For All Loans

Loan Amount:  The amount you borrow.

Interest Rate:  The annual interest rate the lender charges you for borrowing the money.

Fraction Helper:  The Fraction Helper is optional. If you have been quoted an interest rate of, say, 6⁷/₈, you could use the Fraction Helper to find out that ⁷/₈ is the same as .875. When you select a fraction from the Fraction Helper, the decimal portion of the interest rate is automatically changed to the selected value.

Make Payments:  Select how often you will make payments on the loan. The majority of loans have monthly payments, so monthly is pre-selected for you. However, this calculator is also able to handle weekly, biweekly (every 2 weeks - 26 payments per year), bimonthly (twice a month - 24 payments per year), quarterly (every 3 months), semiannual (every 6 months), and annual Payment Schedules. Note:
If you choose bimonthly and print a Payment Schedule, the calculator will choose 2 days of the month to make payments. One of the days will be the day of the First Payment Date. The other day will be 15 days after that or before that, depending on how late in the month the first day is. For example, if the first payment is on the 20th of the month, the 2 payment dates will be the 5th and the 20th. If the first payment is on the 15th of the month, the 2 payment dates will be the 15th and the 30th. This calculator does not allow for payments on the 16th and 31st. It will choose the 1st and the 16th instead.

First Payment Date:  This is the date your first payment is due. It is only used for printing the Payment Schedule. If you are not going to print a Payment Schedule, you can leave this blank. If you leave this blank and print the Payment Schedule, the calculator will assume the first payment is due today.

How many years to pay off the loan?  Enter the number of years you will be making payments. Negative numbers are automatically changed to positive numbers. The number of months is automatically updated when you change the number of years. You can enter a decimal number of years - but if you do, it will be converted to a number of months, and the number of months will be converted back to a decimal number of years. So the decimal you enter may not be the decimal you get! Example
If you enter 12.7 years, this translates into 152 months. 152 months translates back to 12.67 years, so 12.67 would be the number you get!

Or, how many months to pay off the loan?  Sometimes it's easier to enter the number of months you'll be making payments. If you know this number, you can enter it instead of the number of years. The number of years is automatically updated when you change the number of months. The number you enter is rounded to the nearest whole number. Negative numbers are automatically changed to positive numbers.

Frequently Asked Questions

How come the results on the calculator do not always match up with the totals at the end of the Payment Schedule?
The Calculator and Payment Schedule calculations are very different. The calculator simply plugs numbers into a formula and returns a result. The Payment Schedule has its own formula which is repeated for each payment. Thus, the Payment Schedule accumulates error as it goes along. The accumulated error results from the periodic interest rate, which is equal to the yearly rate divided by the number of payments per year. This can result in repeating decimals (e.g., 8% annually is .6666... monthly). Applying such a number to 360 separate calculations in a 30 year mortgage schedule accumulates error, compared to using it once in the formula calculation. For example, suppose your computer is able to store a maximum of 5 decimal places. Then monthly payments on an 8% loan would be calculated using .66667, which is just slightly too big, so a bit too much interest is shown by the end of the schedule. On a 4% loan, .33333 would be used, which is now just slightly too small, so a bit too liitle interest is shown by the end of the schedule. Note: If at the end of a Payment Schedule there is a small amount of principal left over, presumably due to accumulated error such as described above, the Payment Schedule shows an extra line. On a 30-year loan with monthly payments, this would be the "361st payment." The Payment Schedule displays this extra line in italics so that you can see the principal add up to the loan amount.

On the Payment Schedule, sometimes the loan balance for one month does not equal the loan balance from the previous month minus the principal paid. It's off by a penny. What's up?
You can probably see the answer to this one coming a mile off: It's due to rounding error again. As the Payment Schedule is generated, results are displayed rounded to two decimal places, but internally are kept with more than 2 decimal places. For example:

                  Internal     Display
Previous Balance  1275.246     1275.25
Principal Paid    -125.123     -125.12
New Balance       1150.123     1150.12 (Not 1150.13!)