What's a good APR on a credit card?
Under 20% is good in the current rate environment. Under 15% is excellent. Above 25% is the penalty-band — pay in full to avoid the math entirely.
APRs are priced off the prime rate, which the Federal Reserve's H.15 release put at 6.75% as of 2026-07-13. Card APRs sit well above prime: the Fed's G.19 Consumer Credit report (released July 8, 2026, covering May 2026) put the average at 20.94% across all accounts and 22.15% for accounts actually assessed interest. Cards built for building or rebuilding credit (secured, credit-builder) and premium rewards cards tend to price toward the higher end of that range to offset risk or rewards cost; plain flat-rate cashback cards often run lower — check the issuer's own rate-and-fee table for the specific range. The honest answer: if you carry a balance, no APR is good — pay in full and the APR doesn't matter. If you can't, optimize for the lowest available rate at your FICO bucket and prioritize 0% intro APR offers.
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