Loan Calculator
Since you may have happened upon this loan calculator to calculate a monthly payment, I'll cut to the chase. You'll only need to enter three numbers, and you can leave the other dozen or so options untouched.
Here's all you need to do.
- Click clear and enter values for:
- Loan Amount
- Number of Payments
- Annual Interest Rate
- Leave Loan Payment Amount set to 0.
- Click either "Calc" or "Payment Schedule."
There you have it. Now you have what you need.
This calculator though offers users so much more. Spend a few minutes with it, and you'll see. More below
Info...
VERY IMPORTANT - You must enter a 0 if you want a value calculated. Some users have been frustrated by this. They want to know why the calculator does not just recalculate a payment if they have changed the loan amount, interest rate or term.
This is because we want the calculator to be able to create an amortization schedule using whatever parameters you want to use. This behavior is a feature! After all, there is no such thing as a "correct" loan payment. The payment amount is correct as long as both the lender and debtor agree to it!
ABOUT DATES - This calculator now allows irregular length first periods. That is, the calculator calculates the exact amount of interest due even when the initial period is shorter or longer than the other scheduled periods. This will result in payment amounts as well as interest charges that do not match other calculators. If you want to match other calculators then set the "Loan Date" and "1st Payment Date" so that the time between them equals one full period as set in "Payment Frequency". Example: If the "Loan Date" is May 15th and the "Payment Frequency" is "Monthly," then the "1st Payment Date" should be set to June 15th, that is IF you want a conventional interest calculation. See amortization with dates — first period interest & year-end totals for details about the long and short period interest options.
Of course, you can always leave the dates set as they are when the calculator loads.
Much More Than a Payment Calculator
Since the calculator will solve for multiple unknowns, it can easily be used to answer the following questions:
- How much can I borrow?
- What would my payment be?
- What is the lending rate?
- How long will it take to pay off my loan?
- What date is my loan paid off?
- NEW - what is the impact of extra payments?
See the payment schedule for total interest saved.
On a more general note, we have been discussing details about loans, some structured with unusual features, over several decades. At this point, we believe our software calculators can create a schedule for any structured settlement loan that exists. If you have a loan with special requirements, please ask.
Hopefully, you'll find this loan calculator as well as all the financial calculators on this site to be useful tools. Why not take another sip of your favorite beverage and explore for a few minutes? Start by checking out The Reading Room. Here you'll find a half dozen articles, written by professionals, about money.
Loan Calculator Help...
This calculator will solve for any one of four possible unknowns: "Amount of Loan", "Total Scheduled Periods" (term), "Annual Interest Rate" or the "Periodic Payment".
Enter a '0' (zero) for one unknown value.
The term (duration) of the loan is a function of the "Total Scheduled Periods" and the "Payment Frequency". If the loan is calling for monthly payments and the term is four years, then enter 48 for the "Total Scheduled Periods". If the payments are made quarterly and the term is ten years, then enter 40 for the "Total Scheduled Periods".
The "Amortization Method" should be set to "Normal" (level payments) unless you have a specific reason to set it to another method. &Fixed Principal" causes the amount allocated to principal to be the same each period which result in decreasing payments.
If the terms of the loan call for a 0% interest rate, then the "Amortization Method" must be set to "No Interest," otherwise entering a zero for "Annual Interest Rate?" will cause the calculator to calculate an interest rate. Selecting "No Interest," also lets the user set the payment amount to "0" to tell the calculator to calculate it.
When the first period, the period of time between the "loan date" and the "first payment date" is longer than one full period, there will be interest due for the "extra days". This is known as "odd day interest." Example: if the "loan date" is March 24 and the "first payment date" is May 1, then there are 8 odd days of interest - March 24th to April 1st. How the odd day interest is calculated and collected is controlled with the "Long Period Options." By default, the odd days interest is shown being paid on the loan date.
Conversely, if the time between the "loan date" and "first payment date" is less than the payment period set, then the first period is said to be a "short initial period" and the first payment will be reduced due to less interest being owed. How the payment amount and interest is calculated for a short period is determined by the "Short Period Options."
Join the conversation. Tell me what you think.
vikki says:
Please explain what you mean by a “normal” loan? Is this a 365/360 loan, a 365/365, or something else?
As for Canadian loans, only mortgages are compounded semi-annually. Personal loans are based on simple interest.
Karl says:
I’ll try.
These are two different things. "Normal" is an amortization method while the "Days per year" impacts the interest calculation. Notice these are 2 different setting for this calculator. (The days per year setting is under the "Options" tab.)
So, you can have in "normal" loan that uses either a 360 or 365 days just as you can have an "Interest Only" loan that uses 360 or 365.
Note that the 360/365 day selection only impacts interest charges when there are odd days or when the compounding is set to daily or exact/simple.
eric says:
Good afternoon, Im having an issue with the loan calculator on one of my sites. I installed it and tested it at http://www.20westdigital.com/calculator and it works perfectly. But I did the exact same thing on the live environment, and all I see is the short code. http://www.pmghome.net/loan-calculator Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!!
Karl says:
Hello, silly question. Did you remember to activate the plugin on the live site?
Take a look at the source of the test site. At the bottom of the page, you’ll find these JavaScript files being included:
They are not included in the source on the live site.
Eric says:
Hi Karl,
Thanks for the speedy reply! I did activate it. Im not sure what I have done differently. Should I maybe uninstall and reinstall the plug in?
FC Loan Calculator
Deactivate
A responsive loan calculator with amortization schedule and charts. Rebrand with your brand name. Supports multiple currency and date conventions.
Version 1.2.0 | By financial-calculators.com | View details
Karl says:
Hmmm. I don’t know what to say Eric. I’ve not run into this problem before. The two sites do not appear to be using the same theme. Perhaps the theme running on the live site is not compatible?
Or has the new site been upgraded to WordPress 5.0? If so, I’ve not yet tested the plugins in v5. I understand that shortcodes work differently.
You can certainly try uninstalling and then reinstalling, but I’m not too hopeful about that working. For some reason, the plugin’s code is not being called from the page.
Do you know about ‘functions.php’? Are they the same on both sites?
eric says:
Karl,
Taking your notes, I omitted the back-end editor that theme was using and just put the raw code in the new page and it worked just fine. Looks like the theme was ripping out the JS. Thanks for all your help today!
Eric
Karl says:
Glad to hear you have it working. Thanks for letting me know.
TRUDI says:
HI KARL:
Would you be so kind to try it for me and send me your results:
the loan original date is : 11-03-2017
first payment is 12-03-2019
loan amount $200,000.
3% compounded monthly
64 payments.
payment amount with interest $3333.33
we would like to add a payment annually and then maybe monthly of the same .
Karl i have attached the schedule it created after i calculated it and it appears to be right without the extra payment option .
when i add the extra payment it actually increases the amount of interest and i dont see the columns that you are speaking of for the different types of interest?
TRUDI says:
KARL I WISH I HAD RED HAIR INSTEAD OF BLONDE. BUT I WAS USING THE LOAN CALCULATOR AND NOT THE LOAN REPAYMENT CALCULATOR.
IT WORKS JUST LIKE YOU SAID AND I AM SO GRATEFUL.
ALL THE INTEREST COLUMN ARE THERE LIKE YOU SAID AND YOUR PROGRAM HAS ONLY ONE ISSUE. ” HIGH POWERED EQUIPMENT WITH A LOW POWERED OPERATOR.”
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Karl says:
Glad you got it figured out. I was just sitting down to look at your example. Happy New Year to you too. 🙂
Scott says:
Thank you!
I just used this to calculate payments for my divorce settlement and could have ended up paying over $350 per year extra (times 8 years!) due to an incorrect interest accrual period in the first year.
Yeah math!
Karl says:
Cool. Thanks for letting me know.
Victor Grimm says:
Greetings,
First of all, these calculators are really helpful and contain many features not available elsewhere. I am a real estate attorney and frequently consult these calculators.Thanks !
This question concerns the insertion of an extra principal payment and the resulting calculation of interest payment calculated a business loan with the following terms: Principal: $697,500,Interest:6%, Term: 60 months,Interest only monthly payments, Loan Start: 2/1/2019, Payment Start: 3/1/2019, Extra Principal Payment: 1 payment of $75,000 due on 5/1/2019. I ran the Loan Schedule.
Here is the question: The monthly payment for the first 3 months is $3,487.50… then the extra payment of $75,000 is applied on 5/1/2019….then the monthly payment for 6/1/2019 is indicated as -$375.00…the monthly payment for 7/1/2019 changes to $3,112.50 and remains at this figure for the remainder of the term. Why is the payment for 6/1/2019 -375.00? I understand that this figure equals the reduction in interest occasioned by the principal reduction, but I would expect the 6/1/2019 payment to be $3,112.50, identical to the remaining payments.
Any guidance you could provide on this question would be greatly appreciated.
Karl says:
Hello, You’re welcome! I’m happy to hear that you find the calculators helpful.
The bad news is, you definitely found a bug. I hope you didn’t need to have an amortization schedule ready for a client yesterday.
But the good news is, I have it fixed. I’m doing a site-wide update today (cosmetic update – hopefully it will look better to users). I’ll send an email to your account when the update is ready, in case you need the schedule.
(And just this very week while trying to get the update finished, I was thinking that it had been a long time since anyone had found a calculation bug. Thanks for taking the time to report it. And with such a clear example no less.)
Karl says:
I’ve updated the website and the bug is fixed. The calculator will correctly handle extra payments in an interest only schedule (and fixed principal too).
Bruce says:
I need a loan calculation that is rather unique. Start date 10/31/2018, first payment 11/30/2018, Fixed Rate 6%, Interest Only, 48 months loan duration, monthly interest only payments, compounding monthly, principle payments 2 x per year July31 and Oct 31. With your current calculator I can almost get there except that the extra payments can only be sceduled bi annually rather than specific dates. Can you help me? Love your site. The best I could find that is trying to do what we do!
Karl says:
Thanks for the compliment Bruce.
The Ultimate Financial Calculator will do what you need. This calculator supports irregular cash flows and you can have semiannual extra payments. If they don’t fall on the dates you want, edit the dates as needed.
Scroll down the page to the tutorials and check out #1 to get started.
If you have any questions, just ask.
Chris says:
hi Karl,
not sure what happened but information added in the “options” tab won’t update the calculator. (i’m trying to see what an extra payment amount per month would do to my loan). Any tips or verification that the tab isn’t functional would be so appreciated.
Karl says:
Hi Chris, I’m not seeing any issues. I just used the defaults the calculator loads with and entered an extra payment series starting on 03/19/2020 for $100. Left number of extra payments set to "Unknown".
This scenario worked fine.
If you still have a problem, please let me know your inputs, and I’ll check into it.
Gaël says:
Hi Karl,
First, thank you very much for such an easy to use and versatile calculator. It is extremely helpful.
I have a question regarding the use of the irregular first period option. I was wondering if there is a way to add the interest of that irregular first period to the capital and to apply the payments to that capital+interest total. Right now, the calculator computes the interest on the irregular first period minus the time period between regular payments, but applies the payment on the initial capital + the interest of 1 regular payment period. Needless to say that, over a long reimbursement period, the difference can be quite substantial.
Here is an example: 1000$ loan at 10% with continuous compounding. Loan date: jan 1st 2019, first payment on jan 1st 2020. monthly payment. payment amount: 100$ (note that the payment amount is irrelevant). When you obtain the payment schedule, you see, on the first row, an interest payment of 95.82, which is the interest on 1000$ from jan 1st 2019 to dec 1st 2019. Then, the first payment on jan 1st 2020 is separate in 8.53$ for the interest and 91.47$ for the capital. 8.53$ is the interest on 1000$ for one month (here it would be from dec 1st 2019 to jan 1st 2020). Therefore, after the 1st payment, the capital is down to 908.53$.
What I would like to be able to do, is to compound the interest from jan1st 2019 to jan 1st 2020 (for a total of 105.17$) and then have the payment on jan 1st 2019 apply to 1105.17$. Therefore, after one period, the capital is down to 1005.17$.
Thank you !
ps: sorry if I mistreat your language as English is not my mother tongue
Karl says:
Yes, it’s possible. (And your English is just fine!)
What you need to do is to look on the options tab at the "Long Period Options?:" and set it to "Amortize", which just means the odd day’s interest is added back to the balance.
If you set compounding the to "Continuous" and the "Days Per Year?:" option to 365, you’ll get a balance after the first payment of $100 is paid of $105.17, just what you calculated.
Hope this helps.
Please let me know how it works for you.
Gaël says:
Hi Karl,
thank you very much for your prompt response. it now works exactly as I want.
Thank you!
Brendan Underwood says:
Karl,
I am running a scenario for a payment calculator;
– loan amount is 2,400,000
-number of payments is 180
-annual interest rate is 4.951
-payment frequency is monthly
-Compounding is exact/simple
-amortization method is normal
-days per year is 365
*everything else is default*. This loan originated April 2nd 2018 with a first payment of May 2nd 2018 totaling $18,919.25 in the banking software that originally calculated the payment amounts. When I try to recreate the payment scenario by entering the exact origination and first payment dates into this financial calculation system the payment amount totals $18,923.28. However, when I utilize a start date of February 1st 2019 with a starting payment date of March 1st, 2019, the payment is much closer to what we originally had at $18,919.15. Every time I modify the origination date and first payment date to a different month and and/or year keeping the same 30 day period between origination date and first payment date in sync it seems to impacts the monthly payment amount. Any help as to why?
Brendan
Karl says:
Hey Brendan – I’m not able to look at the details right now, but my guess is, since exact days are being used, the difference has to do with where leap year falls relative to the payment stream. Shift by a month and the balance will be higher or lower, which impacts the interest charges.
Rather than focus on the difference in payment amount, after all, the difference is very small relative to the size of the payment, I suggest looking at the interest calculations. Do they agree?
Also, this calculator will allow you to create a schedule with any payment amount. If the bank’s software calculated $18,919.25, enter that into the calculator, along with the loan amount, interest rate and number of periods and the calculator will use it to create a schedule.
Mary says:
Dear Sir/Madam:
I am trying to calculate the total interest owed on a loan with the information below and I cannot figure out which Loan Calculator to use to get the correct totals and detailed Loan Summary:
Loan Date: 01/01/2017
Loan Amount: $ 6,500.00
Payment Amount: $ 100.00
1st Payment DUE: 01/01/2017
Interest Rate: 10% per Annum
No payments made in 2017 and 2018 (2 years).
1st Payment MADE: 01/01/2019
I would like to be able to show on the top of the Loan Summary the “1st Payment Due: 01/01/2017” AND the “1st Payment Made: 01/01/2019” so that our client will understand the full details of what happened from 01/01/2017 to date on the loan from her ex-husband. Is there a Loan Calculator which will show the full detail? I would appreciate your input.
Thank you for your assistance.
Karl says:
Thank you for posting your question here. None of the calculators use the explicit phrase "Due Date.".
However, this loan payoff calculator will let you enter the payments as they are made (or not made) and shows the balance as of any date. What you could do enter $0.00 on the days the payments were due but not paid. The schedule would then show under payment amount and for the date $0.00. I think that’s pretty obvious what is meant.
Scroll down the page to tutorial #1 for an overview. And then tutorial #25 shows how to calculate payoff amounts by entering individual payments.
bernard says:
been using the calculator now for a while and on the very left is the loan week /year column this morning i keep getting undefined what have i done
Karl says:
You didn’t do anything. I made a small site wide release last night and I see that I broke the period/year column on some calculators.
I know what caused the problem and I’ll have a fix released by tomorrow.
I’m sorry for the problem.
Karl says:
Bernard, the problem with the payment number column is fixed. You may have to perform a hard refresh of the page if you don’t see the change right away:
Depending on your operating system all you need to do is the following key combination:
Above, from Refresh Your Cache.
bernard says:
many thanks for your speedy reply you have sorted out the problem