In the Federal Reserve’s 2025 household survey, 4.3% of U.S. adults said they or their spouse or partner had taken out a payday loan or payday advance in the past 12 months. 2.5% had taken out a pawn shop or auto title loan, and 1.7% had used a tax refund advance.
The payday share was 2.6% in 2022, 3.1% in 2023 and 3.9% in 2024. The share rose in each survey year from 2022 to 2025. Survey estimates carry a margin of error, so the size of any one year’s change should be read with care.
Payday, pawn, title and tax refund advance use, 2022 to 2025
| Survey year | Payday loan or payday advance | Pawn shop or auto title loan | Tax refund advance | People surveyed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 2.62% | 2.16% | 1.05% | 11,667 |
| 2023 | 3.14% | 2.62% | 1.49% | 11,400 |
| 2024 | 3.93% | 2.35% | 1.62% | 12,295 |
| 2025 | 4.32% | 2.54% | 1.69% | 12,934 |
How we calculated this
We used the Fed’s public-use files and the survey weight in each file. Each figure is the weighted share of all adults answering Yes to the question named in the CSV header (BK2_c, BK2_d, BK2_e). The question asks about the respondent and/or their spouse or partner. The 2025 codebook wording is "Take out a payday loan or payday advance"; we did not check every earlier questionnaire for wording changes. The survey year is the year of the interview. These are our calculations, not figures published by the Fed.
The Fed’s separate Survey of Consumer Finances counts families instead of adults and puts payday loan use at 2.6% of families in 2025; see that page. Credit unions offer small-dollar payday alternative loans with capped rates.
Source
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking (SHED), public-use data files for 2022 to 2025. Federal Reserve data are public domain. Our weighted percentages are available under CC BY 4.0. Credit "My Credit Guide (mycreditguide.org)".
Steven Reynolds, "Payday, Pawn and Title Loan Use," My Credit Guide, October 13, 2026, https://mycreditguide.org/data/payday-pawn-title-loan-use/.