Written by Sarah Mitchell · Reviewed by Jane Smith · July 31, 2026
Calculate monthly loan installments, total interest, and see the full amortization schedule.
Enter loan details and click Calculate.
This loan calculator works out the fixed monthly payment, the equated monthly installment, for a straightforward principal-and-interest loan, then shows how that payment divides between interest and principal across the full term. Enter the amount borrowed, the annual interest rate, and the repayment period in years and months, and the page recalculates as you type. Everything runs in the browser, so you can compare scenarios side by side without a single request leaving the page.
An EMI is the constant amount a borrower pays the lender on the same date each month until the loan is fully repaid. Early payments are mostly interest, with only a small slice touching the principal; as the balance shrinks, that ratio gradually reverses, and the final payments are nearly all principal. Because the monthly amount never changes, an EMI schedule is easy to budget around, which is why it is the standard structure for home loans, auto loans, and personal loans.
The page applies the classic annuity formula: the EMI equals principal times the monthly rate times one plus the monthly rate raised to the number of months, all divided by one plus the monthly rate raised to the number of months minus one. The annual percentage rate is first converted to a monthly rate by dividing by 12 and by 100, and the term is converted to months by multiplying the year count by 12 and adding the extra months. Two loans with the same rate and term always produce the same monthly payment regardless of which lender issues them, because the formula depends only on these three inputs.
Take a principal of $200,000 at 8.5 percent per year repaid over 20 years with no extra months. The term is 240 months and the monthly rate is 0.7083 percent. Plugged into the formula, that yields a monthly payment of $1,735.65. Over the full term the borrower hands over $416,555.15 in total, meaning roughly $216,555 of the total is interest, slightly more than the amount borrowed itself. That interest-heavy picture is normal for long-term loans and is exactly why shortening the term or cutting the rate has such an outsized effect on total cost.
Of the $416,555.15 repaid over twenty years, the lender keeps about 52 percent of it as interest while the rest returns the principal. Put differently, the borrower repays roughly 2.08 times the amount borrowed just to use the money. In the first month the interest share is about $1,416.67, and by the final month it has fallen below $13, so the table visibly tilts from interest toward principal as the balance shrinks.
The same $200,000 borrowed at 7.5 percent instead of 8.5 percent drops the payment from $1,735.65 to $1,611.19, a saving of about $124 a month, yet the lifetime interest falls by roughly $30,000. Shortening the term has an even sharper effect: at 8.5 percent over 15 years the payment rises to $1,969.48, but the total interest drops by more than $60,000 compared with the 20-year plan. Moving the rate and the term together is the fastest way to see which trade-off fits a budget.
Below the headline numbers, a month-by-month table tracks the loan's life: for each month it lists the payment, the interest slice, the principal slice, and the remaining balance. For the 20-year example at 8.5 percent, principal overtakes interest in month 143, roughly two-thirds of the way through the term; every row before that point pays more interest than principal, and every row after pays more principal than interest. The table is capped at sixty visible rows to keep the page responsive, and the hidden tail is summarized with a note showing the remaining months.
Home buyers comparing rate quotes, auto shoppers weighing down-payment sizes, and anyone checking whether a personal loan fits the budget benefit from seeing the monthly figure and the lifetime interest in the same view. It is also a fast way to test the two levers that matter most: how many years the term runs and what rate the lender offers. For variable-rate, balloon, or prepayment-penalty products, treat the result as an estimate and confirm the schedule with the lender.
Students learning finance can follow a single loan through the table and watch the formula, the payment, and the balance agree with each other row after row, which is a useful check before trusting any mortgage quote.
Interest accrues on the outstanding balance, which is at its largest in month one. As principal is gradually repaid, the balance shrinks and the interest charge falls with it.
Yes, the term is entered as years plus months, so a 20-year, 3-month loan is entered directly without any conversion.
No. The calculator covers principal and interest only. Property tax, insurance, and origination fees are separate and must be added on top.
The page models a fixed level-payment schedule only. Extra payments would shorten the term and cut the total interest, but that scenario is not simulated here.
The monthly rate is compounded across every payment, so a small difference in the rate multiplies across 240 months. That is why rate shopping matters most for long loans.
The visible rows are limited to sixty for performance; the remaining months are summarized in a single line so the total still reconciles with the headline figures.
The annual percentage rate is divided by 12 and by 100, so 8.5 percent becomes 0.007083 per month, the rate used in the annuity formula.
Selecting 180 months instead of 240 raises the payment to roughly $1,969 and cuts the lifetime interest to about $154,000, a saving of more than $62,000, because the same principal is repaid over a shorter span. Stretch the loan back out to 30 years and the payment drops to about $1,538, but the interest balloons toward $353,700 — the classic trade-off between a smaller bill and a cheaper loan overall.