President Donald Trump has floated the idea of putting a one-year cap on credit card interest rates at 10%.
"They've really abused the public," Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One Monday, describing credit card companies. "I'm not going to let it happen."
In 2023, credit card rates began shooting to new highs. As of November 2025, the average rate was at 22.3%, according to the Federal Reserve, though many cards have terms well above that. A decade earlier, the credit card rate average was 13.9%.
The rise is in part due to the high number of delinquencies, or credit card balances that are past due, as well as the federal reserve's elevated interest rates over the past few years. Although the central bank cut rates three times last year, rates remain at 3.5 - 3.75% — benchmarks that banks and other lenders use when deciding what rates to set for mortgages, credit cards and other consumer borrowing.
Trump told reporters he wants the cap to become effective on Jan. 20, the anniversary of his second-term inauguration, and that credit card companies would be violating the law if they don't adhere to the cap. But it's unclear if the president has the authority to enforce a cap without Congress passing legislation. Trump has not explained if he would work with Congress, sign an executive order or go another path.
A bipartisan bill sponsored by senators Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) last year would have put a temporary 10% cap on credit card interest rates, but the bill hasn't gone anywhere. The House has proposed similar legislation.
Hours before Trump first posted about the cap on Truth Social Friday, Sanders criticized the president on X for not following through on a campaign promise to set that limit and called that "unacceptable."
"Begging credit card companies to play nice is a joke," Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) wrote in a press release response to Trump's remarks Friday. "I said a year ago if Trump was serious I'd work to pass a bill to cap rates. Since then, he's done nothing but try to shut down the CFPB."
Warren helped create the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in 2010, in the wake of the financial crisis, to protect consumers from fraudulent or predatory practices among large financial institutions, such as the companies that offer credit cards.
Republicans have long accused the agency of overreaching and the Trump administration has halted much of the watchdog's work. The bureau is currently embroiled in a lawsuit over whether the administration can dramatically cut its staffing. A judge recently ruled that the administration must continue to seek funding for the agency.
Bank stocks dropped Monday in response to Trump's announcement. Industry groups said they shared Trump's goal of affordable credit, but warned this would only harm consumers. In a statement, the Bank Policy Institute, which represents several banking associations, said that it would be "devastating" for families and small business owners and "would only drive consumers toward less regulated, more costly alternatives."
The institute had harsher language for the Senate's bill last year, calling it "draconian."
At that time, the BPI wrote that two-thirds of cardholders who roll over their balance month-to-month could lose access to credit lines, or have them limited, after banks make changes due to the lost interest income. Minimum payment requirements could also rise, they warned.
Copyright 2026 NPR