What Does Average Credit Buy? Interest Rates, Approval, Credit Lines, Fees and Rewards on US Credit Cards by Credit Tier, with Travel Spending, from CFPB, Federal Reserve and Credit Bureau Data, 2014–2026

Consumers with average credit are a large share of the US credit card market, yet the terms they face are rarely set out side by side. We compile tiered statistics from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's 2025 credit card market report, Federal Reserve interest-rate series, Philadelphia Fed large-bank data, New York Fed delinquency data and published score averages. The average FICO Score was 714 in 2026, in the prime tier (660–719). New general purpose cards opened in 2024 at scores of 700–719 carried an average APR of 28.73%, only 2.90 points below scores of 760 and above but 8.71 points above the same band in 2014; across all bank card accounts the average APR reached 21.58% in 2024, the highest since 1994, and was 20.94% in the second quarter of 2026. Access differed more than price: 84.14% of superprime applications were approved in 2024 against 56.51% in the prime tier and 31.46% in the near-prime tier (620–659), and the average near-prime credit line was USD 3,309, against USD 13,198 for superprime. The share of near-prime accounts charged an annual fee fell from 27.08% in 2015 to 13.88% in 2024, while the average fee where charged rose from USD 46.53 to USD 84.21. Near-prime rewards cards returned 1.94% of spending in rewards against 1.42% for superprime, but unredeemed balances were smaller and forfeiture below near-prime was higher. Airlines, hotels and travel services took 14.1% of card purchase volume in 2024 but under 7% of transactions. All inputs are public.