Personal Loan Statistics 2026
By Axis Intelligence Research
Co-author: Sarah Davis | Last updated: October 13, 2026 | License: CC BY 4.0
Americans owed a record $281 billion on unsecured personal loans at the end of June 2026, spread across 26.9 million borrowers. On the Axis Intelligence Research Card-to-Loan Spread (CLS™), a 24-month bank personal loan was 10.46 percentage points cheaper than revolving card debt in August 2026, worth $1,411.51 in interest on the average balance.
Quick Answer
US unsecured personal loan balances reached $281 billion in Q2 2026, up 9.6% in a year, with 33.3 million open loans and an average debt of $11,694 per borrower (TransUnion). The average 24-month personal loan at commercial banks carried an 11.90% APR in August 2026 (Federal Reserve G.19). According to Axis Intelligence Research, the Card-to-Loan Spread (CLS™) stands at 10.46 points, 47.95% wider than in 2021.
Key Findings
- According to Axis Intelligence Research, moving the average personal loan balance of $11,694 from a 22.36% card rate to an 11.90% 24-month personal loan saves $1,411.51 in interest, before any origination fee.
- The Axis Intelligence Research Card-to-Loan Spread (CLS™) read 10.46 percentage points in August 2026, up from 7.07 points in 2021, based on Federal Reserve G.19 rates.
- FinTech lenders originated 45.0% of US unsecured personal loans in Q1 2026, up from 39.8% a year earlier, while banks fell to 10.8%, according to TransUnion.
- Axis Intelligence Research finds a Delinquency Concentration Multiple (DCM™) of 1.95: the share of personal loan borrowers 60+ days late (3.81%) is nearly double the share of balances late (1.95%).
- One in ten credit-active Americans now carries an unsecured personal loan: 26.9 million of 261.7 million consumers with a credit balance, or 10.28%, according to Axis Intelligence Research calculations on TransUnion data.
How Much Personal Loan Debt Do Americans Have in 2026?
TransUnion’s Q2 2026 Credit Industry Insights Report, released August 6, 2026, puts outstanding unsecured personal loan (UPL) balances at $281 billion at the end of June, a record. The bureau counts 33.3 million open loans held by 26.9 million consumers.
| Metric (end of Q2) | 2026 | 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total UPL balances | $281B | $246B | $245B | $232B | TransUnion |
| Number of unsecured personal loans | 33.3M | 30.1M | 28.8M | 27.2M | TransUnion |
| Consumers with a UPL | 26.9M | 24.8M | 23.9M | 22.7M | TransUnion |
| Average debt per borrower | $11,694 | $11,676 | $11,687 | $11,548 | TransUnion |
| Average account balance | $8,437 | $8,524 | $8,557 | $8,558 | TransUnion |
| Borrower-level delinquency (60+ DPD) | 3.81% | 3.37% | 3.38% | 3.62% | TransUnion |
| Prior-quarter originations | 6.4M | 5.4M | 4.6M | 4.3M | TransUnion |
TransUnion reports balance growth of 9.6% year over year, borrower growth of 8.3% and account growth of 10.7%. One note for anyone recomputing: the press-release table shows $246 billion for Q2 2025, while TransUnion’s own quarterly chart in its UPL highlights report shows $257 billion for the same quarter. Dividing $281 billion by $246 billion would imply 14.2% growth. We publish TransUnion’s stated 9.6% and carry the discrepancy in the dataset as a declined calculation.
UPL balances quarter by quarter
| Quarter | Total UPL balance | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Q4 2024 | $251B | TransUnion chart |
| Q1 2025 | $253B | TransUnion chart |
| Q2 2025 | $257B | TransUnion chart |
| Q3 2025 | $269B | TransUnion chart |
| Q4 2025 | $276B | TransUnion chart |
| Q1 2026 | $277B | TransUnion chart |
| Q2 2026 | $281B | TransUnion chart |
How big are personal loans next to credit cards?
Small, but catching up. TransUnion puts bankcard balances at $1.14 trillion, growing 4.4% a year. According to Axis Intelligence Research, Americans hold $24.65 in personal loans for every $100 of bankcard debt, and personal loan balances are growing 2.18 times as fast as card balances (9.6% ÷ 4.4%, both TransUnion).
The average personal loan borrower owes $11,694; the average cardholder carrying a balance owes $6,610. A personal loan is usually the bigger, more deliberate debt in a household’s wallet.
Sarah Davis: The average balance per borrower barely moved in three years: $11,548 to $11,694. The market grew by adding people, not by lending each person more. That is the most important sentence in this dataset, and it explains almost everything below, from the delinquency headline to who is doing the lending.
What Is the Average Personal Loan Interest Rate in 2026?
The Federal Reserve’s G.19 Consumer Credit release of October 7, 2026 puts the average 24-month personal loan rate at commercial banks at 11.90% APR for August 2026, up from 11.86% in May and 11.57% a year earlier. The Fed measures the most common rate each reporting bank charged in the first week of the quarter’s middle month.
| Period | 24-month personal loan APR | Credit card APR (accounts assessed interest) | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 9.38% | 16.45% | Federal Reserve G.19 |
| 2022 | 9.87% | 17.91% | Federal Reserve G.19 |
| 2023 | 11.87% | 22.15% | Federal Reserve G.19 |
| 2024 | 12.27% | 22.89% | Federal Reserve G.19 |
| 2025 | 11.50% | 22.32% | Federal Reserve G.19 |
| May 2026 | 11.86% | 22.15% | Federal Reserve G.19 |
| August 2026 | 11.90% | 22.36% | Federal Reserve G.19 |
Annual figures are G.19 annual values. The bank rate is a starting point, not a quote: it reflects bank borrowers, who skew toward prime credit. Specialist lenders show the range. SoFi’s balance-sheet personal loans carried a 12.89% weighted average coupon at June 30, 2026 (SoFi Q2 2026 release); OneMain, which lends to nonprime borrowers, reported a 22.7% yield on its consumer loans (OneMain Q2 2026 release). Those are company-reported portfolio figures, measured differently from the Fed’s offered rate, so we show them beside it rather than averaging them.
How much more does an unsecured loan cost than a car loan?
The same G.19 release puts the 60-month new-car loan rate at 7.54%. Axis Intelligence Research calculates the unsecured premium at 4.36 percentage points: the price of having no collateral. The 24-month personal loan rate is 2.52 points higher than in 2021.
The Card-to-Loan Spread (CLS™): Is a Personal Loan Cheaper Than a Credit Card?
Debt consolidation is the core use of personal loans, and TransUnion describes the product as a key tool for consolidation and refinancing. The question every borrower and every lender’s marketing team is really asking is: how big is the gap between what a card costs and what a personal loan costs?
The Axis Card-to-Loan Spread (CLS™) answers it in one number.
CLS = credit card APR on accounts assessed interest − 24-month personal loan APR at commercial banks, both from the Federal Reserve’s G.19 release.
We use the “accounts assessed interest” card rate rather than the all-accounts rate because it measures what revolving balances actually pay: total finance charges divided by the balances they were charged on. The all-accounts rate (21.19% in August 2026) includes cardholders who pay in full.
| Period | CLS™ (percentage points) | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 7.07 | Axis Intelligence Research from Fed G.19 |
| 2022 | 8.04 | Axis Intelligence Research from Fed G.19 |
| 2023 | 10.28 | Axis Intelligence Research from Fed G.19 |
| 2024 | 10.62 | Axis Intelligence Research from Fed G.19 |
| 2025 | 10.82 | Axis Intelligence Research from Fed G.19 |
| Q3 2025 (Aug) | 11.69 | Axis Intelligence Research from Fed G.19 |
| Q4 2025 (Nov) | 10.67 | Axis Intelligence Research from Fed G.19 |
| Q1 2026 (Feb) | 10.16 | Axis Intelligence Research from Fed G.19 |
| Q2 2026 (May) | 10.29 | Axis Intelligence Research from Fed G.19 |
| Q3 2026 (Aug) | 10.46 | Axis Intelligence Research from Fed G.19 |
According to Axis Intelligence Research, the CLS™ read 10.46 points in August 2026, 3.39 points (47.95%) wider than in 2021. When rates rose, card APRs climbed further than personal loan rates, and the gap has stayed above 10 points in every reading since 2023.
How much does consolidating the average balance save?
Axis Intelligence Research ran the CLS™ through a standard amortization schedule on TransUnion’s average personal loan debt of $11,694, paid off in 24 equal monthly payments:
| Scenario | APR | Monthly payment | Total interest over 24 months |
|---|---|---|---|
| Paid off on a credit card | 22.36% | $608.74 | $2,915.86 |
| Paid off with a 24-month personal loan | 11.90% | $549.93 | $1,504.35 |
| Difference | 10.46 pts | $58.81 a month | $1,411.51 |
Formula: payment = P × r ÷ (1 − (1 + r)^−24), with r = APR ÷ 1,200 and P = $11,694. Rates from Federal Reserve G.19 (August 2026). The comparison excludes origination fees, which many lenders charge and which reduce the saving; it also assumes the card balance would have been paid down on the same 24-month schedule. A borrower making only card minimums would pay far more interest than the card row shows.
Sarah Davis: A ten-point spread is the whole business model of personal lending, printed in the Fed’s own release. It’s also the trap. The $1,411.51 only lands if the card stays at zero after the loan pays it off. Run up the card again and you’ve doubled the debt with a nicer interest rate on half of it. The spread is the saving; the empty card is the condition.
Who Is Taking Out Personal Loans? Originations by Credit Tier
Lenders originated 6.4 million unsecured personal loans in Q1 2026, up 19.5% year over year, according to TransUnion. (TransUnion reports originations one quarter in arrears to allow for reporting lag.) Subprime originations rose 29% and super prime 9%.
| Risk tier (VantageScore 4.0) | Share of Q1 2026 originations | Avg new loan, Q1 2025 | Avg new loan, Q1 2026 | Borrower growth YoY | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Subprime (300–600) | 38.2% | $2.4K | $2.2K | 18.4% | TransUnion |
| Near prime (601–660) | 27.6% | $4.9K | $4.9K | 7.5% | TransUnion |
| Prime (661–720) | 15.6% | $9.6K | $10.0K | 4.0% | TransUnion |
| Prime plus (721–780) | 10.2% | $15.7K | $16.3K | 4.3% | TransUnion |
| Super prime (781+) | 8.4% | $18.4K | $18.7K | 5.6% | TransUnion |
Axis Intelligence Research estimates about 2.44 million subprime personal loans were opened in Q1 2026 (38.2% × 6.4 million). They were small: TransUnion puts the average new subprime loan at roughly $2,260, down 6.8%. A super prime borrower’s average new loan of $18.7K is 8.27 times that, by Axis Intelligence Research’s calculation.
Two different products share one name. At the top of the credit range, a personal loan is a five-figure consolidation of card debt. At the bottom, it is a two-thousand-dollar liquidity line.
Which Lenders Make the Most Personal Loans? Banks vs FinTechs
FinTech lenders originated 45.0% of US unsecured personal loans in Q1 2026, a record share, up from 39.8% a year earlier, according to TransUnion. FinTech originations grew 35.0% and added roughly 751,000 loans year over year. Axis Intelligence Research estimates FinTech volume at about 2.88 million loans in the quarter.
| Lender type | Share of UPL originations, Q1 2025 | Share, Q1 2026 | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| FinTech | 39.8% | 45.0% | TransUnion |
| Finance company | 29.3% | 26.9% | TransUnion |
| Credit union | 16.5% | 14.3% | TransUnion |
| Bank (traditional retail) | 13.1% | 10.8% | TransUnion |
TransUnion’s “Others” category is not broken out in its text; shares above may not sum to 100.
Traditional retail banks now make roughly one personal loan in nine. Their balance sheets still carry consumer credit, but the Federal Reserve’s July 2026 Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey found standards and demand for “other consumer loans” basically unchanged in Q2 2026, and banks described standards for that category at the tighter end of their range since 2005. The growth has gone elsewhere. For where bank balance sheets sit today, see our US banking statistics.
What three listed personal loan lenders report
Lender filings show how the volume is funded. SoFi originated $10.7 billion of personal loans in Q2 2026, up 53.81% year over year by Axis Intelligence Research’s calculation from its reported $10,718.4 million versus $6,968.7 million. Of that, $3.1 billion, or 28.97%, was originated for third-party investors through its Loan Platform Business. Its average personal loan balance was $25,361.
OneMain originated $4.3 billion of consumer loans (personal loans plus auto finance) in Q2 2026, up 10%, and held $21.3 billion of personal loan receivables at June 30, 2.47% more than a year earlier.
Happen (formerly LendingClub) originated $3,145 million of loans in Q2 2026, mostly unsecured consumer loans, up 29.26% from $2,433 million by Axis Intelligence Research’s calculation (Happen Q2 2026 release). It kept $1,107 million, or 35.20%, on its own balance sheet and sold or held for sale the rest. Its unsecured consumer loans held for investment were 0.76% delinquent 60 days or more at June 30, 2026, by Axis Intelligence Research’s calculation from the filing’s delinquency table ($30.6 million of $4,016.9 million).
Sarah Davis: The FinTech share is the headline; the funding line is the story. A fifth of SoFi’s personal loan volume never stayed on SoFi’s balance sheet: it was made for outside buyers, for a fee. When nearly half the market is originated by platforms that can sell what they make, the credit risk ends up with whoever bought the loan, and that buyer’s appetite becomes the market’s real supply curve.
What Is the Personal Loan Default Rate? Delinquency and Charge-Offs in 2026
TransUnion reports that 3.81% of personal loan borrowers were 60 or more days past due in Q2 2026, up 44 basis points from 3.37% a year earlier. Account-level 60+ DPD delinquency rose to 3.33% from 3.03%. Balance-weighted delinquency, the share of dollars late, improved slightly to 1.95%. TransUnion attributes the rise in borrower-level delinquency largely to a growing subprime mix, and flags the federal student-loan reset as a pressure on the nonprime borrowers driving growth.
Axis Intelligence Research estimates that about 1.02 million borrowers were 60+ days late on a personal loan at the end of June (3.81% × 26.9 million).
The Delinquency Concentration Multiple (DCM™)
Which number should a reader trust, 3.81% or 1.95%? Both, and the ratio between them is information. Axis Intelligence Research defines the Delinquency Concentration Multiple (DCM™) as:
DCM = borrower-level 60+ DPD rate ÷ balance-level 60+ DPD rate
A DCM of 1.0 means late borrowers owe as much as the average borrower. Above 1.0, delinquency sits in borrowers with smaller balances. The Q2 2026 baseline reading is 3.81 ÷ 1.95 = 1.95: late borrowers are nearly twice as common as late dollars. That is the direct footprint of small subprime loans. The headline delinquency count rises because more small borrowers entered, while the dollar exposure lenders carry has held steady.
We do not compute a DCM for credit cards. TransUnion measures card delinquency at 90+ days and personal loans at 60+ days, so the two ratios would not be comparable. The declined calculation is logged in the dataset.
Charge-off rates by lender type
| Lender / segment | Net charge-off rate, Q2 2026 | Year earlier | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Commercial banks, other consumer loans (excl. cards) | 1.21% | 1.20% | Federal Reserve |
| Commercial banks, credit cards | 3.82% | 4.19% | Federal Reserve |
| SoFi personal loans (reported) | 2.62% | 2.83% | SoFi Q2 2026 release |
| SoFi personal loans (excl. delinquent-loan sales, company estimate) | ~3.7% | n/a | SoFi Q2 2026 release |
| Happen, total loans held for investment | 3.2% | 3.8% | Happen Q2 2026 release |
| OneMain consumer loans | 7.77% | 7.19% | OneMain Q2 2026 release |
All rates annualized; bank rates seasonally adjusted. The bank “other consumer” category includes more than personal loans.
The Fed’s bank delinquency series puts other consumer loans 30+ days late at 2.33% in Q2 2026, down from 2.38% a year earlier. According to Axis Intelligence Research, OneMain’s nonprime book charges off at 6.42 times the rate of bank consumer loans, and bank cards lose 3.16 times as much as other bank consumer loans.
What do lenders keep after losses?
Axis Intelligence Research subtracts each lender’s reported net charge-off rate from its reported loan yield or coupon:
| Lender | Yield or coupon | Net charge-offs | Yield after losses | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| OneMain (consumer loans) | 22.7% yield | 7.77% | 14.93 pts | OneMain filing; Axis calculation |
| SoFi (personal loans, reported NCO) | 12.89% coupon | 2.62% | 10.27 pts | SoFi filing; Axis calculation |
| SoFi (company’s underlying NCO estimate) | 12.89% coupon | ~3.7% | 9.19 pts | SoFi filing; Axis calculation |
| Happen (unsecured consumer loans at amortized cost) | 13.26% yield | 3.2% | 10.06 pts | Happen filing; Axis calculation |
Happen’s charge-off rate covers all loans held for investment, including a small commercial book, so its line is an approximation. Yield and coupon are not identical measures, and neither line includes funding or operating costs, so this is a loss-adjusted spread, not a profit margin. It still answers the question borrowers rarely ask: the nonprime lender charges three times the losses and keeps more after them.
Sarah Davis: OneMain loses 7.77 cents a year on every dollar it lends, and still earns more per dollar after losses than SoFi does. That’s not a scandal; it’s pricing. Nonprime credit is priced for the losses it will take. The risk for a borrower is the reverse arithmetic: at a 22.7% yield, a personal loan from that end of the market costs about what the card it’s replacing does.
Are Personal Loans Getting Riskier? What Changes Next
The data points to a market growing at the edges without the dollar risk following. Balance-level delinquency held at 1.95%; bank consumer loan charge-offs were flat at 1.21%; SoFi’s reported personal loan charge-off rate fell year over year. The pressure points TransUnion flags are the subprime mix and the federal student-loan reset, both concentrated in the borrowers with the smallest loans.
What would move these numbers before year-end: TransUnion’s Q3 2026 Credit Industry Insights Report (balances, delinquency and originations through September); the Fed’s next G.19 rate reading, which resets the CLS™; the October 2026 Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey; and lenders’ Q3 2026 filings. For the wider household picture, our household debt statistics track total debt and the Household Debt Strain Index; for how lenders score applicants, see AI credit scoring statistics; and for buy-now-pay-later at the checkout, see Cyber Monday statistics. Business owners borrowing on personal credit should read our business credit card statistics. See our Student Loan Debt Statistics.
Methodology
Scope. US unsecured personal loans. Borrower, balance, origination and delinquency figures come from TransUnion’s consumer credit database (Q2 2026, with originations for Q1 2026). Rates come from the Federal Reserve’s G.19 release and cover commercial banks only. Bank charge-off and delinquency rates come from the Federal Reserve’s quarterly release for insured commercial banks. Lender figures are company-reported in Q2 2026 earnings releases.
Sources, retrieved October 13, 2026. TransUnion Q2 2026 CIIR press release and Q2 2026 Unsecured Personal Loans highlights report; Federal Reserve G.19 (October 7, 2026); Federal Reserve charge-off and delinquency rates (updated August 25, 2026); Federal Reserve Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey (July 2026); SoFi Technologies and Happen, Inc. (formerly LendingClub) Q2 2026 earnings releases filed with the SEC; OneMain Holdings Q2 2026 earnings release. No figure on this page comes from a ranking site, an aggregator or model memory.
Formulas.
- CLS™ = G.19 credit card APR (accounts assessed interest) − G.19 24-month personal loan APR.
- Consolidation saving = total interest at the card APR − total interest at the personal loan APR, on $11,694 amortized over 24 equal payments.
- DCM™ = TransUnion borrower-level 60+ DPD ÷ TransUnion balance-level 60+ DPD.
- Penetration = UPL borrowers ÷ consumers with any credit balance (both TransUnion).
- Yield after losses = reported yield or coupon − reported net charge-off rate.
What we chose not to combine. We do not mix TransUnion balances with Federal Reserve G.19 totals: G.19 does not report personal loans as a separate line, and the two measure different populations. We did not compute a card DCM because TransUnion uses different delinquency thresholds for cards and personal loans. We used TransUnion’s stated 9.6% balance growth instead of recomputing it from the press-release table, which conflicts with TransUnion’s own chart. Each declined calculation appears as a retracted row in the dataset.
Scope notes. The G.19 personal loan rate is a simple average of banks’ most common offered rates, not a volume-weighted rate across all lenders. Lender yields and coupons are portfolio measures. The consolidation saving excludes origination fees.
About This Dataset
personal-loan-statistics.csv contains 215 rows: TransUnion balances, borrowers, originations and delinquency (2023–2026); originations by risk tier and lender type; Federal Reserve personal loan and credit card rates since 2021; every CLS™ reading; DCM™ inputs; bank charge-off and delinquency rates; SoFi, Happen and OneMain lending metrics; and every Axis Intelligence Research calculation with its formula in method_note. Each row carries value, unit, as-of date, source organization, document, URL, retrieval date and primary-source flag.
- License: CC BY 4.0. Free reuse with attribution.
- Mirrors: Hugging Face, Kaggle and GitHub under the same file name.
- Citation line: Axis Intelligence Research, Personal Loan Statistics 2026, 2026.
Cite This Page
APA: Axis Intelligence Research, & Davis, S. (2026, October 13). Personal loan statistics 2026: $281 billion owed, 11.90% rates and the Card-to-Loan Spread. Axis Intelligence. https://axis-intelligence.com/personal-loan-statistics/
MLA: Axis Intelligence Research, and Sarah Davis. “Personal Loan Statistics 2026: $281 Billion Owed, 11.90% Rates and the Card-to-Loan Spread.” Axis Intelligence, 13 Oct. 2026, axis-intelligence.com/personal-loan-statistics/.
Chicago: Axis Intelligence Research, and Sarah Davis. “Personal Loan Statistics 2026: $281 Billion Owed, 11.90% Rates and the Card-to-Loan Spread.” Axis Intelligence, October 13, 2026. https://axis-intelligence.com/personal-loan-statistics/.
Personal Loan Questions, Answered
Is a personal loan cheaper than paying off a credit card in 2026?
At bank rates, yes. The 24-month personal loan rate at commercial banks was 11.90% in August 2026 against 22.36% on card balances paying interest, a Card-to-Loan Spread of 10.46 points, according to Axis Intelligence Research using Federal Reserve G.19 data.
How much can debt consolidation with a personal loan save?
On TransUnion’s average balance of $11,694 repaid over 24 months, Axis Intelligence Research calculates $1,411.51 less interest at 11.90% than at 22.36%, or $58.81 a month. Origination fees reduce that saving.
How many Americans have a personal loan?
TransUnion counted 26.9 million consumers with an unsecured personal loan in Q2 2026, holding 33.3 million loans. That is 10.28% of the 261.7 million Americans carrying any credit balance.
How much personal loan debt is outstanding in the US?
$281 billion in unsecured personal loans at the end of June 2026, a record, up 9.6% year over year, according to TransUnion.
What percentage of personal loans default?
TransUnion reports 3.81% of personal loan borrowers were 60+ days past due in Q2 2026, but only 1.95% of balances. Banks charged off 1.21% of other consumer loans; nonprime lender OneMain charged off 7.77% of consumer loans.
Why is personal loan delinquency rising if lenders say risk is stable?
Because more small, subprime loans are being made. Late borrowers are nearly twice as common as late dollars, a Delinquency Concentration Multiple of 1.95, so the borrower count rises while dollar exposure holds.
Do banks or FinTechs make more personal loans?
FinTechs. They originated 45.0% of unsecured personal loans in Q1 2026, finance companies 26.9%, credit unions 14.3% and traditional banks 10.8%, according to TransUnion.
What is the average personal loan amount for a new loan?
It depends heavily on credit. TransUnion puts the average new loan at roughly $2,260 for subprime borrowers and $18.7K for super prime borrowers in Q1 2026, an 8.27-times gap.
What is the Card-to-Loan Spread (CLS™)?
The CLS™ is an Axis Intelligence Research metric: the Federal Reserve’s credit card rate on balances charged interest minus its 24-month personal loan rate. It read 10.46 points in August 2026, versus 7.07 in 2021.