💳 Personal Loan Calculator
See your repayments and exactly how much interest you'll pay over the life of the loan.
Results
Fees breakdown
Interest paid by year
| Year | Principal paid | Interest paid | Balance |
|---|
Why use this calculator?
A personal loan is small enough that people sign up on the repayment alone, which is the number a lender leads with and the least useful one: stretch the term and the repayment falls while the loan gets dearer. This calculator shows what you would repay in total, how much of that is interest, and what a modest extra repayment does to both. Put in the rate from the contract rather than the advertised one and you are looking at the loan you are actually signing.
How does this calculator work?
The repayment comes from the same amortisation formula a home loan uses — the fixed payment that clears the loan exactly at the end of the term:
M = P × r ÷ (1 − (1 + r)^−n)
with P the amount borrowed, r the rate for one period (the yearly rate ÷ 100 ÷ repayments per year) and n the number of repayments (the term in months × repayments per year ÷ 12).
The loan is then walked through period by period rather than trusted to the formula, which is what makes extras and fees real amounts instead of adjustments:
- Each period the interest is the balance × r, and the rest of the repayment reduces the balance.
- The term is entered as years and months, and the last repayment is whatever is left, so the loan finishes exactly on the term you asked for rather than a period short of it.
- Extra repayments come off the balance, save the interest they would have been charged, and bring the end of the loan forward. The saved-by-extras figure counts the interest, plus any account keeping fees you stop paying by finishing sooner.
- The fees are the three a lender charges: an establishment fee once, an account keeping fee for every month the loan is open, and a discharge fee when it is paid out.
- Weekly repayments are the monthly repayment ÷ 4 and fortnightly ÷ 2, which is how most lenders work them out — 13 monthly payments a year instead of 12. The other option recalculates the repayment for the frequency and keeps the term the same as monthly.
Frequently asked questions
What interest rate should I put in?
The rate written on the contract, not the headline rate in the advertisement — those usually come with conditions about the amount borrowed and the borrower's history. If a lender quotes a comparison rate as well, that one includes most of the fees, which makes it the fairer of the two to compare on.
Is a longer term cheaper?
The repayment is lower, and the loan is dearer. Run the same amount at three years and at seven: the seven-year loan takes less out of each pay and hands back more interest overall. This page shows both figures side by side, which is the point of putting the term in months.
Does it include early repayment or exit fees?
No. It knows about the three fees you can type in and nothing else, and some contracts charge for paying a loan out early. Check your contract for anything with a fee attached before you decide how much extra to pay.
Does the interest rate stay the same for the whole loan?
Yes. The arithmetic assumes one rate for the whole term, which is how a fixed-rate personal loan works. If yours is variable, run it at the rate a couple of points higher to see what a rise would do to the figures.
Why is the number of repayments not just the years × 12?
With no extra repayments it is that, near enough: the term is turned into months and then into periods at the frequency you chose. Once there are extras, the loan stops when the balance is gone rather than at the end of the term, and the final repayment — often a part payment — still counts as one.
How does this compare with paying by credit card?
The page works on one loan at a time. If you are weighing up a card, put the card's rate in and a term you would honestly pay it off over, and compare the total interest with the loan's. A card with no set term is the trap: the minimum repayment keeps the balance alive for years.