Study: Florida residents carry amongst the highest credit card debt in the U.S.

When it comes to going deeper into debt, Floridians are near the top of the list.

That list is a ranking of the 10 states in the country with the highest credit card debt that was put together as part of a study by the digital personal finance company Achieve.

According to the study, Florida is No. 6 in the country with a per capita balance of $5,050, a 4.3% increase from the previous year. That balance is 16.1% higher than the national average of $4,350 per person.

Achieve compiled the list using data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. It compared balances in the fourth quarter of 2024 with the same period in 2025.

Topping the list was Alaska, with the average person carrying $5,250 in credit card debt. It was followed by Hawaii with $5,220 and New Jersey at $5,160.

Nationally, average credit card debt rose 4.1% from $4,180 with seven states crossing the $5,000 mark in per capita credit card balances.

The state with the lowest debt was Mississippi with $3,030 per person, 30.3% below the national average. But even Mississippi saw a year-year-over-year increase of 3.1%.

Brad Stroh, Achieve’s co-CEO and founder, says in the study that there was nowhere in the country where the average balance came down in the past year.

“For people who carry their balance from month to month, even a relatively small increase can add significantly to the amount they pay in interest and make it harder to bring the total down,” he says.

“The first step is to understand exactly what the debt is costing. People should check the interest rate on each card, how much of their payment is going towards interest and whether their balance is still increasing.”

The Achieve study was released just days before it was announced that the U.S. gross national debt had reached $40 trillion, doubling in the past decade, according to the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. Debt held by the public stands at over $32 trillion, the group says.

Speaking on the national number, Maya MacGuineas, CRFB’s president, gave the government advice that individuals looking to trim their credit card balances could heed as well.

“Correcting our fiscal course cannot be done overnight,” she says in a statement, “but the very first step can be accomplished right now: committing to No New Borrowing.”