Congress caps credit card rates at 10%—but not until 2031
S. 381 — 10 Percent Credit Card Interest Rate Cap Act · Filed by Bernie Sanders (I-VT) · 3 cosponsors · Introduced Feb 4, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill caps credit card interest rates at 10% annually and prohibits lenders from using fees to circumvent the cap. Consumers who are charged above the cap can sue to recover all interest and fees paid, and lenders face penalties under existing Truth in Lending Act enforcement. The cap takes effect January 1, 2031.
Why we flagged it
The bill's operative mechanism is a hard ceiling on credit card APRs plus a private right of action for consumers to recover overcharges. This is straightforward price regulation with a consumer remedy, not a subsidy, carve-out, or deregulation.
What the text implies
- The 2031 effective date creates a 6-year lag, allowing current high-rate portfolios to mature before the cap applies; issuers may front-load originations before the deadline.
- The fee-evasion language ('total sum of such fees may not exceed total finance charges') may trigger disputes over what constitutes a 'finance charge' vs. a permissible fee, creating litigation risk.
- A 10% cap may reduce credit availability to high-risk borrowers, as issuers cannot price for default risk; subprime credit card market may contract sharply.
- The 2-year statute of limitations for consumer recovery actions is relatively short; many consumers may not discover or pursue claims within the window.
- State law preemption carve-out preserves state usury laws; states with lower caps remain unaffected, but states with higher caps see federal floor imposed.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
Ordinary consumers gain a hard ceiling on credit card borrowing costs and a private right of action to recover overcharges, reducing predatory lending exposure. Credit card issuers lose pricing flexibility and face enforcement liability, but this is a restraint on corporate pricing power, not a cost to citizens.
Named in the bill
Truth in Lending Act (TILA), Section 107 (TILA), Section 130 (TILA), Section 106 (TILA), credit card issuers, consumers
Where it stands
3 cosponsors: 2 Democrats, 1 Republicans.
- Feb 4, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- Feb 4, 2025 — Referred to Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
14 lobbying clients named this bill on 18 disclosure filings across 2 quarters, Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $9,850,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 4 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 94% of bills with at least one filing.
Bernie Sanders, the sponsor, reported $-5,000 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- American Bankers Association — $5,210,000 on 2 filings
- Mastercard Worldwide — $1,610,000 on 1 filing
- Jpmorgan Chase Holdings LLC — $1,190,000 on 1 filing
- American Express Company — $470,000 on 1 filing
- Synchrony Financial — $430,000 on 1 filing
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 20, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (2,086 characters) on Jun 8, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
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