Mortgage Calculator USA
Estimate your monthly mortgage payment instantly — with principal, interest, property tax, insurance, PMI, and a full amortization schedule with payoff date.
Amortization Schedule
Enter your loan details in the Mortgage Calculator tab and click Calculate to generate your full amortization schedule.
Mortgage Calculator USA: A Complete Guide to Your Monthly Payment (2026)
A mortgage payment is never just one number. It’s principal, interest, property tax, insurance, and often PMI, bundled into a single monthly bill — and each piece moves independently depending on your down payment, your loan term, and which state you’re buying in. This guide breaks down exactly what’s in that number, what a $200K, $300K, and $400K mortgage actually costs right now, and where people typically get the math wrong.
How to Use the Calculator Above
- Home Price. Enter the purchase price, or your home’s current appraised value if you’re refinancing.
- Down Payment. Toggle between dollars and percentage. 20% or more removes PMI from the equation entirely.
- Loan Type and Term. 30-year fixed is still the default choice for most U.S. buyers, but the calculator also runs 20, 15, and 10-year terms plus ARM options.
- Interest Rate. Use your actual lender quote if you have one; otherwise Freddie Mac’s PMMS tracks the current national average.
- Property Tax Rate. This is the one field people guess wrong most often — see the state breakdown below before you accept the default.
- Homeowners Insurance. National averages sit around $2,500–$3,000/year for 2026, though wildfire- and hurricane-exposed states run noticeably higher.
- Advanced Options. Add your PMI rate, any HOA fee, and an extra monthly payment amount to see how early payoff scenarios change your numbers.
What’s Actually in Your Mortgage Payment (PITI)
Lenders bundle four things into your monthly bill and call it PITI: Principal, Interest, Taxes, and Insurance. Your loan qualification is based on the full PITI figure, not just principal and interest — which is why two people borrowing the same amount can qualify for very different loan sizes depending on where they’re buying.
Principal
This is the slice that actually pays down what you owe. Early in a 30-year loan it’s a small slice — often under 25% of the payment in year one — because standard amortization front-loads interest and backs off it gradually as your balance shrinks.
Interest
Calculated monthly on whatever you still owe. On a $320,000 loan at 6.5%, the very first month’s interest alone is $320,000 × (0.065 ÷ 12) = $1,733 — more than three-quarters of that month’s total payment. As the balance drops, this number shrinks and principal takes over more of the payment.
Property Taxes and Insurance
Most lenders collect both monthly through an escrow account and pay the bills on your behalf. Insurance is close to a flat cost nationally; property tax is where the real variation lives — which is exactly why a national-average tax rate can throw your estimate off by hundreds of dollars a month depending on where you live.
What a $200K, $300K, and $400K Mortgage Actually Costs
These are the numbers people actually search for, so here they are directly — all assuming a 30-year fixed loan at 6.5% with 20% down.
| Home Price | Loan Amount | Monthly P&I | Estimated Total PITI |
|---|---|---|---|
| $200,000 | $160,000 | ~$1,011 | ~$1,300–$1,500 |
| $300,000 | $240,000 | ~$1,517 | ~$1,950–$2,250 |
| $400,000 | $320,000 | ~$2,023 | ~$2,600–$2,900 |
The PITI range is wide on purpose — it depends heavily on your state’s property tax rate, which is the biggest variable most generic calculators ignore. Nationally, the typical new mortgage payment in 2026 runs somewhere around $2,100–$2,400/month, but that “average” hides enormous state-by-state swings.
Property Taxes Vary a Lot by State
If you’re pulling up a mortgage calculator for Oregon or Wisconsin specifically, plugging in the generic national tax rate will quietly wreck your estimate — the gap between low-tax and high-tax states is bigger than most people expect.
| State | Typical Effective Property Tax Rate | Monthly Tax on a $300,000 Home |
|---|---|---|
| Alabama | ~0.38% | ~$95 |
| South Carolina | ~0.44%–0.48% | ~$110–$120 |
| Oregon | ~0.81% | ~$203 |
| Wisconsin | ~1.3%–1.6% | ~$325–$400 |
That’s roughly a $300/month gap between an Alabama mortgage and a Wisconsin mortgage on an identical $300,000 home — nothing to do with the loan itself, purely the local tax rate. A mortgage calculator for Alabama or South Carolina should use a rate closer to 0.4–0.5%, not the national 1.1% default; a mortgage calculator for Wisconsin should push closer to 1.3–1.6%. Always confirm the exact figure with your county assessor, since rates shift by county and even by school district.
30-Year vs. 15-Year: The Real Tradeoff
A 30-year loan keeps your required payment as low as possible and gives you room to breathe if income gets tight. A 15-year loan usually carries a rate 0.5–0.75 points lower and forces you to build equity twice as fast — on a $320,000 loan, that can mean $250,000+ less in total interest over the life of the loan. The catch is a monthly payment that’s typically 40–55% higher.
The honest advice: take the 15-year only if the higher payment fits comfortably into your budget without cutting into savings or an emergency fund. If it would stretch you thin, a 30-year loan with occasional extra principal payments gets you most of the same benefit without locking you into a higher required payment every month.
How Much Down Payment Do You Actually Need?
- 3% down — Fannie Mae HomeReady / Freddie Mac Home Possible programs for qualifying first-time buyers, with income limits. PMI applies.
- 3.5% down — FHA minimum, available with a 580+ credit score.
- 10% down — Lowers your loan amount and often your PMI rate, though PMI still applies.
- 20% down — Removes PMI entirely. On a $400,000 home that’s $80,000 up front; on a $300,000 home it’s $60,000.
On a $300,000 house specifically: 3% is $9,000, 5% is $15,000, 10% is $30,000, and 20% is $60,000. Beyond the down payment itself, budget another 2-5% of the purchase price for closing costs — appraisal, title, origination fees — plus one to three months of your new PITI payment as a cash cushion after closing. For that same $300,000 home, that’s realistically another $6,000–$15,000 you’ll want available on top of whatever down payment you choose.
PMI: The Cost Nobody Explains Well
PMI typically runs 0.3%–1.5% of your loan amount annually, and it has nothing to do with protecting you — it protects the lender if you default on a loan with less than 20% equity. On a $300,000 loan at 0.85%, that’s $2,550/year, or $213/month, tacked onto your payment for as long as your LTV sits above 80%.
The good news: it’s not permanent. Under the Homeowners Protection Act, you can request cancellation once your balance hits 80% of the original purchase price, and the lender is required to drop it automatically at 78%. Making extra principal payments is the most direct way to get there faster — the calculator above shows exactly which month PMI is projected to end based on your inputs.
Mortgage Recast vs. Refinance vs. Extra Payments
These three get confused constantly, and they do genuinely different things.
A mortgage recast keeps your existing loan exactly as it is — same rate, same term — but you put a lump sum toward principal, and the lender re-amortizes what’s left into a lower required monthly payment. No new appraisal, no credit check, no closing costs beyond a small $150–$500 admin fee. It’s the right move if you come into a windfall (inheritance, bonus, home sale proceeds) and want your bill to actually drop, not just pay off faster.
Refinancing replaces the loan entirely with a brand-new one — new rate, new term, full underwriting, and real closing costs (typically 2-5% of the loan). It only makes sense if you can meaningfully beat your current rate or need to change your loan structure.
Extra payments (with no formal recast request) shorten your loan and cut total interest, but your required monthly payment stays exactly the same — you’re just paying ahead. If your goal is a lower monthly bill right now, a recast does that; extra payments alone don’t.
How Much House Can You Actually Afford?
Lenders qualify you using the 28% rule: your total PITI shouldn’t exceed 28% of gross monthly income, and all debts combined (the back-end ratio) should stay under roughly 43%. That’s the number a bank will approve you for — not necessarily what’s comfortable.
Dave Ramsey’s rule is stricter on three counts: no more than 25% of your take-home pay (after tax, not gross), only on a 15-year fixed loan, with 20% down already in place. Run the math and Ramsey’s number comes out meaningfully lower than what a lender would approve — which is the point. It’s a conservative personal-finance guideline built to leave room in your budget, not a lending standard, and it will feel restrictive if you’re used to thinking in terms of what you “qualify for.”
2026 Conforming Loan Limits
The 2026 FHFA conforming loan limit is $832,750 for single-family homes in most counties, up from $806,500 in 2025. High-cost counties (parts of California, New York, Colorado, and Hawaii) go as high as $1,249,125. Anything above your county’s limit becomes a jumbo mortgage, which typically demands a stronger credit score, a larger down payment, and several months of cash reserves. Check FHFA.gov for your specific county.
Also see our Federal Income Tax Calculator for how mortgage interest affects your tax bill, and our Loan Calculator for side-by-side loan comparisons.