Credit Card Debt by State: Every State Ranked (2026)

Alaska carries the highest average credit card balance in the country, $7,760, about 50% more than Iowa's $5,187, the lowest. This report ranks every state using Experian's own credit bureau data, the same primary source behind SwitchWize's national report on the true cost of credit card debt, and looks at what actually explains the gap between states. Figures last verified recently.

The numbers

• The highest. Alaska: $7,760 average balance, followed by Washington, D.C. ($7,740) and Hawaii ($7,654).
• The lowest. Iowa: $5,187, followed by Wisconsin ($5,264), Kentucky ($5,279), West Virginia ($5,287), and Mississippi ($5,327).
• The spread. $2,573 between the highest and lowest state, about a 50% difference.
• The national figure. $6,659, Experian's population-weighted average across all cardholders.

Every state, ranked

Why the gap tracks cost of living, not obviously anything else

Look at the top of the list and a pattern jumps out before any other explanation does: Alaska, Washington D.C., Hawaii, Connecticut, New Jersey, Maryland, and California are all among the most expensive places in the country to live. The bottom of the list runs the other direction: Iowa, Wisconsin, Kentucky, West Virginia, and Mississippi are all lower-cost states, mostly in the Midwest and South. That's not a coincidence, and it's not a claim about financial habits varying by geography. A dollar of everyday expenses, groceries, gas, a car repair, a medical copay, costs more in a high-cost state, and more of it tends to get financed on a card when cash flow is tight, regardless of how carefully someone manages money. A $7,760 balance in Alaska and a $5,187 balance in Iowa can represent genuinely comparable relative financial positions once cost of living is accounted for.

What actually matters more than your state's rank

Where a state ranks on this list says something about regional cost of living. It says very little about what a given balance actually costs the person carrying it, which depends entirely on the card's APR, not on geography. SwitchWize's companion report on the true cost of credit card debt covers that math directly: average credit card APRs running in the low-to-mid 20s regardless of state, and what a typical balance costs in interest over a year. The state ranking here is context; the APR math there is the actionable number.

The honest counterargument

Cost of living is the pattern that holds up most consistently, but it isn't the only factor in play, and this ranking doesn't control for income, local credit-market competition, or state-level differences in how debt gets reported and collected. A handful of states (Texas, Nevada) sit high on the list despite having no state income tax and comparatively lower overall tax burdens, which cost-of-living alone doesn't fully explain, suggesting other regional financial-behavior factors are involved too. Treat the ranking as a real, useful pattern worth understanding, not a complete causal explanation for every state's position.

Methodology

State-level average credit card balances are Experian's own published data from its "State of Credit Cards" research, published July 27, 2026, with underlying data as of March 2026, drawn from Experian's own consumer credit database rather than a media aggregator's estimate. The $6,659 national average is Experian's own population-weighted figure and should not be confused with a simple, unweighted average of the 51 state-level figures shown here, which would produce a different number since it would treat every state's contribution equally regardless of its actual cardholder population.

How we source this. State and national balance figures are Experian's own published research. See our methodology and editorial team. This report was written by a former bank treasurer and reviewed by the SwitchWize Research Desk. We take no payment for organic rankings or citations.