Can you consolidate credit cards, Afterpay, Zip and personal loans together?

Key points

• Credit cards, personal loans and Afterpay/Zip Pay balances can often be combined into one consolidation loan, but every lender sets its own rules about what it will accept.
• Some debts usually stay separate, including tax debts, HELP balances, fines and home loans, and they have their own repayment routes.
• Eligible is not the same as worthwhile. Combining debts does not make them cheaper by itself, and including a cheap debt in an expensive loan can cost you more.
• If you cannot cover essentials, hardship support comes before any consolidation question.

Debt rarely comes in one flavour. We hear from members regularly, and they often have two or three credit cards, an Afterpay account that started with a washing machine, a Zip Pay balance, and sometimes a personal loan or car loan as well. Each account is small enough to feel manageable on its own, but together they produce a spread of deductions across the fortnight that is hard to keep on top of.

A question many of our members asked themselves is: can all of it be swept into one loan with one repayment? The answer is in many cases it can (it's always down to individual lenders about what debts they will consolidate). This guide covers the common Australian debt types against what consolidation loans typically accept, so you know what is realistic before any lender runs a credit check.

What can usually be included?

A consolidation loan is a personal loan used to pay out existing debts, so the starting question for any debt is whether a lender can pay it out and remove it from your commitments.

Credit cards are the classic case. The loan pays the balance, the credit card account can then be closed, and a revolving debt with a high rate becomes part of a fixed repayment schedule. Store cards work the same way.

Personal loans can generally be included too, whether they came from a bank, an online lender or a medical or dental payment plan financed through a loan. The new lender pays the old loan's payout figure, which includes any early-exit or discharge fees the old contract charges, so those fees belong in your comparison.

Buy now pay later balances are increasingly treated like the credit they are. Since 10 June 2025, buy now pay later providers like Afterpay and Zip have needed an Australian credit licence, and the accounts sit under the National Credit Code with required membership of the Australian Financial Complaints Authority – all meaning it's now formalised what members already knew from experience: Afterpay and Zip instalments are debt commitments like any other. Many lenders will accept BNPL balances in a consolidation, either conveniently paying them out (and saving you the hassle) or requiring you to clear and close the accounts as a loan condition (practices differ between lenders).

Car loans can sometimes be included, however require more consideration. Most car loans are secured against the vehicle, which is part of why their rates are often lower than unsecured rates. Rolling a secured car loan into an unsecured consolidation loan releases the car but can raise the rate on that portion of the debt, and the payout figure may include early-termination fees. Some people do the reverse comparison and refinance the car loan separately instead – also something WeMoney has helped thousands of Australians with.

What usually stays separate?

Some people have debts that are structured so that a consolidation loan is either unavailable or the wrong tool.

Tax debts are usually managed directly with the ATO rather than through a lender. If you owe $200,000 or less you can set up an ATO payment plan online, paying weekly, fortnightly or monthly. Interest still accrues while a plan runs, through the general interest charge, which compounds daily, so shorter plans cost less. Many consumer lenders will not include personal tax debt in a consolidation loan, and some treat an outstanding tax debt as a mark against the application itself.

HELP and other student loans are repaid through the tax system once your income passes the repayment threshold. They sit outside ordinary consolidation, and their settings differ enough from commercial credit that folding them into a personal loan is rarely even offered.

Fines and government penalties have their own payment arrangements through state revenue offices and do not belong to the consumer credit system.

Home loans are the other direction entirely. A mortgage is never consolidated into a personal loan. Some homeowners consolidate other debts into their mortgage instead, however that is a different decision with its own risk, because it converts short-term unsecured debt into long-term debt secured against their home.

Informal debts, money owed to family or friends, have no account for a lender to pay out. Some people use part of a loan's cash component to repay them, however that's dependent on whether a lender permits it.

What does the provider assess?

Eligibility for the loan itself runs on the usual credit assessment: income, expenses, existing debts, and your credit history, including how many credit applications you have made recently. Lenders also apply their own criteria to the mix, and two lenders can look at the same set of balances and accept different subsets. The number of BNPL accounts, the size of each debt and how repayments have been travelling all feed into the assessment. None of this is visible from outside, which is one reason a declined application is not proof that consolidation is unavailable, it only means that one lender's rules said no at the time they assessed you.

By connecting your accounts in WeMoney you can see all your finances in one place to make the decision easier. If you decide consolidation is the right option for you, the app makes it easy to enter your details and get consolidation loan offers from multiple lenders, with an approval score so you know your chances before they do a hard check on your credit file.

If repayments are already being missed and essentials are under pressure, pause before applying for anything. Hardship support through your existing providers and free financial counselling on 1800 007 007 (the National Debt Helpline) come first, because a new credit application from inside a crisis tends to make both the crisis and the credit file worse.

Does eligible mean worthwhile?

The matrix above can tell you what debts are possible to go into one loan, however it doesn't say whether any particular debt should. A cheap personal loan that is two years from finished may cost more inside a new five-year loan than it would if left alone. A secured car loan at a low rate may not belong in an unsecured consolidation at a higher one. The debts that usually justify the exercise are the expensive revolving ones, credit cards and BNPL stacks, where the combined rate and the juggling are both doing damage.

That judgement is a numbers exercise, comparing your current repayments and total costs against a modelled single repayment, term matched honestly. That's why we built features in WeMoney for you to see everything together in the one place, so you get the full picture and nothing can sneak past you. You can also compare consolidation options right in the app, letting you match with loans and see your chance of approval before clicking 'apply'.

Sources

• ASIC: Buy now pay later credit contracts, credit licensing
• Moneysmart: Buy now pay later services
• ATO: Payment plans
• ATO: General interest charge
• Moneysmart: Debt consolidation and refinancing

This article provides general information only. It does not take your personal circumstances into account and is not financial, credit or legal advice. Consider your own situation and seek advice from a suitably qualified professional if you need it.