Just stop paying. You aren’t “legally” required to pay your credit cards in a criminal sense. So, it isn’t “illegal” to not pay a credit card, in general.  However, if you incurred a credit card debt and knew that you couldn’t pay it back per the terms of the card, then that is potentially a criminal act if you had the deliberate intention of not paying the same. For the ordinary situation where you can’t afford to pay your credit card bills due to just becoming overwhelmed or life just happens, that is strictly a “civil’ matter.  You could be sued for the debt, but that’s not a criminal act.