Asking your credit card company for a lower interest rate
If you carry a balance on a credit card from month to month, part of every payment you send goes to interest charges before the rest is applied to the amount you owe. The higher the rate, the longer it takes to pay the card off and the more the debt costs you over time.
You do not need a special program, a paid service, or anyone's permission to try to change that. You can call your credit card company and ask for a lower interest rate, and most people who ask get one. This page explains how to prepare before you call, what to ask for, what to say on the phone, and what to do if the company says no. It also covers a phone scam aimed at people looking for exactly this kind of help.
- SCAM WARNING: Unexpected calls, texts, emails or social media posts in which someone, or a company, promises to reduce your rate for a fee is a fraud. We have other red flags to be on the lookout for in the phone scam section of this page.
Asking costs you nothing beyond a short phone call, and the worst outcome is that your rate stays where it already is. If you carry a balance, make the call. Even a small reduction can make a noticeable difference if you carry a balance. Dropping your rate from 24% to 19%, for example, means more of each monthly payment goes toward your actual balance instead of interest. The larger your balance and the longer it takes to repay it, the more valuable even a few percentage points become.
Why credit card companies say yes to these requests
A credit card company earns money from you for as long as you stay a customer. If you move your balance to another lender or close the account, that income ends, and finding a new customer to replace you costs the company money. Because of this, when a customer with a reasonable payment history asks for a lower rate, agreeing is often the cheaper choice for the company.
These requests succeed far more often than people expect. LendingTree publishes a yearly survey of cardholders who asked their card company for a lower interest rate at https://www.lendingtree.com/credit-cards/study/lower-apr-ask/, and year after year a large majority of the people who asked received one. In the same surveys, the most common reason people give for never asking is that they did not know they could.
Get ready before you call
Start with your most recent statement or your online account. Find the exact interest rate you are paying now, note how long you have had the card, and check whether your payments have been on time. The representative will see all of this information, so you want to know it too.
Your position is strongest when your payments to this company have been on time, the account has been open for a while, your balance is well below your credit limit, and your credit score has held steady or improved since you opened the card. None of these are requirements. They are the conditions that make a yes more likely.
Next, gather some competing offers. Save the card offers that arrive in your mail, and look at the rates other companies advertise to new customers on their websites, including balance transfer promotions. Write the details down so you can mention them on the call. Only note offers you could realistically qualify for, since you may decide to act on one of them later.
If you missed a payment recently, waiting is usually the better choice. A few months of on-time payments first, and payments above the minimum if you can manage them, will make your request much stronger.
What to ask for
The main request is simple: a lower interest rate on your account, applied permanently. Be ready to say the rate you are paying now and the rate you would like, based on the offers you found.
If the company will not lower the rate permanently, ask whether it can lower the rate for a set number of months. Card companies agree to temporary reductions more readily than permanent ones, and a temporary reduction still saves you money the entire time it is in place.
There is one situation where you have extra standing to ask. If the company raised your rate in the past, federal rules generally require it to review your account at least every six months afterward, and in some situations it must bring the rate back down. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau explains this in its guide on when a credit card company can raise your interest rates at https://www.consumerfinance.gov/ask-cfpb/when-can-my-credit-card-company-increase-my-interest-rate-what-can-i-do-to-get-the-rate-back-down-en-69/. On the call, you can ask when your account's rate was last reviewed.
If the rate will not move at all, smaller requests are still worth making before you hang up. Ask the company to waive the annual fee or remove a recent late fee. Companies grant these requests often, and the savings are real.
What to say on the phone
Call the customer service number printed on the back of your card or on your statement, and tell the first person who answers that you want to request a lower interest rate on your account. Some companies handle these requests through a regular representative. Others send them to a review team or to the department that works to keep customers from leaving, sometimes called retention. If the first person tells you they cannot change rates, ask politely whether someone else can review the request.
Once you reach the right person, keep it factual and brief. Say how long you have been a customer, that your payments have been on time, the rate you are paying, and the lower rates you have seen from other companies. Then make the request directly. Something like: "I have been a customer for several years and I have always paid on time. I am paying a much higher rate than what other companies are offering right now, and I would like you to lower the rate on my account. What can you do for me?"
If the answer is no, follow with a smaller request: "Is there a lower rate you can offer me, even for a limited time?" And if you have a genuine offer from another company that you qualify for, it is fair to say you are considering moving your balance there. Only say this if it is true. If the company still says no, a warning you cannot follow through on gains you nothing, while a real offer gives you another option.
Stay polite through the whole call. The person on the other end talks with upset callers all day, and a calm, respectful request tends to get a more careful review. If the final answer is still no, ask one last question: "What would I need to do to qualify for a lower rate in the future?" Write down the answer, follow it, and call back after a couple of months of on-time payments. A different representative on a different day sometimes has different options available.
If the company agrees to a reduction, confirm the new rate, the date it takes effect, and whether it is permanent or temporary. Ask for the change in writing or as a note on your online account, and check your next statement to make sure the new rate appears.
If the company says no
A no today does not settle the question for good. You can ask again, and your standing improves with every on-time month. In the meantime, there are other directions to consider depending on what is actually going on with your finances.
f your credit is in good shape, you may be able to replace the balance with cheaper borrowing, such as a card with a low promotional rate or a fixed loan. The costs, the requirements, and the risks of each option are covered in the NHPB page on refinancing credit card debt: loans, balance transfers, and when it makes sense.
If you have balances on several cards and want one plan instead of several separate phone calls, a nonprofit credit counselor can help. The counselor reviews every account you have, contacts each of your card companies for you, and can often arrange lower rates as part of a single monthly repayment plan. The service costs little or nothing for people in financial difficulty. Find one through the NHPB directory of free and low-cost nonprofit credit counseling agencies.
Everything on this page assumes you can keep making your payments and simply want them to cost less. If that is no longer true, and the minimum payments themselves have become unaffordable, the conversation with your card company changes. Ask about a hardship program instead, which is explained in the NHPB guide to credit card hardship programs. And if the problem with your income is expected to last only a short time, some companies will reduce or pause payments temporarily; the NHPB guide to credit card forbearance and deferred payments explains how to request that.
Finally, if your goal is to reduce the amount you owe instead of the rate you pay on it, that is a separate process with its own tradeoffs, described in the NHPB guide to getting out of debt by negotiating with your creditors.
Phone calls offering to lower your rate are almost always scams
There is a common phone scam aimed at people in exactly this situation. A recorded message or an unexpected caller offers to lower your credit card interest rate, usually for an upfront fee, and often claims to have a special relationship with the banks. No such relationship exists. Some of these callers already know pieces of your personal information, such as part of your Social Security number, your ZIP code, or your card balance, and they use those details to sound official.
The Federal Trade Commission is clear about this: a company that calls you unexpectedly with a rate reduction offer cannot do anything for you that you cannot do yourself for free, and charging an upfront fee for this kind of debt help sold over the phone is against the law. The FTC's page on recognizing credit card interest rate reduction scams at https://consumer.ftc.gov/how-recognize-scams-lower-your-credit-card-interest-rate lists the warning signs. Hang up on recorded calls without pressing any buttons, never give account numbers or personal details on a call you did not place, and if you want a lower rate, place the call yourself using the number on your own card.
This page offers general information about asking a credit card company to lower an interest rate. Each company decides these requests on its own terms, and outcomes vary from person to person. Nothing here is legal or financial advice. For guidance on your specific situation, speak with a nonprofit credit counselor or a licensed financial professional.
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