How to use the Loan Calculator
- Enter the loan amount, the yearly interest rate and the term in years or months.
- Read the monthly payment, the total interest and the total you’ll pay back.
- Add an extra payment to see how much sooner the loan is paid off and how much interest you save.
- Scroll the year-by-year schedule, or download it as CSV for Excel or Google Sheets.
How the monthly payment is calculated
Most personal, car and student loans are amortizing loans: every payment is the same, and each one covers that month’s interest first and pays down the balance with the rest. The payment (called EMI, equated monthly installment, in India and elsewhere) is:
payment = P × r ÷ (1 − (1 + r)−n)
where P is the amount borrowed, r the monthly rate (yearly rate ÷ 12 ÷ 100) and n the number of monthly payments. A $25,000 loan at 7.5% over 5 years costs about $501 a month and $5,056 in interest.
Why extra payments save so much
Interest is charged on the remaining balance, so every extra dollar that goes to principal stops costing interest for the rest of the loan. Early in a loan most of each payment is interest — the schedule shows this — which is why small extra payments in the first years have the biggest effect. Check with your lender that extra payments go to principal and that there’s no prepayment fee.
Related calculators
Buying a home? The Mortgage Calculator adds property tax, insurance and PMI. To see what savings grow to instead, use the Compound Interest Calculator, and for quick rate maths the Percentage Calculator.
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Tools that pair well with the Loan Calculator
- Date Difference Calculator — Count the days between two dates — including business days and a years/months/days breakdown — add or subtract time from a date, or run a live countdown.
- Discount Calculator — Find the sale price and how much you save for any percent or amount off.
- Roman Numeral Converter — Convert any number from 1 to 3,999,999 into Roman numerals — or read Roman numerals back as numbers — with a breakdown of every symbol.
- Number to Words Converter — Spell out any number in words — “one thousand two hundred thirty-four” — as a cardinal, an ordinal (“twenty-first”) or a check amount (“One thousand two hundred and 50/100 dollars”).