Cash Advance Interest Rate: Why the "Fee" Is Interest, and What $100 Costs Under Every Cap

By Greg HalloranOctober 2, 2026What it costs

There is no single cash advance interest rate. The price is set by the product you use and the state you live in. Three anchors: a credit card cash advance runs about 30% plus a fee of $10 or 5%, whichever is more (CFPB, December 2024); a payday-style advance at $15 per $100 for two weeks is 391% APR (the CFPB's "almost 400 percent"); and in roughly 20 states plus DC, and for active-duty military everywhere, the ceiling is 36% all-in. Lenders call the payday charge a "fee." Federal law calls it a finance charge, and the APR comes out the same either way.

Fee or interest? Regulation Z settles it

Regulation Z, 12 CFR 1026.4, defines the finance charge as "the cost of consumer credit as a dollar amount," including "any charge payable directly or indirectly by the consumer and imposed directly or indirectly by the creditor as an incident to or a condition of the extension of credit." Its list of examples includes interest, "service, transaction, and activity charges," and "points, loan fees, and similar charges." A payday lender's fee is on that list. So is a card issuer's cash advance fee.

Florida's statute calls its charge a fee: 10% of the amount provided plus a verification fee of up to $5 (Fla. Stat. 560.404 and 560.309). California's calls it a fee: 15% of the face of the check (Fin. Code 23036). Under 1026.4 both are finance charges, and under 1026.22 the lender has to express them as an annual percentage rate, accurate to within one eighth of a percentage point, using the actuarial method in Appendix J.

For a loan repaid in one payment, Appendix J reduces to a line you can do by hand: finance charge divided by amount financed, times 365, divided by days. $15 on $100 for 14 days is 15 / 100 = 0.15, times 365 / 14 (which is 26.07), equals 3.9107, or 391.07%. That's the number on the disclosure whether the contract says "interest" or "fee."

Credit cards are the exception that confuses everyone. For open-end credit, 1026.14 defines the disclosed APR as the periodic rate times the number of periods in a year, and the transaction-fee-inclusive "effective APR" is optional and reserved for home-secured plans. So a card's 3% to 5% cash advance fee is a finance charge under 1026.4, but it is not inside the 29.99% printed in the pricing table. You add it back yourself, which the table below does.

Same $100 for 14 days, nine prices

One borrower, one amount, one term. The only thing that changes from row to row is the price rule, and every rule comes from a statute, a regulator, or a published product example. The arithmetic follows the table.

The stated-rate rows: 36% for 14 days is $100 x 0.36 x 14 / 365 = $1.38. At 28% it's $1.07. At the Texas typical 662% reported by the Center for Responsible Lending, it's $100 x 6.62 x 14 / 365 = $25.39.

Next, the card row: interest is $100 x 0.2999 x 14 / 365 = $1.15, but 5% of $100 is only $5, so the $10 minimum fee applies. Total $11.15. Convert it: 11.15 / 100 = 0.1115, times 26.07, equals 2.91, or 291%. On a hundred dollars for two weeks, the card is closer to a payday loan than to its own purchase rate, which surprises people who think of 29.99% as the whole price.

On the app rows: $3.18 / $100 = 0.0318, times 365 / 10 (which is 36.5), equals 1.16, or 116%. (The CFPB's own 109.5% uses its $106 average advance: 3.18 / 106 x 36.5.) With a $5 express fee and a 15% tip the charges total $20: 20 / 100 x 36.5 = 7.30, or 730%.

The bank row is the one figure I didn't compute from scratch. The bank's product page discloses 35.65% on its own $6 per $100, three-payment example; checking it with a three-payment amortization on $100 at roughly 3% a month lands in the same place, so I've left the bank's number as disclosed.

Credit card cash advance rates

Start with the Federal Reserve's G.19 release for May 2026, which puts the average rate on commercial bank card accounts assessed interest at 22.15%, and 20.94% across all accounts. Cash advance rates sit above that. Experian's explainer uses 29.99% as a typical cash advance APR alongside a fee of "3% to 5% of the cash advance amount or $10, whichever is higher." One mass-market card disclosed a 29.74% variable cash advance rate against an 18.24% to 28.49% purchase range on the same card, as of August 2026 (CNBC Select). There's no official average cash advance APR; your own pricing table, required by 12 CFR 1026.60 to show the cash advance rate in bold, is the source that counts.

Two mechanics matter more than the rate. Interest starts on the transaction date with no grace period, so even a two-week hold costs money. And transactions you might not think of as cash get coded as advances: one issuer's March 2026 page lists wire transfers, peer-to-peer payments, money orders, foreign currency, lottery tickets, and casino chips. A $100 P2P transfer charged as a cash advance carries the $10 minimum fee whether you knew or not.

Payday cash advance rates by state

Twenty states plus the District of Columbia cap payday-style rates at about 36% inclusive of fees or don't allow the single-payment product at all: Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia, and DC (CRL, June 2023). Minnesota joined on January 1, 2024 with a twist: Minn. Stat. 47.60 lets a consumer small loan lender charge "an annual percentage rate of up to 50 percent," but anything above 36% triggers the ability-to-repay rules in 47.603, under which the lender has to determine you can make the payment while covering major obligations and basic living expenses for 30 days after.

Where the two-week product survives, the price is mostly the state maximum. The Center for Responsible Lending's June 2023 compilation, built from regulator data or, where none exists, a sample of five online lenders, reports typical APRs on a $400, 14-day loan. A selection, with the $100-for-14-days cost worked from each rate:

Pew summed up the pattern in 2016: "Most lenders charge the maximum rate allowed under state law. States without rate limits have the highest prices." The 2024 and 2025 legislative record cuts both ways. NCLC's December 2025 installment-lending survey notes Tennessee raised its maximum rate from 30% to 36% and its origination fee from 10% to 12.5%, Mississippi extended its 300%-plus APR law to 2030, and Missouri added a credit-report fee, while the median state cap on a $500 six-month installment loan sits at 39.5% APR. Ohio and Virginia no longer permit the $400 single-payment loan after reforms but do allow longer loans above 36%.

The site's state pages carry each state's current rule with the statute cited. This guide's job is to show that the rule, not the lender's marketing, sets your rate.

The Military Lending Act: 36% all-in

If you're on active duty or a dependent of someone who is, none of the triple-digit rows apply to you. Under 32 CFR 232.4, "a creditor may not impose an MAPR greater than 36 percent in connection with an extension of consumer credit" to a covered borrower. The MAPR is broader than a Regulation Z APR: it counts finance charges, credit insurance premiums, debt cancellation fees, ancillary product fees, and application and participation fees "even when they would be excluded from finance charges under Regulation Z." A federally insured institution can charge one application fee per twelve months on certain short-term loans.

Covered borrower means a member on active duty under orders longer than 30 days, or on Active Guard and Reserve duty, or a dependent under 10 U.S.C. 1072(2), at the time the credit is extended (32 CFR 232.3). The statute, 10 U.S.C. 987, also bans rollovers by the same creditor, mandatory arbitration, and using a check, vehicle title, or allotment as security; a knowing violation is a federal misdemeanor. Lenders check status in the Department of Defense MLA database, and you can run the same search on yourself before you apply. On $100 for 14 days, 36% MAPR means $1.38, all fees included, and it's the number to hold every other offer against.

Apps: the price without a rate

Paycheck-advance apps don't show an interest rate because, since December 23, 2025, the CFPB's advisory opinion in the Federal Register says a covered employer-based earned wage access program isn't "credit" under Truth in Lending, and its optional expedite fees and tips aren't finance charges. The opinion replaced a withdrawn July 2024 proposal and doesn't address direct-to-consumer apps.

The CFPB's July 2024 market spotlight measured the price anyway. Employer-partnered advances averaged $106 with a $3.18 fee per fee-bearing transaction and about 10.5 days to payday, an illustrative 109.5% APR. A $50 advance with $3.18 in fees for four days is 580.4%. Roughly 90% of workers paid at least one fee, averaging $68.88 a year over 27 advances, and direct-to-consumer tips averaged $4.09 and were paid 73% of the time. The FTC's November 2024 complaint against one app described express fees of $3 to $25, a default 15% tip, and a $1 monthly membership.

To price your own advance, use the single-payment formula: total fees and tip, divided by the advance, times 365, divided by days to payday. One app reviewer's tip is the cheapest advice in this guide: "If you don't have to use lightning speed, that saves you on fees."

Regulated alternatives with legal ceilings

Two products carry federal price limits by design. Credit union payday alternative loans under 12 CFR 701.21(c)(7) are capped at 1,000 basis points above the NCUA rate ceiling, which is 28% today; they run $200 to $1,000 for one to six months (PAL I) or up to $2,000 for one to twelve months (PAL II), with an application fee of up to $20, no rollovers, and no more than three in six months. Bank small-dollar loans, encouraged by the May 2020 interagency statement in OCC Bulletin 2020-54, are priced by each bank; the published example above ($6 per $100 over three payments, 35.65% disclosed) required a checking account at least six months old with direct deposits.

Neither is a recommendation; both are the price ceilings the rest of the table should be measured against. This site is a loan-request service, not a lender, and the interest rate that binds you is the one on the lender's Truth in Lending disclosure. Use the cash advance calculator here to check it against the rows above. On the next paycheck, the gap between the top and bottom of the $100 table is $25.39 against $1.38, and your state decides which end you're on.

Sources

• Federal Reserve, G.19 Consumer Credit release
• CFPB, Regulation Z (12 CFR 1026), Truth in Lending
• CFPB, Payday loans

State caps, maximum terms and the regulator for your state are cited on the state pages.

Frequently Asked Questions

Not a lender. Cost figures use the federal APR formula and the state rule named next to them; the state pages cite each statute. Full disclosures.