FHA Loan Calculator
Loans & MortgagesMonthly payment with FHA mortgage insurance.
Purchase, down payment, rate & term
Enter a home price above zero to estimate your FHA payment.
Advanced — escrow, closing & DTI
Enter a home price above zero to estimate your FHA payment.
Know what this estimate is based on
- Jurisdiction
- General model; U.S.-specific rules are identified on the relevant tool
- Scope and limitations
- Educational estimate only. A lender may use different compounding, day-count, eligibility, tax, insurance, escrow, fee, or rounding rules.
- Source links checked
- Jul 30, 2026
Built and regression-tested by Smart Tools Lab. It has not been individually reviewed by a licensed financial, tax, or legal professional.
How to use
- 01
Enter the home price, your down payment percent, the interest rate, and the loan term — the calculator derives the base loan, the financed upfront MIP, and your total monthly payment.
- 02
Open Advanced to add property tax, homeowners insurance, HOA dues, closing costs, the county FHA loan limit, and your income and debts so the PITI, cash to close, and DTI estimate reflect your real situation.
- 03
Read the payment breakdown, the mortgage-insurance duration analysis, the FHA-vs-conventional table, and the loan-term comparison to judge whether FHA is the right loan and how long its insurance will follow you.
Formula
An FHA payment is built in layers, and this tool computes each one. First it finds the down payment as price × down% and subtracts it to get the base loan: with a $350,000 price and 3.5% down, that is $12,250 down and a $337,750 base loan, a 96.5% loan-to-value (LTV). FHA then charges an upfront mortgage insurance premium (UFMIP) of 1.75% of the base loan — here $5,911 — which is normally financed, so the amount actually amortized is the total loan of $343,661. The monthly principal and interest comes from amortizing that total loan: with monthly rate i = annual rate ÷ 12 and n = term × 12 payments, payment = L × i × (1 + i)^n ÷ ((1 + i)^n − 1), which at 6.5% over 30 years is $2,172. On top of that sits the annual MIP, whose rate the tool derives from your LTV and term using HUD's schedule: for terms over 15 years the rate is 0.50% at 95% LTV or below and 0.55% above it, and for 15-year-or-shorter terms it is 0.15% at 90% LTV or below and 0.40% above (with no annual MIP at all at 78% LTV or below on a short term). At 96.5% LTV on a 30-year loan the rate is 0.55%, giving a first-year monthly MIP of $158 — and because the premium is charged on the declining balance, it shrinks a little each year. The duration of that annual MIP is the rule that defines FHA's true cost: when LTV is 90% or below at origination it runs for 11 years, but above 90% it runs for the entire life of the loan. Finally the tool adds escrow — monthly property tax (price × tax% ÷ 12 = $321), homeowners insurance ($1,800 ÷ 12 = $150), and any HOA dues — to reach the full PITI of $2,801 a month.
Example
Work the defaults to see the whole FHA picture. You buy a $350,000 home with the FHA minimum of 3.5% down, which is $12,250, leaving a base loan of $337,750 — a 96.5% LTV. FHA adds a 1.75% upfront premium of $5,911 and finances it, so your actual mortgage is $343,661. Amortized at 6.5% over 30 years, the principal and interest is $2,172 a month. Because your LTV is above 95% on a long term, the annual MIP rate is 0.55%, which on the opening balance works out to $158 a month in the first year. Add property tax of $321 (1.1% of the price) and homeowners insurance of $150, and your total monthly payment — PITI — is $2,801. To get the keys you bring $22,750 in cash: the $12,250 down plus $10,500 of closing costs (the upfront MIP is financed, not paid in cash). The catch is duration. Because you put less than 10% down, the annual MIP never cancels — it follows the loan for all 30 years, adding about $37,945 in annual premiums to the $5,911 upfront, for $43,855 of mortgage insurance in total. A conventional loan at the same price, down payment and rate would cost $2,817 a month at first — slightly more, because its 0.75% PMI of $211 outweighs FHA's lower MIP — but that PMI cancels automatically at 78% LTV in under 12 years, so its lifetime insurance is only about $29,975 and its total cost runs roughly $21,400 below the FHA loan. Switching to a 15-year FHA term tells the other side of the story: the payment jumps to $2,994 of P&I, but total interest collapses from $438,320 to $195,197 and the all-in cost falls from $819,926 to $551,492. FHA wins on the door — low down, lenient credit — but you pay for that access in long-run insurance, which is exactly what the duration analysis and the comparison tables are there to show.
Definitions
- Base loan amount
- The mortgage before the upfront premium: home price minus down payment. At $350,000 with 3.5% down it is $337,750, and the annual MIP rate and LTV are measured against it.
- Upfront MIP (UFMIP)
- FHA's one-time insurance charge of 1.75% of the base loan — $5,911 in the default — almost always financed into the loan rather than paid in cash, which is why the amount you amortize exceeds the base loan.
- Annual MIP
- The ongoing FHA insurance premium, charged monthly on the declining balance. Its rate (0.15%–0.55% in the standard tier) is set by your LTV and term; at 96.5% LTV on 30 years it is 0.55%, or about $158 a month at first.
- MIP duration
- How long the annual premium is charged. At 90% LTV or below at origination it lasts 11 years; above 90% (less than 10% down) it lasts the life of the loan — the single biggest driver of FHA's long-run cost.
- Loan-to-value (LTV)
- The base loan as a percent of the home price. It both determines the annual MIP rate and decides whether MIP cancels at 11 years or runs for life, with the threshold at 90% (i.e. a 10% down payment).
- PITI
- The total monthly housing payment: Principal, Interest, Taxes, and Insurance — here also including FHA's monthly MIP and any HOA dues. In the default it is $2,801.
- Debt-to-income (DTI)
- Your obligations as a share of gross income. FHA looks at a front-end ratio (housing ÷ income, guideline 31%) and a back-end ratio (all debts ÷ income, guideline 43%), though both can stretch with compensating factors.
- FHA loan limit
- The county cap on the FHA-eligible base loan. In 2025 it ranges from a national floor near $524,225 to a high-cost ceiling near $1,209,750; a base loan above your county's limit isn't FHA-eligible.
Good to know
What FHA insurance actually buys — and who it is for
An FHA loan is a conventional-looking mortgage wrapped in a government insurance policy, and understanding that wrapper explains almost everything about how the loan behaves. The Federal Housing Administration does not lend money; it insures lenders against loss if a borrower defaults. That guarantee is what lets a lender accept a down payment as low as 3.5% and credit scores that would be turned away from a conventional loan, because the lender's downside is covered by the insurance fund. You, the borrower, pay for that insurance — and you pay for it twice, through an upfront premium and an ongoing annual one. This is the central bargain of FHA: it trades easier access at the front door for a stream of insurance premiums you carry afterward. The program exists for buyers who cannot clear a conventional loan's bar — first-time buyers without a large down payment, people rebuilding credit, households whose income is steady but whose savings are thin. For them, the question is rarely whether FHA is the cheapest loan in the abstract; it is whether FHA is the loan that makes buying possible at all. The defaults in this calculator — a $350,000 home, 3.5% down, a $337,750 base loan at 96.5% LTV — describe exactly that buyer, and the $2,801 monthly payment is the price of getting in with very little cash. Reading the rest of the results well means holding two ideas at once: FHA is genuinely valuable for access, and that access has a long-run cost that a conventional borrower with 20% down never pays. The tool is built to make both halves of that trade visible, so you can decide whether the access is worth the premiums in your particular situation rather than assuming a government-backed loan is automatically the cheapest one.
The two premiums: upfront UFMIP and annual MIP
FHA mortgage insurance comes in two distinct pieces, and confusing them is the most common FHA mistake. The first is the Upfront Mortgage Insurance Premium, or UFMIP, a one-time charge of 1.75% of your base loan. On the default $337,750 loan that is $5,911. You can technically pay it in cash, but almost no one does; it is financed, meaning it is added to the loan balance. That is why this calculator amortizes a total loan of $343,661 rather than the $337,750 you actually borrowed against the house — the extra $5,911 is the financed upfront premium, and you pay interest on it for the life of the loan just like any other principal. The second piece is the annual MIP, which despite its name is collected monthly. It is calculated as a percentage of your outstanding balance, recalculated as that balance falls, so unlike a fixed fee it shrinks slightly each year as you pay the loan down. In the default, the rate is 0.55% and the first-year monthly MIP is about $158; a decade in, with a lower balance, it is smaller. The calculator sums every monthly premium across the duration to show the total annual MIP — roughly $37,945 in the default — and adds the $5,911 upfront to report $43,855 of total mortgage insurance. Seeing the two premiums separated matters because they behave differently: the upfront premium is fixed at closing and financed, while the annual premium depends on your balance and, crucially, on how long it is charged. A borrower who fixates only on the rate or only on the monthly MIP is missing half the cost. The honest measure of FHA insurance is the combined total over the time you actually hold the loan, which is exactly what the duration analysis is designed to surface.
The 11-year-versus-life rule that defines FHA's cost
If you remember one fact about FHA loans, make it this one, because it swings the lifetime cost more than the interest rate does. The annual MIP does not always last forever, and it does not always cancel — which of the two happens is decided entirely by your loan-to-value at origination, and the dividing line is 90%, equivalent to a 10% down payment. Put down 10% or more, so your LTV is 90% or below, and the annual MIP is charged for 11 years and then stops, after which your payment drops for the rest of the term. Put down less than 10%, as the 3.5%-down default does, and the annual MIP is charged for the entire life of the loan — there is no automatic cancellation, ever. This is why the default case accumulates $37,945 in annual premiums: at 96.5% LTV the premium runs all 30 years. Had the same buyer put 10% down, the identical premium would have ended at year 11, saving the better part of two decades of payments. The rule is unforgiving precisely because it is binary: 9.9% down and 10% down produce wildly different lifetime insurance bills even though the monthly premium is nearly the same. The calculator surfaces this directly in the duration card, labeling your MIP either '11 years' or 'life of loan,' and the difference is the single most important number in the whole tool for a low-down-payment borrower. It reframes the down-payment decision entirely. The gap between 3.5% and 10% down is not just a larger upfront cash outlay; it is the difference between insurance that ends in your forties and insurance that follows the loan to its grave. Anyone choosing an FHA loan should look at this rule first and decide deliberately which side of the 10% line they want to be on.
Reading your monthly payment line by line
The headline payment of $2,801 is not one charge but five stacked together, and a buyer who only knows the total is flying blind. The first and largest is principal and interest — the $2,172 that actually repays the mortgage and compensates the lender for the loan. The second is the monthly MIP, $158 in the first year, which is pure insurance and builds you no equity; it is the cost of FHA's guarantee. The third is property tax, here $321 a month, an estimate of 1.1% of the home's value spread over twelve months and collected into an escrow account the lender uses to pay your county. The fourth is homeowners insurance, $150 a month, similarly escrowed to keep your hazard coverage current. The fifth, zero in the default but real for many buyers, is HOA or condo dues, which are paid directly to the association rather than escrowed. The payment breakdown donut and the monthly payment table split these out so you can see where your money goes, and the proportions are often surprising: principal and interest is the majority, but taxes and insurance together — $471 here — frequently rival the MIP and can dwarf it in high-tax areas. This matters for two reasons. First, only principal and interest and, indirectly, the equity you build are 'yours'; tax, insurance, and MIP are recurring costs that never come back. Second, the escrow components are not fixed: property taxes rise as assessments climb and insurance premiums drift upward, so the PITI you see today tends to grow even on a fixed-rate loan. Treating the breakdown as a living budget rather than a single static number is the difference between a payment you can sustain and one that quietly outpaces your income.
FHA versus conventional: the real trade-off
The comparison most FHA buyers should run is against a conventional loan, and the result is more nuanced than either 'FHA is cheaper' or 'FHA is a trap.' Conventional loans also charge mortgage insurance when you put down less than 20% — private mortgage insurance, or PMI — but it works differently in two decisive ways. First, conventional PMI cancels: by law it must drop off automatically once your balance reaches 78% of the original value, and you can usually request removal at 80%. FHA's annual MIP, for a low-down-payment borrower, never cancels. Second, conventional loans have no upfront insurance premium, so there is no $5,911 financed onto the balance. The calculator runs this comparison at the same price, down payment, and rate, and the default numbers are instructive. FHA's first-year monthly payment of $2,801 is actually slightly lower than the conventional $2,817, because FHA's 0.55% MIP rate undercuts the assumed 0.75% PMI rate. A buyer comparing only the opening payment would pick FHA. But conventional PMI cancels in under twelve years while FHA MIP here runs for life, so the lifetime insurance cost is $29,975 conventional versus $43,855 FHA, and the total loan cost is about $21,400 higher on the FHA side. The honest reading is that FHA's advantage is access, not price: it accepts lower credit scores and down payments that conventional underwriting would reject. If you can qualify conventionally with a similar down payment, the long-run math usually favors conventional because its insurance ends. If you cannot — because of credit, or because you need the 3.5% down option — FHA's higher lifetime cost is the price of being able to buy at all, and the comparison table tells you exactly how large that price is.
Down-payment strategy: 3.5%, 10%, and 20%
Because FHA's costs hinge on loan-to-value, the down payment is the most powerful lever you control, and three thresholds matter. The first is 3.5%, FHA's floor — the minimum that makes the loan possible and the reason many buyers choose FHA at all. Putting down 3.5%, as the default does, keeps your cash outlay small but locks you into life-of-loan MIP and the higher annual rate that applies above 95% LTV. The second threshold is 10%. Crossing it drops your LTV to 90% or below, which flips the MIP duration from life-of-loan to 11 years — the single most valuable change available to an FHA borrower. The extra cash to get from 3.5% to 10% down on a $350,000 home is about $22,750, and in exchange the annual premium stops nearly two decades early; for many buyers that is the best return available on a marginal dollar of down payment. The third threshold is 20%, and at that point the calculus usually changes loans entirely: with 20% down a conventional loan needs no PMI at all, so a borrower who can reach 20% rarely has a reason to choose FHA and its inescapable insurance. The strategic question, then, is which threshold your savings and credit place within reach. If 3.5% is all you can manage, FHA is doing its job and the life-of-loan MIP is the cost of entry. If you are close to 10%, stretching to it is often worth far more than the cash suggests because of the duration flip. And if 20% is achievable, you should at least price a conventional loan before committing to FHA. Use the loan scenarios feature to save a 3.5%, a 10%, and a 20% version side by side; the differences in MIP duration and total cost make the trade concrete rather than abstract.
FHA loan limits and what happens above them
FHA will not insure a loan of any size; every county has a ceiling, and a base loan above it is simply not FHA-eligible. The limits are set annually as a percentage of the conforming loan limit and vary enormously by location to reflect local housing costs. In 2025 the national floor — the limit in lower-cost counties — is around $524,225 for a one-unit home, while the ceiling in the most expensive metropolitan areas reaches roughly $1,209,750, with most counties falling somewhere between. Because the limit is local, the only reliable way to know yours is to look up your specific county, which is why this calculator exposes the FHA loan limit as an adjustable input rather than hard-coding a single national figure. If your base loan exceeds the limit you enter, the tool flags it and reports how far over you are, because the consequence is concrete: the portion above the cap cannot be covered by FHA, so you would need a larger down payment to bring the base loan under the limit, or a different loan product altogether such as a conventional or jumbo mortgage. The limit interacts with the down payment in a way worth noting — since the cap applies to the base loan after your down payment, a buyer just over the limit can sometimes get under it by putting a bit more down. The limit is also a useful reality check on the program's intent: FHA is designed for moderately priced homes relative to an area, and bumping against the ceiling is a signal that you may be shopping above the price range FHA was built to serve, where conventional financing is often the more natural fit.
Qualifying: DTI, credit, and the cash you bring
Getting an FHA loan approved comes down to three things the calculator helps you estimate: your debt-to-income ratios, your credit, and the cash you can bring to closing. FHA underwriters look at two DTI figures. The front-end ratio is your total housing payment divided by gross monthly income, with a guideline of 31%. The back-end ratio adds all your other monthly debts — car loans, student loans, credit-card minimums — and divides by income, with a guideline of 43%. In the default, a $2,801 payment against $7,000 of income is a 40% front-end ratio, and adding $400 of other debts pushes the back-end to 45.7%; both exceed the guidelines, which the DTI card flags as a 'stretch.' That does not necessarily mean rejection — FHA is known for flexibility, and with compensating factors like a strong credit score, meaningful cash reserves, or significant residual income, lenders routinely approve back-end ratios approaching 50%. But it is a warning that the payment is large relative to the income, and the buyer should treat it seriously. Credit is the second pillar: FHA's published minimums allow scores far below conventional thresholds, though the very lowest scores require a larger down payment. The third is cash to close, which the calculator computes as your down payment plus closing costs — $22,750 in the default — and deliberately separates from the financed upfront MIP, which is not a cash cost. Real closing also often requires funding an escrow reserve for the first months of taxes and insurance, which this estimate does not include, so treat the cash-to-close figure as a floor rather than a ceiling. Taken together, these three tests tell you not just whether you can be approved but whether the loan is one you can actually carry.
The exit: refinancing out of FHA insurance
For a borrower stuck with life-of-loan MIP, the most important long-term move is often planned before the loan even closes: the eventual refinance out of FHA. Because the annual premium on a low-down-payment FHA loan never cancels on its own, the standard strategy is to refinance into a conventional loan once you have built roughly 20% equity, at which point conventional financing needs no mortgage insurance at all and the FHA premium disappears with the old loan. Equity grows two ways — through the principal you pay down, shown year by year in the amortization schedule, and through home-price appreciation, which can get you to 20% far faster than scheduled payments alone. A buyer who puts 3.5% down in a rising market might reach the refinance threshold in a handful of years rather than the dozen-plus the payment schedule implies. The refinance is not free or guaranteed, however. It requires qualifying again — your income, credit, and the home's appraised value all have to support the new loan — and it makes sense only if the new rate and the insurance savings outweigh the closing costs of refinancing. If conventional rates have risen sharply since you bought, the math may not work, and you could be better off keeping the FHA loan and its MIP than trading into a higher rate. FHA also offers a streamline refinance that lowers the rate with reduced paperwork, but a streamline keeps the FHA insurance, so it does not solve the life-of-loan problem; only moving to conventional does. The practical takeaway is to treat life-of-loan MIP not as a permanent sentence but as a cost you actively manage, watching your equity and refinancing when the numbers line up — and to model that exit deliberately rather than assuming the premium is forever.
Term choice: how 15 versus 30 years reshapes the bill
The loan term is a second powerful lever, and on an FHA loan it pulls three things at once, which the term-comparison table lays out side by side. The obvious effect is on the monthly payment: shortening the default from 30 years to 15 raises principal and interest from $2,172 to $2,994, because the same balance is repaid in half the time. The larger and less obvious effect is on interest: a 15-year term collapses total interest from $438,320 to $195,197, because you are borrowing the money for far fewer years and the balance falls much faster. The third effect is specific to FHA and easy to miss — the annual MIP rate itself is lower on shorter terms. A 15-year FHA loan above 90% LTV carries a 0.40% annual MIP rate rather than the 0.55% that applies to long terms, so even the insurance is cheaper per dollar, and because the loan is paid off sooner the premium is collected for fewer total months. Stack those three effects and the all-in cost of the default case falls from $819,926 over 30 years to $551,492 over 15 — a difference of more than a quarter of a million dollars. The cost for that saving is the higher monthly payment and the loss of flexibility: a 30-year payment can always be paid faster voluntarily, but a 15-year payment cannot be lowered when money is tight. The right choice depends on whether the larger payment fits comfortably within your budget and your DTI, or whether the breathing room of a 30-year payment is worth its much higher lifetime cost. The comparison table exists to make that trade quantitative — run it with your own numbers and look at both the monthly and the total columns before deciding, because the gap between them is where the real money lives.
Frequently asked questions
How much is FHA mortgage insurance?
Two parts. An upfront premium (UFMIP) of 1.75% of the base loan — $5,911 on a $337,750 loan — usually financed into the mortgage, plus an annual premium charged monthly. In the standard tier the annual rate is 0.50%–0.55% on terms over 15 years and 0.15%–0.40% on shorter terms, depending on your LTV. At 96.5% LTV on a 30-year loan it is 0.55%, about $158 a month in year one.
Does FHA mortgage insurance ever go away?
It depends on your down payment. If you put down 10% or more (90% LTV or below), the annual MIP cancels after 11 years. If you put down less than 10%, it stays for the entire life of the loan — the only way to remove it is to refinance into a different loan, typically a conventional one once you reach about 20% equity.
Why is the financed loan bigger than my base loan?
Because the 1.75% upfront MIP is rolled into the mortgage. On a $337,750 base loan that adds $5,911, so you actually amortize $343,661. Your principal and interest, and the annual MIP, are both calculated on that larger total loan, not on the base loan alone.
Is an FHA loan cheaper than a conventional loan?
Often cheaper to get into, but not always cheaper overall. In the default case FHA's monthly payment ($2,801) is slightly below a comparable conventional loan ($2,817) because FHA's MIP rate is lower than the assumed PMI rate. But conventional PMI cancels at 78% LTV in under 12 years while FHA MIP here lasts for life, so over the full term the FHA loan costs about $21,400 more. FHA wins on low down payments and lenient credit; conventional usually wins on long-run insurance cost.
How much cash do I need to close an FHA loan?
Your down payment plus closing costs. In the default that is $12,250 down plus about $10,500 in closing costs, for $22,750. The upfront MIP is financed, so it is not part of your cash to close — though some buyers also need to fund an escrow reserve, which this estimate does not include.
What DTI do I need to qualify for an FHA loan?
FHA's manual-underwriting guidelines are a 31% front-end ratio (housing cost ÷ gross income) and a 43% back-end ratio (all debts ÷ gross income). The defaults here come to 40% and 45.7%, which is a stretch — FHA can still approve higher ratios, sometimes near 50% back-end, with strong credit, cash reserves, or residual income, but it is not guaranteed.
Should I choose a 15-year or 30-year FHA loan?
A 15-year term raises the payment but saves enormously on interest and insurance. In the default, principal and interest rise from $2,172 to $2,994 a month, but total interest falls from $438,320 to $195,197, the annual MIP rate drops, and the all-in cost falls from $819,926 to $551,492. Choose 15 years if the higher payment fits your budget; choose 30 years if you need the lower monthly cost or want the flexibility.