Credit Card Debt in Arkansas

At $5,826, Arkansas's average credit card balance runs 13.9% below the national average of $6,768. It's a comparatively lighter number for Arkansas, though it's still an average: half of Arkansas cardholders carry more than $5,826, not less.

Ranked #43 of 51 states and the District of Columbia, Arkansas sits near the bottom of the list for average credit card balance with a figure of $5,826. That #43 position keeps Arkansas well under the pace most states are setting.

Arkansas's $5,826 average trails the national $6,768 figure by $942 in raw dollars. Spread across a year, that $942 difference adds up to a meaningfully smaller interest bill for a Arkansas household carrying the average balance.

For comparison, the closest states by average balance are Maine at $5,826 and Ohio at $5,871, both within range of Arkansas's figure. Looking at states with similar averages is a useful sanity check: it shows Arkansas isn't an outlier, just one point in a fairly tight national range.

The $5,826 figure describes Arkansas as a state, not any one person's debt. If you're carrying a credit card balance in Arkansas, the number that matters is the one on your own statement, plugged into a real payoff timeline at the payment level you can actually sustain, not the $5,826 average.

For someone in Arkansas weighing how to pay off a balance near $5,826, the snowball order comes down to what else is on the list. Pay minimums on every other debt, put every extra dollar toward whichever balance is smallest, and roll that payment forward once that $5,826-sized debt or a smaller one is gone.

Daily compounding means a $5,826 balance grows a bit between statements even before the next payment posts. That detail matters more the closer a real balance sits to $5,826, since larger balances generate larger daily interest charges in dollar terms.

A $5,826 balance at a typical card APR racks up somewhere around $117 in interest during a single month, a figure that doesn't change based on Arkansas's #43 rank. That $117 is the baseline a payment plan on a $5,826 balance has to beat to make real progress.

Arkansas lands at #43 nationally with a $5,826 average for reasons tied to the state's broader economy. Those reasons don't change the arithmetic of paying down an individual balance, which depends only on the balance, the APR, and the payment.

This page reflects Arkansas's statewide average of $5,826, sourced and cited above, it isn't a substitute for running your own numbers. Atlas computes a real payoff schedule and debt-free date from your actual balances, APRs, and the monthly amount you can put toward debt, whether that's above or below Arkansas's $5,826.

Arkansas's figures above come from Experian's state-by-state credit card debt data (2024 Q3), cross-checked against the national totals cited on this page.