Loan Calculator

This loan calculator takes a loan amount, an annual interest rate and a term in months, and works out the payment per month, the total interest and the total amount repaid, along with a full installment-by-installment schedule. It supports two repayment methods, Equal Installments and Equal Principal, so it suits car loans, personal loans and business loans when you want to see what a loan will cost before you sign. It does the standard principal-and-interest math only. It does not include handling fees, insurance, guarantee fees or early-repayment penalties that a real contract may add, and it cannot tell you whether a lender's product is legitimate. Treat every figure as an estimate and rely on your loan agreement and the lender's own schedule for the final numbers.

How to use it

1. At the top, the 'Loan purpose' buttons (Car Loan, Consumer Loan, Business Loan, Custom) simply fill the 'Annual rate (%)' box with 5, 8 or 4 as a reference. 'Custom' changes nothing. You can ignore this row and type your own rate.
2. Choose 'Equal Installments' or 'Equal Principal'. Equal Installments is selected by default.
3. Enter the principal in 'Loan amount (CNY)', for example 100000.
4. Enter the rate from your contract in 'Annual rate (%)' and the number of months in 'Repayment term (months)'. 36 means the loan is repaid over 36 months.
5. The page immediately shows 'First month payment', 'Total interest' and 'Total repayment', followed by a repayment schedule listing the payment, principal, interest and remaining balance for each installment. Only the first 12 rows are shown at first; click 'Show all N installments' to see the rest.
6. To keep the schedule, click 'Export CSV' above the table. It downloads a file called repayment-schedule.csv that opens directly in Excel or similar tools.

A worked example, computed with the tool's own formula

Take a loan of 100,000 at 5% a year over 36 months. With Equal Installments the payment is about 2,997.09 per month, shown on the page rounded as 2,997. Total interest is about 7,895.23 (shown as 7,895) and the total repaid is about 107,895.23 (shown as 107,895). In the first installment roughly 416.67 is interest and 2,580.42 is principal; each later month the interest share shrinks and the principal share grows while the payment stays the same. Switch to Equal Principal and each installment repays a fixed 100,000 / 36, about 2,777.78, of principal. The first payment is about 3,194.44 (shown as 3,194), the last drops to about 2,789.35, total interest is about 7,708.33 and the total repaid is about 107,708.33. With the same rate and term, Equal Principal costs less interest, but the early payments are heavier.

Understanding the two repayment methods

• Equal Installments: the payment is the same every month, calculated from the monthly rate (annual rate divided by 12) and the number of months with the standard annuity formula. It makes budgeting easy, but early payments are mostly interest, so total interest is higher than with Equal Principal.
• Equal Principal: the same slice of principal is repaid each month and interest is charged on the remaining balance, so payments fall month by month. Total interest is lower, but the first month is the most demanding. The 'First month payment' card shows that first figure.
• At a 0% rate, Equal Installments simply divides the principal evenly across the months and the total interest is zero.

Supported scope and known limits

• The monthly rate is the annual rate divided by 12, the usual nominal-rate approach. The tool does not convert daily rates, monthly rates or flat fee rates into an annual rate for you; do that conversion yourself first.
• Only monthly repayment is supported, and the term is treated as a whole number of months (36.5 becomes 36). There is no interest-only or bullet-repayment option.
• It does not include handling fees, insurance, guarantee or account fees, and it does not model early repayment, floating-rate resets, grace periods or late-payment penalties.
• Amounts on screen are rounded to whole units, so the three summary figures may differ by about 1 from what you get adding rounded rows by hand. The CSV keeps two decimals.
• The CSV header row is always in Chinese (period, payment, principal, interest, remaining principal), even if the page is set to English. The file includes a byte-order mark so Excel reads it correctly.
• If the amount or term is empty, zero or negative, or the rate is negative, the page shows 'Please enter a valid loan amount, interest rate and term'. There is no upper limit, so sanity-check very large inputs yourself.

FAQ: My contract states a daily or monthly rate. What do I enter?

The tool expects an annual rate. If your contract states a monthly rate, multiplying by 12 gives the nominal annual rate. For a daily rate, multiply by 360 or 365 depending on what the contract specifies. Many installment products describe their cost as a fee per period; typing that figure in directly would understate the real cost. Work out the annual rate from the total you will actually repay first, then use this tool to double-check. The calculator does not do that conversion for you.

FAQ: Why doesn't the result match my bank's schedule exactly?

Several things can differ. A bank may charge interest by actual days instead of a flat monthly rate, the first period may be longer or shorter because the disbursement date differs from the payment date, rounding may be handled differently, and the contract may add fees or insurance. This tool uses the simplest standard formula, which is good for comparing offers and planning a budget but is no substitute for the lender's official schedule.

FAQ: Which is cheaper, Equal Installments or Equal Principal?

On total interest alone, Equal Principal is normally lower for the same amount, rate and term; in the example above the gap is about 187. But cheaper is not the only question. If large early payments would strain your cash flow, the steady Equal Installments payment may suit you better. Switch between the two buttons and compare the first payment and the total interest before deciding.

FAQ: Can I use it for a mortgage?

The math is the same as the equal-installment and equal-principal methods used for mortgages, and long terms such as 240 or 360 months work fine. However, there is no support for combined commercial and provident-fund loans, rate resets or prepayment, and the purpose presets only cover car, consumer and business loans. Use it for a rough estimate only.

FAQ: What is in the exported CSV?

One row per installment: number, payment, principal, interest and remaining principal, each with two decimals. The remaining balance in the final row is 0; the code clamps any tiny negative rounding residue to 0. You can drop the file into your own budget sheet or compare it line by line with the schedule your lender sends.

Privacy and processing

All calculations run in your browser. The tool's code makes no request that sends your amount, rate or term to a server, and it does not save those numbers in local storage. The CSV is generated locally by your browser and downloaded directly. After a refresh the inputs return to the defaults of 100,000, 5% and 36 months.