Credit Card Financial Hardship: Your Rights

By the Aussie Credit Guide editorial team · Reviewed 5 October 2026

If illness, job loss, a relationship ending or rising costs mean you can’t meet your card repayments, you have a legal right to ask the provider to change them. Asking early gives you the most options.

What a hardship arrangement can look like

• Lower repayments for a period.
• A pause on repayments.
• Reduced or frozen interest and waived fees.
• A longer period to repay the balance, with the card closed to new spending.

What is offered depends on your circumstances and the provider. The arrangement is meant to be one you can actually keep to.

How to ask

Moneysmart’s guidance is to contact the provider’s hardship team by phone, email or chat. Searching “hardship” on the provider’s website usually finds the contact details. Be ready to explain:

• Why you are experiencing hardship.
• Your current income and main expenses.
• What you can afford to repay.

You don’t need to be behind on repayments to ask, and you don’t need to use the word “hardship”. Telling the provider you can’t meet your repayments is enough to count as a hardship notice.

What the provider must do

• Consider your request. It can ask you for more information.
• Tell you its decision. Under the National Credit Code, if it doesn’t agree to change the contract it must notify you within 21 days, give its reasons and tell you about your right to complain to AFCA.

If the answer is no

1. Make a complaint through the provider’s internal dispute resolution process.
2. If that doesn’t resolve it, complain to the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA) on 1800 931 678 or at afca.org.au. AFCA is free for consumers, and a provider generally can’t start or continue debt recovery action while AFCA is considering a complaint.

What it does to your credit report

Moneysmart states that a financial hardship arrangement will not affect your credit score. Your credit report will show that an arrangement is in place, and that listing is deleted after 12 months. Other lenders can see it during that time. Missed payments outside an arrangement are recorded in the usual way, which is one reason to ask before falling behind.

Free help

• National Debt Helpline: 1800 007 007, weekdays 9:30am to 4:30pm. Free, confidential financial counselling. A counsellor can talk to providers for you.
• Mob Strong Debt Help: 1800 808 488, for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
• Lifeline: 13 11 14, any time, if money worries are affecting how you are coping.

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