Today, Spinwheel published new data from its analysis of $2.9B in consumer debt across more than 20,000 borrowers from Nov 2025 to May 2026. The research shows how different debt types coexist, compound, and interact within individual financial lives.
Key findings include:
The Debt Escalation Cliff
When consumers move from one debt type to two types of debt, the median debt balance increases by more than 10 times — from $2,755 to $28,250.50. The jump from 2 debt types to 3 is equally dramatic. Median debt balances are more than 6 times higher. This is likely driven heavily by home loans.
The Average Debt Mix
- Mortgages account for the lion’s share of dollars owed. Roughly 70 cents of every dollar goes towards a home loan. But, it’s also the debt type with the fewest number of borrowers.
- Credit cards are the most common type of debt. 9 of 10 consumers had a credit card balance at the time of this analysis. However, credit cards account for only 7.2% of total dollars owed.
- Auto loans may be the biggest debt risk. Auto loans are the top non-mortgage debt category by total dollars ($264M vs. $236M for student loans) and the second most common debt type at 49.4% of borrowers.
More Credit Cards Equals Lower Utilization Rates
Consumers that hold more than 25 credit cards only utilize 20.9% of their available credit limits, compared to those with just 1 to 2 credit cards. Among this group (1 to 2 cards), consumers use an average 36.3% of their available credit.
Debt Composition by Credit Score
Those with a “good” credit score (between 670 to 739) carry more credit card debt than any other group while those with “very good” credit scores (between 740 to 799) carry the most average debt across personal loans and student loans.
Excellent Scores Drive Less Unsecured Debt
Among those with the highest credit scores, the data shows borrowers with the best credit scores carry less unsecured debt — those with “excellent” scores have the lowest average credit card and student loan balances of any tier.
Access the full report at: https://spinwheel.io/blog/the-architecture-of-american-consumer-debt.
About Spinwheel
Spinwheel, a real-time consumer credit data and payments company, is revolutionizing the consumer credit ecosystem. The company partners with lenders, marketplaces and personal financial management platforms to provide real-time, verified consumer credit data to process payments as part of their clients’ existing workflow and operations via APIs and its agentic AI platform. Founded in 2019, Spinwheel has grown to more than 15 million users and 165 million accounts, facilitating $1.5 trillion in connected debt across its network. The company is backed by F-Prime, QED Investors, Foundation Capital, Core Innovation Capital, Fika Ventures and Citi Ventures. To learn more, please visit spinwheel.io.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260616084119/en/
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