Accurate Simple Interest Calculator
This simple interest calculator calculates interest between any two dates. Per Dictionary.com simple interest is "interest payable only on the principal." Interest is never earned or collected on previous interest.
Because this calculator is date sensitive, it is a suitable tool for calculating simple interest owed on any debt. You can calculate the accrued interest from any point in time when the balance is known. More details below the calculator
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Simple Interest
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Simple interest is the interest calculation method that is least beneficial to savers and the most beneficial to borrowers.
But note, if payments on a debt are paid as frequently as the compounding and the payment covers the interest due, then even if the terms of the loan call for compounding, there will be no impact on the total amount paid because at no point will there be any unpaid interest.
When the terms of a debt call for a simple interest calculation, if a payment does not cover the interest due, the unpaid interest must be tracked separately from the unpaid principal balance (also known as the US Rule). We believe that our Time Value of Money Calculator is the only online financial calculator that gives users this option and creates a schedule that shows the unpaid interest balance.
Enter an amount and a nominal annual interest rate.
Date Math: If you change either date, days between dates will be calculated. If you enter a positive number of days, the end date will be updated. If you enter a negative number of days the start date will be updated.
The above means you can calculate interest for a specific number of days and not worry about what the dates are. If you need to know the interest for 31 days, then enter 31 for the number of days and don't worry about the dates.
Set the compounding and days-in-year. Click "Calc". Interest and future value are calculated (FV is starting amount plus the interest.) Annual percentage yield is used for comparing investments. It is the rate institutions must quote in the US for interest bearing accounts. The holder of such an account can use the APY to compare accounts.
Interest is calculated based on the number of days. In this case, the amount of interest will be different for February and March.
This site also has a "Compound Interest Calculator"
Sarah B says:
Do you have a simple interest calculator that uses a national average interest? I need to calculate interest earned on funds held for legal proceedings but the interest rate is not given, so looking for some national average to use.
Karl says:
That’s not so much a question about the ability of a calculator, but rather what research you need to do to come up with the rate. Once you have the rate, you can plug it into this calculator.
Isn’t there any guidance on the interest rate? There is no just one national average. The rate for a 10-year treasury bond (currently @ about 2.5%) is a lot different than the rate for a 30-year fixed rate mortgage (perhaps around 4.5%). Those would both be national averages.
CL Craig says:
Nice work to offer, Karl.
Do you have a calculator that can take a loan amortization schedule and allow for non regularly scheduled periodic extra principal payments by a mortgage holder on a shorter term carry back? I’d like to have a running amortization schedule that gets revised to track the subsequent P & I balances each time a payment is made for record keeping and 1099-int’s?
I found a one time extra payment loan calculator but need multiple entries…
Much appreciated!
C L C
Karl says:
Thank you. I appreciate that.
For what you need to do, please see the . Scroll down the page to the tutorial section. This calculator will let users record payments as they are made on any date, for any amount. So it supports extra payments and early loan payoff as well. The balance can be calculated as of any date too – that is, between payment due dates.
Reshma says:
commpound interest calculater is not showing any more. It was till yesterday. please help.
Karl says:
Hello, AccurateCalculators.com is back up and running. I’m sorry for the problems you experienced. An automatically applied update went wrong and it eventually brought down the entier site on Tuesday. Unfortunately, I could not figure out the problem and get it fixed until late Tuesday (eastern time USA). Thank you for reporting the problem.
John Parkinson says:
Great tool for calculating interest due on investments
Ilia says:
This calculator (as many other online calculators) does not cover the issue with a leap-year
For period from 01/01/2016 until 01/01/2017 I should put days in year to 366 to obtain the correct result.
But for period from 01/01/2016 until 01/01/2018 obviously neither 366 nor 365 do not provide the correct result
If you would like completely support for 366-day-year, then I could suggest
–Remove drop-down list “days in year”: a common year has 365 days and a leap-year has 366 days, for what you provide value 360, 364, etc?
–You could not summarize days for the whole period:
oif period contents whole year you take in consideration “annual interest rate” identical for a common year and for a leap-year
oif period is started or is finished in the middle of year then you convert this part of year to days and calculate interest earned based on number of days in this year (is it a leap year or a common year)
oyou summarize the interest earned for all parts of period
–You could easily distinguish a leap–year (see https://stackoverflow.com/questions/16353211/check-if-year-is-leap-year-in-javascript; https://www.w3resource.com/javascript-exercises/javascript-basic-exercise-6.php)
function leapYear(year){
return ((year % 4 == 0) && (year % 100 != 0)) || (year % 400 == 0);
}
Karl says:
Thank you for your comment. Are you in the US?
First, in the US, to my knowledge, there are no laws governing the interest calculation. It’s a matter of convention. In the US, we do have a 360 day year. It may even be more commonly used than a 365/366 day year.
It is true, as you have stated, that this calculator does not support a 366 day year. How would you handle the divisor if someone want to calculate interest between Dec. 1, 2015 and Feb. 1, 2016? 31 days in either year, and none of the days span Feb. 29th, though one-half of the days are in a leap year.
My calculations are not wrong. They may just not support a convention that you need/want. That does not mean that I can’t add support for it however.
Royal Williams says:
I have a simple interest Auto loan, it does not have pre-computed interest. The payment are due the 12th of each month,I usually pay between the 24th and the 27th of the prior month. Looking at my payment history there is no consistent interest payments. The interest payments fluctuate between 245 to 198 and back to an average of 220 per month. I contacted the lender and after talking to Supervisor’s and Managers they insist that interest is calculated between payment date to payment date instead of the due date to payment date. Their explanation means that By paying early, I can pay more interest than a person paying on the due dates each month. Please can you help me understand.
Karl says:
I think the best thing for you to do is to try the Ultimate Financial calculator and look at the tutorials on this page to learn how to use it. Start with tutorial #1 for an overview.
The reason why I’m recommending the calculator at the above link is that it will let you enter payments on any date for any amount. Just enter the first 3 or 4 and compare them with the lender’s statement and you should be able to see if they are calculating interest correctly or not.
One thing, paying each payment on say the 26th rather than the 12th when it is due won’t save you much in interest over the term of the loan. All you’ve done with this strategy is shift the payment. You still are using the prior period’s balance for 30 or 31 days. There will be a slight saving because you paid ONE payment early. After that, as I said, the next payment follows the early payment by 30 or 31 days (perhaps 28 days). See my point?
goodday says:
If i want to calculate it in other currency, is there an option to change the currency
Karl says:
Not a problem.
Please click on the "$ : MM/DD/YYYY" in the lower right corner of any calculator to open a window that will allow you to change your currency.