How long until my loan is paid off?

More than most people expect. On a $25,000 loan at 6.5% APR with a $500 monthly payment, adding just $100 a month cuts the payoff time from about 59 months to about 48 months — 11 months sooner — and saves roughly $824 in interest. The earlier you add the extra amount, the bigger the effect, because every dollar of extra principal stops accruing interest for the rest of the loan.

If your monthly payment is at or below what the loan charges in interest each month, the balance never goes down — you're on a plan that never pays off the loan no matter how long you keep paying. This calculator flags that case and shows you the minimum payment that actually covers the interest, so you can see exactly how much more you need to add to start making progress on the balance.

For a standard amortizing loan (the kind this calculator models — mortgages, auto loans, personal loans, most credit cards), yes: once your regular payment covers that month's interest, anything extra reduces the principal balance directly, which is what shrinks every future interest charge. Some lenders apply extra payments to future scheduled payments instead of principal unless you tell them otherwise — always confirm your lender applies extra payments to principal immediately, or the payoff acceleration this tool shows won't actually happen.

APR (annual percentage rate) is the yearly cost of borrowing expressed as a rate, and it's what this calculator divides by 12 to get a monthly rate. Some statements show a periodic rate that's already divided by 12, or bundle in fees to produce the APR shown on your original loan disclosure — if your statement's monthly rate times 12 doesn't match the APR you were quoted, use the APR from your loan agreement or disclosure, since that's the figure lenders are legally required to state accurately.

Yes, for the payoff math — mortgages, auto loans, personal loans, and credit cards all amortize the same way, so the balance, APR, and payment inputs work for any of them. What it doesn't model is a mortgage's escrow and PMI, a card's promotional APR resets, or a card issuer's minimum-payment formula (often a small percentage of the balance rather than a fixed dollar amount) — for a credit card, enter the fixed payment you actually plan to make each month, not just the statement minimum.

The monthly payment on a fixed-rate amortizing loan is P = r × PV / (1 − (1 + r)^−n), where PV is the principal, r is the annual rate divided by 12, and n is the number of monthly payments. For example, $25,000 at 6.5% APR over 48 months works out to about $593 a month. Rearranged for time, the same formula gives n = −ln(1 − r·B/P) / ln(1 + r), which is how this calculator turns a payment amount into a payoff date — no spreadsheet required.

Enter the loan amount, APR, and term in months in the payment-from-term calculator on this page: it applies the amortization formula for you. As a rule of thumb at 6.5% APR, every $10,000 borrowed costs about $195/month on a 5-year term, about $148/month on a 7-year term, and about $63/month on a 30-year term — longer terms shrink the payment but multiply the total interest.