Personal Loan EMI Calculator
Unsecured credit costs more — check the real monthly instalment and total interest on a personal loan before you borrow.
Year-wise repayment
| Year | Principal | Interest | Balance |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ₹1,48,785 | ₹47,647 | ₹3,51,215 |
| 2 | ₹1,66,003 | ₹30,430 | ₹1,85,212 |
| 3 | ₹1,85,212 | ₹11,220 | ₹0 |
Unsecured credit, priced honestly
A personal loan has no collateral behind it, so the lender prices the risk into the rate — typically 10.5% to 24% depending on your income, employer and credit score. It is the fastest big-ticket credit you can get, and also among the most expensive from a regulated lender.
This calculator shows what that convenience costs: the monthly EMI, the total interest over the tenure, the total repayment and a year-wise balance schedule. Check the numbers before you accept a pre-approved offer — "instant" says nothing about "cheap".
The EMI formula
EMI = P × r × (1 + r)ⁿ ÷ ((1 + r)ⁿ − 1)
- P — the loan amount (principal)
- r — the monthly interest rate: annual rate ÷ 12 ÷ 100
- n — the number of monthly instalments (tenure in months)
This is the reducing-balance convention every bank uses: interest accrues each month on the balance still outstanding, so early EMIs are interest-heavy and later ones repay mostly principal. At a zero rate the EMI degrades to a flat principal split. The year-wise schedule under the widget buckets the instalments into 12-month windows whose closing balance lands exactly on zero.
How to use this calculator
- Enter the loan amount — ₹50,000 to ₹50 lakh.
- Set the interest rate with the slider (5–20% p.a.). Use the annual reducing-balance rate from your sanction letter, not a "flat" rate — see the section below for why that matters.
- Set the loan tenure in years and months; personal loans here run up to 7 years.
- Read the monthly EMI, total interest and total payment.
- Use the year-wise repayment table to see the balance at each anniversary — handy if you plan to foreclose the loan when a bonus lands.
A worked example
₹5,00,000 at 11% p.a. for 3 years:
- Monthly EMI: ₹16,369.36 for 36 months
- Total interest: ₹89,296.91
- Total payment: ₹5,89,296.91
Stretching the same loan to 5 years drops the EMI to ₹10,871.21 but lifts the interest to ₹1,52,272.69 — the lighter month costs ₹62,976 more overall.
Flat rate versus reducing rate — the trap to avoid
Some lenders quote a "flat" rate that charges interest on the original loan amount for the entire tenure, ignoring everything you have already repaid. It looks cheaper and is dramatically worse: on ₹5,00,000 for 3 years, a flat 11% means ₹1,65,000 of interest, while a reducing-balance 11% — what this calculator computes — costs ₹89,296.91. Same headline number, nearly double the cost.
Always ask for the annual reducing-balance rate (and the APR including fees) before comparing offers. If a quote sounds too low for an unsecured loan, it is probably flat.
Because there is no asset for the lender to recover if you default. Home and car loans are secured against the property or vehicle; a personal loan is priced purely on your repayment capacity and credit history. That is also why your credit score moves a personal loan quote far more than a home loan quote.
Generally no — a personal loan for consumption (travel, wedding, gadgets, medical costs) carries no deduction. Two exceptions exist with proper documentation: funds demonstrably used for business can be claimed against business income, and funds used to buy or construct a house can qualify for interest deduction under Section 24(b), subject to the usual old-regime limits.
If the loan is on a floating rate, RBI directions currently bar prepayment charges for individual borrowers. Most personal loans, however, are fixed-rate, where lenders commonly charge 2–5% of the outstanding on foreclosure — often after a 6–12 month lock-in. The rules are regulatory and revisable; check your agreement, and net the charge against the interest saved before deciding.
Most banks price their best personal loan rates for scores of 750 and above; below roughly 700 the rate climbs steeply or the application is declined. If your score is borderline, a secured alternative — a loan against FD, gold or property — usually costs several percentage points less.
Only if the shorter EMI genuinely does not fit your budget. As the worked example shows, moving ₹5,00,000 at 11% from 3 to 5 years costs about ₹62,976 extra in interest. A middle path: take the longer tenure for safety, then prepay aggressively once charges no longer apply.