Carried a credit-card balance
45%
percent of cardholders
Nearly half of cardholders financed purchases at least once.
Boundary At least once in 12 months; not necessarily a persistent balance.
The American Household Economy · 2026
Debt
Household debt in Q1 2026: aggregate balances and composition, the distinction between the delinquent stock and the flow into serious delinquency, and credit-card, BNPL and student-loan context.
Data as of
Aggregate balances (Q1 2026)
Household debt reached a record in dollars, but grew only 0.1% in the quarter. A record nominal stock is not, by itself, evidence of mass distress.
Used Buy Now, Pay Later
16%
percent of adults
BNPL use continued to broaden.
Boundary Product use alone does not imply distress.
BNPL users who paid late
26%
percent of BNPL users
More than one quarter of users experienced delinquency.
Boundary Conditional on BNPL use, not all adults.
Total household debt
$18.794T
trillion dollars
Nominal debt reached a record but grew only 0.1% in the quarter.
Boundary Aggregate stock; does not alone indicate affordability or distress.
Mortgage debt
$13.191T
trillion dollars
Mortgages account for roughly 70% of household debt.
Boundary Secured debt backed by housing assets; not directly comparable to unsecured debt.
Credit-card debt
$1.252T
trillion dollars
Balances fell seasonally by $25B in Q1 but remained $70B above a year earlier.
Boundary Credit-report balances include transactors who may pay in full.
Debt in some stage of delinquency
4.8%
percent of outstanding debt
Most balances remained current, while delinquency was material.
Boundary Balance-weighted, not the percentage of people with a delinquency.
Flow into serious credit-card delinquency
7.10%
annualized percent of balances
Card distress remained elevated relative to mortgage distress.
Boundary Annualized transition rate, not the current share seriously delinquent.
Flow into serious student-loan delinquency
10.86%
annualized percent of balances
Student-loan delinquency transitions rose after pandemic-era reporting pauses ended.
Boundary Policy normalization creates a break in the recent time series.
Home-equity line balances
$446B
billion dollars
Home-equity borrowing continued expanding from its 2022 low.
Boundary Borrowing available only to qualifying owners with equity.
Auto-loan balances
$1.685T
trillion dollars
Auto debt continued rising with vehicle prices and financing costs.
Boundary Aggregate stock, not payment burden or borrower-level delinquency.
Student-loan balances
$1.658T
trillion dollars
Balances were nearly flat; delinquency normalization was the sharper issue.
Boundary Credit-report balance coverage and policy-driven reporting changes affect comparisons.
Flow into serious delinquency, all debt
2.83%
annualized percent of balances
Transition risk increased from 2.45% a year earlier.
Boundary Flow rate, not current balance share; student-loan reporting changes matter.
Household debt-service ratio
11.16%
required payments as percent of disposable income
Required payments took a little more than one-tenth of disposable income in aggregate.
Boundary Aggregate ratio; distribution and underwriting differences are substantial.
What the debt is made of
Most household debt is a mortgage backed by a housing asset — a different thing from unsecured borrowing.
Denominator: trillions of dollars of outstanding balances. Mortgage and credit-card balances are from the canonical feed; the residual is total household debt minus those two components. This is a stock, not a flow.
| Series | trillion dollars |
|---|---|
| Mortgage debt | |
| All other debt (auto, student, HELOC, other) | |
| Credit-card debt |
Stock versus flow of delinquency
Two very different numbers describe delinquency, and conflating them is the most common debt error.
The stock: 4.8% of all outstanding debt was in some stage of delinquency. This is balance-weighted — a share of dollars, not a share of people. Most balances remained current.
The flow: the annualized rate at which balances transition into serious delinquency. For credit cards that flow was 7.10% and for student loans 10.86%. The student-loan figure rose sharply after pandemic-era reporting pauses ended — a break in the series, not purely new distress.
Consumer credit context
Carrying a balance
45% of cardholders financed a purchase at least once in the year. Carrying a balance once is not the same as a persistent, compounding balance.
Buy Now, Pay Later
16% of adults used BNPL, and 26% of those users paid late. Product use alone does not imply distress; late payment among users does signal strain.
Student loans
Student-loan delinquency transitions rose as reporting resumed after pandemic-era pauses. Treat the recent jump as partly a measurement break, not purely a new wave of missed payments.