance Transfer Calculator

Net savings = interest avoided − transfer fee. During the promo, payments go fully to principal; whatever remains when it ends reverts to the higher rate.

Does the saving beat the fee?

A balance transfer moves debt from a high-rate card to one offering a low or 0% introductory rate, so your payments attack the principal instead of feeding interest. The catch is the transfer fee — typically 1–5% of the balance, added to what you owe on the new card. So the question is simple: does the interest you avoid outweigh that fee? This calculator answers it directly, with the net saving after the fee as the headline. A positive number means transferring wins; a negative one means the fee costs more than it saves.

Because card APRs are so high, the interest avoided is usually large, and a 0% transfer wins comfortably — provided you clear the balance, or most of it, before the promo rate ends.

Worked example — a $8,000 balance at 24%, moved to a 0% card with a 3% fee, paying $400 a month: The fee is $240, so $8,240 starts on the new card. At $400 a month it clears in about 22 months — roughly 10 months past the 12-month promo; to clear it inside the promo you would need about $687 a month. Even running past the promo, you save about $1,946 of interest versus staying put, so the net saving after the fee is around $1,706.

The promo window is everything

The whole benefit hinges on clearing the balance before the promotional rate expires. While the promo lasts, every rupee of your payment goes to principal, so the balance falls fast. But anything left when the promo ends reverts to a high rate — sometimes higher than your original card — and starts accruing interest again, eating into the saving. The calculator tells you plainly whether you clear it in time, and the exact monthly payment needed to do so.

That required payment is the number to act on. Pay at least it and you capture nearly the full benefit for the price of the fee; pay less and a balance lingers into the revert period. If you cannot manage the required payment, a transfer can still help, but the calculator shows how much the revert interest erodes the gain.

Watch the traps

Two things quietly undo a balance transfer. The first is new spending: purchases on a promo card often do not get the interest-free grace that the transferred balance enjoys, so they start accruing interest immediately — and payments may be applied to the cheaper balance first, leaving the new purchases to fester. The safest approach is to stop using the card and just clear the transfer. The second is the fee creep: a “0% for 18 months” offer with a 5% fee is not free, and on a balance you would have cleared quickly anyway, the fee can outweigh the saving.

Enter your real numbers — the fee, the promo length, the payment you can sustain — and the calculator gives the honest verdict: stay or transfer, and by how much.