Leave the date blank to start from next month. The schedule below updates as you type, and you can export it as a CSV to open in a spreadsheet.
Loan summary
Assumes interest accrues monthly on the outstanding balance with equal payments and no fees. Rounding may move the final payment by a few cents. Nothing you enter is stored or sent anywhere.
Your amortization schedule
The payment stays the same while the split shifts. Watch the interest column fall and the principal column rise as the balance comes down.
| No. | Due | Payment | Interest | Principal | Balance |
|---|
What an amortization schedule shows
An amortization schedule lists every payment on a loan and splits each one into interest and principal. It answers questions a single monthly figure cannot: how much of this month's payment is actually reducing the debt, what the balance will be a year from now, and how much total interest the loan costs.
The word itself comes from the Latin for killing off, which is a fair description. Each payment kills off part of the principal until nothing remains.
How each payment is split
Every month, interest is charged on the balance you still owe. That interest comes out of your payment first, and everything left over reduces the principal. Because the balance falls each month, the interest charge falls too, so more of the identical payment goes to principal each time.
On $1,500 over 12 months at 29.9%, payment one is about $37 interest and $109 principal. Payment twelve is about $4 interest and $142 principal. Same $146.16 both times.
Why extra payments work so well
An extra payment goes entirely to principal. That permanently removes every future interest charge that would have accrued on it, which is why $50 a month can cut months off a loan and save far more than $50 in interest.
The formula behind it
The payment comes from the standard amortization formula, where M is the monthly payment, P the principal, r the monthly rate and n the number of payments:
Each row of the schedule then follows mechanically: interest equals the balance times r, principal equals the payment minus that interest, and the new balance is the old one minus the principal.
Reading it for the useful parts
- The first few rows show how front-loaded the interest is. On short consumer loans the effect is mild; on a 30-year mortgage it is dramatic.
- The balance column tells you what you would need to settle the loan at any point.
- The final row may differ by a few cents because of rounding across the term.
- The total interest is the number to compare between terms. A longer term always increases it.
Loans that amortize, and loans that do not
| Type | Behaviour |
|---|---|
| Installment loan | Fully amortizing. Equal payments, balance reaches zero on the final date. |
| Credit card | Not amortizing. Minimum payments are a percentage of a moving balance, with no end date. |
| Interest-only loan | Payments cover interest alone; the principal is still owed in full at the end. |
| Payday loan | No schedule. The whole balance plus fees is due at once. |
Every TrueLink loan is fully amortizing, which is why we can tell you the exact end date on the day you sign. More on the product is on the installment loans page.
Questions about amortization
How the split works, why extra payments punch above their weight, and which loans do not amortize at all.
What is an amortization schedule?
A table listing every payment on a loan, split into interest and principal, with the remaining balance after each one. It shows exactly how a debt is repaid over time and what the loan costs in total.
Why is more of my early payment going to interest?
Because interest is charged on the balance you still owe, and early on that balance is at its largest. As the principal falls, so does the monthly interest charge, so a growing share of the same payment reduces the debt.
How do extra payments change the schedule?
An extra payment goes entirely to principal, which permanently removes all future interest that would have accrued on that amount. The loan ends earlier and the total interest falls by more than the extra you paid.
Does the final payment differ from the others?
Often by a few cents. Payments are rounded to the cent each month, so the last one is adjusted to bring the balance to exactly zero.
Is this the same as my lender's schedule?
It will match closely for a fixed-rate loan with monthly interest accrual and no fees. Lenders that accrue interest daily, or that charge an origination fee, will produce slightly different figures. Your loan agreement is the authoritative version.
Can I download the schedule?
Yes. The CSV button exports every row so you can open it in a spreadsheet, add your own columns, or keep it alongside your budget. Nothing you enter here is stored or transmitted.