Money

Mapping Credit Card Delinquency Rates in the U.S. by State

Published

9 months ago

March 4, 2024

Marcus Lu

Article/Editing:

Omri Wallach

See this visualization first on the Voronoi app.

Credit Card Delinquency Rates in the U.S. by State

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Credit card debt carries a hefty bill in America, and falling behind on payments can be extremely costly for cardholders.

This graphic shows credit card delinquency rates across 50 U.S. states, as of Q3 2023. This data comes from a WalletHub study published in January 2024.

Which States Have the Lowest and Highest Delinquency Rates?

Credit card delinquency is when a cardholder falls behind on required monthly payments. Credit agencies are often notified after two months of delinquent payments.

WalletHub examined proprietary user data on the average number of delinquent credit card tradelines—also known as credit accounts—across states. Here they are from lowest to highest:

Rank	State	Share of Credit Card Tradelines Delinquent (%)
1	Iowa	12.9
2	Massachusetts	13.9
3	Hawaii	13.9
4	Rhode Island	14.7
5	Washington	14.7
6	Florida	14.8
7	New York	14.9
8	California	15.1
9	New Hampshire	15.5
10	Alaska	15.6
11	New Jersey	15.6
12	Colorado	15.7
13	Utah	15.8
14	Vermont	16.1
15	Montana	16.1
16	Illinois	16.5
17	Oregon	16.6
18	Idaho	17.0
19	Ohio	17.5
20	Connecticut	17.8
21	Maine	18.0
22	Nebraska	18.1
23	Wyoming	18.1
24	Maryland	18.4
25	Kansas	18.4
26	Wisconsin	18.5
27	Virginia	18.7
28	Nevada	19.1
29	South Dakota	19.3
30	Arizona	19.8
31	Minnesota	19.8
32	Pennsylvania	20.2
33	Michigan	20.9
34	North Dakota	21.3
35	Delaware	21.4
36	Missouri	22.4
37	New Mexico	22.6
38	Georgia	23.1
39	North Carolina	24.0
40	Indiana	24.3
41	Texas	24.7
42	West Virginia	25.2
43	Tennessee	26.2
44	South Carolina	26.9
45	Kentucky	27.6
46	Oklahoma	28.2
47	Arkansas	30.1
48	Alabama	30.5
49	Louisiana	31.7
50	Mississippi	39.1

No state had credit delinquency rates of less than 10%, with Iowa coming the closest at 12.9%.

That puts Iowa ahead of wealthier states like Massachusetts (13.9%), Washington (14.7%), and New Hampshire (15.5%).

At the bottom end was Mississippi, which had 39% credit delinquency rates to end 2023. That’s well ahead of the next-lowest states Louisiana (31.7%) and Alabama (30.5%).

It’s notable that the American South had higher rates of delinquency almost across the board. The five states with the highest rates of credit card delinquency are all located in the southeastern region of the country, and Texas had a higher delinquency rate (25%) than other majorly populated states like Florida (14.8%) and New York (14.9%).