Enter your balance, rate and monthly payment to see how long until it's gone, and what it costs.
A loan payoff calculator tells you how many months and years it will take to clear a loan at a given payment, and how much of the total is interest. It also shows how paying extra changes the finish date.
How fast a loan disappears depends heavily on the payment relative to the balance and rate. Above a certain point, each additional dollar of payment shortens the loan sharply because it goes straight to principal, cutting future interest. Below the interest-only threshold, though, the balance never falls, which is the trap behind minimum-only payments on high-rate debt.
Extra payments made early in a loan avoid interest for the entire remaining term, so they save far more than the same amount paid near the end. If you're targeting a payoff date, front-loading extra payments gets you there fastest and cheapest. Confirm your lender applies extra amounts to principal rather than prepaying future installments, and check for any prepayment penalty.
It depends on the balance, rate, and payment. Enter them above for the exact months and years, and note that even a small extra payment can move the date up significantly.
Anything above the interest portion reduces principal, so you owe interest on a smaller balance every month afterward. The effect compounds over the life of the loan.
Then the balance falls very slowly or not at all. On high-rate debt, paying only the minimum can stretch payoff for decades, increasing the payment is the fix.
See the exact formula and a worked example on our methodology page.