Calculate your UK loan repayments.
Loan Repayment Calculator
Full amortisation, overpayments & fee breakdown
Your repayment breakdown
| Year | Principal | Interest | Balance |
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UK Loan Repayment Calculator: How It Works and How to Use It
A plain-English guide to working out your monthly loan repayments, understanding APR, and seeing exactly what overpayments and early repayment charges do to the total cost of borrowing.
Why this calculator is the one to trust
- Uses the exact reducing-balance formula UK lenders use to work out a fixed monthly payment — not a rounded-off shortcut.
- Every figure comes from one full month-by-month schedule, so the monthly payment, total interest, payoff date and year-by-year table can never disagree with each other.
- Covers the details most free calculators skip: an arrangement fee, a one-off lump sum in any month you choose, a regular extra monthly payment, and an early repayment charge worked out on what you actually overpaid.
- Fully transparent — you can check every figure yourself against the worked examples further down this page.
- What is a loan repayment calculator?
- How to use this loan repayment calculator
- How UK loan repayments are actually calculated
- Monthly payments at a glance (comparison tables)
- How your loan term changes the total interest
- Overpayments: paying a loan off early
- Early repayment charges, explained
- Things worth checking before you borrow
- Frequently asked questions
- Add this calculator to your own website
What is a loan repayment calculator?
A loan repayment calculator does one job: it turns a loan amount, an interest rate and a length of time into a monthly figure you can actually budget around. Put in what you want to borrow, the APR you've been quoted (or the one you're comparing against another offer), and how long you'd like to take to clear it, and it works out what you'd pay each month, how much of that is interest, and roughly when you'd be debt-free.
This particular loan repayment calculator is built to go a bit further than a basic amount-rate-term box. It covers the situations that actually come up once a loan is running: paying a little extra most months, putting a bonus or tax rebate straight onto the balance as a one-off lump sum, an arrangement fee added on top of what you borrow, and the early repayment charge some lenders apply if you clear the debt faster than the agreement expected. You can also flip the whole thing around and start from a monthly payment you know you can afford, and let it work out roughly how long that would take to pay off instead of picking a term yourself.
It's aimed at personal loans — the kind used for a car, home improvements, a wedding, or consolidating a few smaller debts into one payment — rather than mortgages, which work on a different scale and usually run for 20 to 35 years.
How to use this loan repayment calculator
Every field on the calculator maps to something real on a loan agreement. Here's what each one does and why it's there.
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Enter your loan amount
Type the amount into the Loan amount box, or drag the slider underneath it to the figure you want. The slider covers £500 to £60,000, which fits the vast majority of personal loans, but the box itself isn't limited to that — if you're working something out for a £75,000 loan, just type the number straight in.
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Set the interest rate (APR)
Enter the APR from your loan offer, or the rate you're comparing a lender against. It's worth remembering this is the APR, not always the headline "interest rate" a lender advertises on a billboard — a representative APR is only what at least 51% of accepted applicants actually get, so your personal rate could end up higher or lower depending on your credit history.
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Choose how you want to work it out
The "I want to repay by" toggle switches between two directions:
- Loan term — you pick how many years or months, and the calculator works out the monthly payment needed to clear the loan by then.
- Fixed payment — you enter what you can afford each month, and it works out roughly how long that would take instead.
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Pick your loan term
Use the Years/Months switch to set the term in whichever unit suits you — handy if a lender has quoted something like "40 months" rather than a round number of years. The term can run up to 40 years, though personal loans in practice are usually one to seven years.
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Open "Advanced options" for fees and overpayments
This is where the calculator earns its keep. Click the arrow to reveal five extra fields:
- Arrangement fee — a one-off setup charge some lenders add to the loan itself, which then gets repaid with interest along with everything else. Only enter this if it isn't already baked into the APR you were quoted.
- Extra / month — a regular amount you plan to pay on top of your normal instalment, every month, for as long as the loan runs.
- One-off lump sum and Applied in month — a single extra payment (a bonus, a tax refund, anything) and which repayment month it lands in. Month 12 means the end of year one, month 24 the end of year two, and so on.
- Early repayment charge — the percentage your lender charges on money you pay early, if any. Leave it at 0% if your loan doesn't have one.
- Repayments start — the month your first payment is due, so the payoff date shown further down lines up with your actual calendar rather than today's date.
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Press Calculate
The results panel opens with three tabs:
- Breakdown — your monthly repayment, a principal-versus-interest ring showing what share of your money goes where, the same payment shown as a daily, weekly and yearly figure, and headline numbers for total repayable, total interest, payoff date, months saved and interest saved from any overpayments.
- Graph — a line chart of your balance falling and your interest building up over the life of the loan. Move your finger or mouse across it to see the exact balance and interest paid for any individual month.
- Table — a year-by-year breakdown of principal paid, interest paid and remaining balance, so you can see precisely how the split between the two shifts as the loan matures.
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Copy or download your results
The Copy summary button copies a short text summary of your numbers, ready to paste into a message or note. Download schedule saves the full month-by-month payment schedule as a CSV file you can open in a spreadsheet.
How UK loan repayments are actually calculated
Most fixed-rate personal loans in the UK use what's called a reducing-balance (or amortising) formula. Every month you pay a fixed amount; part of it covers that month's interest on whatever you still owe, and the rest reduces the balance. Because the balance keeps shrinking, the interest portion shrinks with it, so more of each payment goes towards the debt itself as the loan goes on — even though the monthly amount never changes.
The formula behind it looks like this:
It looks more intimidating written out than it is in practice. Here's what it actually produces for a £10,000 loan at 7.9% APR over 3 years (36 months):
| Year | Principal paid | Interest paid | Remaining balance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Year 1 | £3,075 | £680 | £6,925 |
| Year 2 | £3,326 | £428 | £3,599 |
| Year 3 | £3,599 | £156 | £0 |
| Total | £10,000 | £1,264 | — |
Monthly repayment: £312.90. Notice how the interest paid drops every year even though the monthly payment stays exactly the same — that's the reducing-balance effect in action.
Monthly payments at a glance
These two tables are handy as a rough reference point before you plug your own numbers into the calculator above. Both use 7.9% APR as the example rate — your actual APR will depend on the lender and your credit profile, so treat these as a starting point rather than a quote.
By loan term (£10,000 borrowed)
| Term | Monthly payment | Total interest | Total repaid |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 year | £869.42 | £433.06 | £10,433.06 |
| 2 years | £451.82 | £843.61 | £10,843.61 |
| 3 years | £312.90 | £1,264.49 | £11,264.49 |
| 5 years | £202.29 | £2,137.14 | £12,137.14 |
| 7 years | £155.36 | £3,050.61 | £13,050.61 |
| 10 years | £120.80 | £4,495.98 | £14,495.98 |
The longer the term, the lower the monthly payment — but the more than three times over the total interest can climb between a 1-year and a 10-year term on the exact same loan.
By loan amount (7.9% APR, 3-year term)
| Loan amount | Monthly payment | Total interest |
|---|---|---|
| £3,000 | £93.87 | £379.35 |
| £5,000 | £156.45 | £632.25 |
| £7,500 | £234.68 | £948.37 |
| £10,000 | £312.90 | £1,264.49 |
| £15,000 | £469.35 | £1,896.74 |
| £20,000 | £625.81 | £2,528.98 |
| £25,000 | £782.26 | £3,161.23 |
How your loan term changes the total interest
Total interest paid on a £10,000 loan at 7.9% APR, by loan term
A term that stretches from 3 years to 10 years cuts the monthly payment from £312.90 to £120.80 — but it roughly triples the total interest, from £1,264 to £4,496, on the exact same amount borrowed at the exact same rate. Neither choice is automatically wrong; it depends on whether your budget needs the lower monthly figure or you'd rather pay the least overall. The calculator's Graph tab lets you flick between different terms and see this trade-off for your own numbers rather than these example ones.
Overpayments: paying a loan off early
Because interest is charged on whatever balance is left, any extra money you put towards a loan — whether that's a small regular top-up or a one-off lump sum — reduces the balance interest gets charged on for every month that follows. That's why overpaying, even by a modest amount, tends to save more in interest than the size of the overpayment itself might suggest.
Using the same £10,000, 7.9% APR, 3-year loan as the worked example above:
| Overpayment | Loan cleared in | Interest saved |
|---|---|---|
| None (standard schedule) | 36 months | — |
| +£50 extra every month | 31 months | £193.70 |
| £1,000 lump sum in month 12 | 33 months | £159.97 |
A regular £50 a month here trims five months off the term and saves more in interest than a single £1,000 lump sum does, simply because it starts reducing the balance sooner and keeps doing so every month rather than just once. The calculator's Advanced options let you test both, together or separately, against your own loan figures.
Early repayment charges, explained
Most personal loans taken out in the UK are regulated under the Consumer Credit Act 1974, which gives borrowers the right to settle a loan early — either in full or with a partial overpayment. Lenders are allowed to charge a little extra to cover some of the interest they lose out on, under the Consumer Credit (Early Settlement) Regulations 2004, but that charge is capped:
| Time left on the loan | Maximum early settlement charge |
|---|---|
| 12 months or less remaining | Up to 28 days' interest |
| More than 12 months remaining | Up to 58 days' interest |
For partial overpayments rather than settling the whole loan, many agreements taken out since February 2011 allow you to overpay up to £8,000 in any 12-month period without any charge at all. Above that figure, a lender can charge up to 1% of the amount overpaid (or 0.5% if less than a year remains on the loan). These figures are general rules rather than universal ones, so it's always worth checking the specific terms in your own loan agreement — the calculator's Early repayment charge field lets you enter whatever rate applies to you and see the effect on your total cost.
Things worth checking before you borrow
- Compare the APR, not just the headline interest rate — the APR folds in compulsory fees, so it's the fairer number for comparing two different loans side by side.
- Remember the representative APR is only guaranteed to at least 51% of accepted applicants; ask the lender for your personal rate before assuming you'll get the advertised one.
- Look at the total amount repayable over the full term, not just whether the monthly payment fits your budget — a longer term can look affordable monthly while costing considerably more overall.
- Check whether there's an arrangement fee, and whether it's added to the loan (and so charged interest itself) or taken off what you receive upfront.
- Ask about overpayment and early repayment terms before you sign, not after — it's far easier to compare this while you're still choosing a lender.
- A soft-search eligibility checker (most comparison sites and many lenders offer one) shows your likely rate without leaving a mark on your credit file, which is worth doing before a full application.
Frequently asked questions
How are loan repayments calculated in the UK?
UK personal loans typically use a reducing-balance formula. Each fixed monthly payment covers that month's interest on the outstanding balance first, with the remainder coming off the amount you owe. Because the balance falls a little more each month, the interest charged the following month is slightly lower too, so a growing share of every payment goes towards clearing the debt as the loan progresses — even though the payment amount itself never changes.
Can I overpay a personal loan without a penalty?
Often yes, at least up to a point. Many loan agreements taken out since February 2011 let you overpay up to £8,000 in any rolling 12-month period without any charge. Beyond that, or on older agreements, a lender can apply an early repayment charge capped by law. The exact allowance varies by lender, so check your credit agreement or ask them directly before making a large overpayment.
What is an early repayment charge, and how much can lenders charge?
It's a fee some lenders apply when you pay off a loan faster than originally agreed, to cover part of the interest they'd otherwise have earned. Under the Consumer Credit (Early Settlement) Regulations 2004, the cap is up to 58 days' interest if more than 12 months remain on the loan, or up to 28 days' interest if 12 months or less remain.
How much interest will I pay on a £10,000 loan?
It depends entirely on the APR and the term. At 7.9% APR over 3 years, a £10,000 loan costs around £1,264 in total interest with a monthly payment of £312.90. Stretch the same loan to 5 years and the interest rises to roughly £2,137, even though the monthly payment drops to about £202. Use the calculator at the top of this page to check the exact figures for your own rate and term.
Does a longer loan term always cost more overall?
Usually, yes, assuming the APR stays the same. A longer term spreads the same borrowing over more monthly payments, which lowers each individual payment but means interest keeps accruing on the balance for longer, so the total interest paid is higher. The trade-off is genuinely a personal one between monthly affordability and total cost, not a case of one term being objectively "better".
What's the difference between the interest rate and the APR?
The interest rate is the cost of borrowing the money itself. The APR (Annual Percentage Rate) bundles that interest rate together with any compulsory fees into a single yearly figure, which is why it's the number regulators require lenders to advertise and the fairest one to compare across different loan offers.
Can I use this calculator if I'd rather set a monthly budget than a fixed term?
Yes. Switch the "I want to repay by" toggle to Fixed payment, enter the amount you can comfortably afford each month, and the calculator works out roughly how long it would take to clear the loan at your chosen APR, along with the total interest over that period.
Is this loan calculator suitable for guarantor or bad-credit loans?
The maths works the same way regardless of loan type, so you can use it for any fixed-rate, fixed-term personal loan by entering the APR you've been offered. Bear in mind that guarantor and bad-credit loans often carry a notably higher APR than standard personal loans, so it's worth entering your actual quoted rate rather than assuming a typical high-street figure.
Add this calculator to your own website
If the calculator looks cut off or leaves extra space on your site, just adjust the height value in the code above until it fits.
This calculator and guide are for general information only and provide estimates, not financial advice or a loan offer. Actual rates, fees and terms depend on the lender and your individual circumstances. Always check the terms of your own credit agreement, particularly around overpayments and early repayment charges, before making borrowing decisions.
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