Repayment Calculator

Repayment is paying back money you borrowed. This calculator answers it from either end: tell it how long you want to take and it returns the payment, or tell it what you can pay and it returns how long that takes. Consumer loan repayments normally combine principal and interest in each instalment, and the schedule underneath shows how that split shifts over the term.

Fixed loan term

Pick this when the deadline is what you know. It returns the instalment needed to clear the balance inside that period, which is the calculation behind the most common mortgage decision there is: 15 years or 30. A shorter term means a larger payment and far less interest; a longer one means the opposite.

On the defaults, $10,000 at 10% repaid monthly over five years needs $212.47 a month. You hand over $12,748.23 in total, so $2,748.23 of it is interest, about 27% of what you borrowed.

Fixed instalment

Pick this when the payment is what you know. It returns how long that amount takes to clear the debt. This is the more useful mode for credit card balances, where the question is usually "if I can find $200 a month, when am I free of this?" rather than "what must I pay to finish by a date?"

Take the same $10,000 at 10%. Paying $200 a month instead of $212.47 stretches the payoff to 5.42 years and costs $2,989.78 in interest. Cutting the payment by $12.47 adds roughly $242 to the total, which is a useful sense of how sensitive these numbers are.

One limit to note: an instalment smaller than the interest accruing each period never clears the balance at all. The debt grows regardless of payment. The calculator says so rather than returning a nonsense figure.

Why repayment matters

Failing to repay has consequences that outlast the debt. Missed payments damage a credit score for years, raising the cost of every loan afterwards, and in the worst case lead to bankruptcy, which stays on a credit report for up to a decade. The gap between paying and not paying is far wider than the interest rate suggests.

The four common consumer loans

Most U.S. consumer debt is repaid monthly. Four types cover the bulk of it.

Mortgages are repaid monthly at either a fixed or a variable rate, and some loans switch between the two during their life. With a fixed rate the payment stays the same for the whole term, and you can normally pay more than required but never less. This calculator handles fixed rates; for a full mortgage picture including tax and insurance, use the Mortgage Calculator.

Auto loans work much the same way, monthly and usually at a fixed rate, with the option to overpay. Terms have stretched in recent years, and a seven-year car loan lowers the payment while raising the total cost considerably. See the Auto Loan Calculator.

Student loans are the most flexible category in the U.S., because the federal system offers repayment plans built around circumstances rather than one schedule. There are income-driven plans, extended plans, and plans aimed at parents or graduate borrowers, and most federal loans can be postponed through deferment or forbearance. Extended federal plans can run up to 25 years, which lowers the monthly figure and increases total interest substantially. Private student loans carry none of these protections. Our Student Loan Calculator covers the detail.

Credit cards are revolving credit and behave differently from everything above. There is no fixed instalment, only a minimum due each month to avoid a penalty, and you can pay anything above it. That flexibility is exactly the trap: paying the minimum on a large balance can take decades, since the minimum is usually a small percentage of the balance and shrinks as the balance does. Running a card balance through the fixed-instalment mode here is a quick way to see that. The Credit Card Calculator handles the card-specific rules.

How the split changes over the term

Every instalment on an amortized loan covers the interest that accrued first, with whatever is left reducing the balance. Because interest is charged on the outstanding balance, and that balance is largest at the beginning, early payments are mostly interest and late ones are almost entirely principal.

This has a practical consequence people miss. An extra payment early removes principal that would otherwise have accrued interest for the whole remaining term, so it saves far more than the same payment made near the end. It is also why selling a house or trading a car a few years into the loan leaves a balance much higher than the payments made would suggest.

Paying loans off faster

Pay extra. Where there is no prepayment penalty, anything above the required payment goes straight against the principal. That brings the payoff date forward and cuts interest, because every subsequent interest charge is calculated on a smaller balance. Even small, regular overpayments compound into a noticeable difference over a long term.

Pay biweekly. Paying half the monthly amount every two weeks helps twice over. The balance falls more often, so less interest accrues, and because a year holds 52 weeks you make 26 half-payments, which equals 13 monthly payments rather than 12. That extra payment each year is where most of the saving comes from. Check for prepayment penalties first, and confirm the lender applies each payment on receipt rather than holding it until a full month's amount arrives, which some do and which removes the benefit entirely.

Refinance. Taking a new loan on better terms to replace an old one can shorten the term, cut the rate, or both. The catch is upfront cost: refinancing fees can be substantial, so work out how many months of savings it takes to recover them, and whether you will hold the loan that long. Our Refinance Calculator finds that break-even point.

When paying early is the wrong move

None of these strategies suits every loan, and clearing debt faster is not automatically the best use of money.

Check for a prepayment penalty before anything else, since it can cancel the benefit outright. Then weigh the opportunity cost. An emergency fund is worth more than an extra payment on a cheap loan when a medical bill or a car repair arrives, and money that is locked into a house or a car by early repayment is not available when you need it. Historically, money invested over long periods has returned more than the interest saved on low-rate debt.

A workable order of priorities: clear high-interest debt first, since paying off a card at 19% is a guaranteed 19% return that no investment reliably matches. Build a cash buffer next. Capture any employer retirement match after that, because it is an immediate return on your own contribution. Only then does overpaying a low-rate mortgage become the best marginal use of a dollar. Our Debt Payoff Calculator handles the ordering when several debts compete.

Reading the result

Two figures matter beyond the payment. Interest as a share of the balance tells you what the borrowing actually costs: 27.5% on the defaults means more than a quarter of the total buys nothing. And the balance curve in the chart shows where you are in the loan, which is the honest answer to how much progress you have made, as opposed to how many payments you have made.

Try both modes on the same debt. Setting a term you can afford and seeing the payment, then setting the payment you can manage and seeing the term, usually lands on a realistic middle that neither question answers alone.