Guides
Plain guides to paying off a revolving credit card in Spain: how it works, what your options are and how to take each step.
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- Get out of revolving debt
Stop using the card's credit, raise your payment or switch to paying in full, and make extra payments when you can: every extra euro goes straight to the debt. With €2,000 at 18% TIN, raising the payment from €60 to €100 cuts the time from 47 to 24 months and the interest from €793 to €396.
- Round-ups to pay off debt
Rounding up your purchases and sending the difference to the card is a small, steady extra payment. With €2,000 at 18% TIN and a €60 payment, adding about €45 of round-ups a month cuts the time from 47 to 23 months and the interest from €793 to €373.
- Pay it off, consolidate or claim?
If you can pay more than the interest each month, paying the debt down sooner is the simplest option and depends on no one else. If you can get a much cheaper loan, consolidating may save you more; if your interest was far above the average, it may be worth looking into a claim; and if you can't pay, the Segunda Oportunidad law lets debts be cancelled under conditions.
By card issuer
- Pay off a WiZink card sooner
In the app or WiZink Online you can pay money into your card from Opciones, Hacer un ingreso, and switch to paying in full or a higher fixed amount from Opciones, Cambiar forma de pago. WiZink's fee list has no fee for paying off the revolving balance early.
- Pay off a Cetelem card sooner
In the Cetelem app you can pay down debt from Tarjetas, Operativas, Amortizar deuda, at no cost, and change your payment mode or instalment from the same menu, also at no cost. Watch out: at Cetelem, Ingreso en cuenta does the opposite, drawing money from the card, and it has a fee.
Understand your card
- What a revolving card is
It's a credit card where you don't pay back everything you spend at the end of the month: you pay an instalment, fixed or a percentage, and whatever is left keeps earning interest. What you pay back becomes available to spend again, so the debt can drag on for a long time.
- Is my card revolving?
It is if each month you pay an instalment, fixed or a percentage, instead of everything you spent, and you're charged interest on what's left. Spanish rules require your bank to say "revolving" explicitly in the document it gives you before you sign and in the information it sends every quarter.
- Minimum payment or fixed instalment
If you pay a percentage of what you owe, the payment falls along with the debt and the time stretches out a lot. In the example, €2,000 at 18% TIN paid at 3% of the balance, with a €25 minimum, takes 103 months and costs €1,463 in interest; at a fixed €60, 47 months and €793.
- The 22% APR cap
It isn't law. The draft consumer credit contracts law, which the Council of Ministers approved in a first reading on 7 January 2026, sets a transitional 22% cap on revolving cards, including existing ones. It never reached Congress, and the Cortes were dissolved on 5 October 2026 ahead of the 29 November election.
- 2026 report: what paying little costs
In our calculation with the rates of ten revolving cards, a €2,000 debt paid at 3% of what you owe each month, with a €25 minimum, takes between 82 and 121 months and costs between €694 and €2,120 in interest. With a fixed €60 payment, almost the same in the first month, it takes between 41 and 52 months.