See every payment — principal, interest, cumulative totals, and remaining balance — month by month over the full life of your loan.
| Month | Payment | Principal | Interest | Cum. Interest | Balance | Paydown |
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Results based on user-entered values. For conventional fixed-rate loans only. See Disclaimer.
An amortization schedule shows exactly how each monthly payment on a fixed-rate mortgage is split between principal (what you actually owe) and interest (what the lender charges for the loan). Early in the loan, most of your payment goes toward interest because the balance is highest. As the balance shrinks each month, more of each payment shifts toward principal — that's why the "principal" column grows and the "interest" column shrinks as you move down the table, even though your total monthly payment stays the same.
This front-loaded interest structure is why paying off a mortgage early — even by adding a modest extra amount each month — saves more in total interest than the extra payment itself. Every extra dollar applied to principal reduces the balance the lender charges interest on for every remaining month of the loan.
The calculator uses the standard fixed-rate amortization formula: monthly interest is your current balance multiplied by the monthly interest rate (annual rate ÷ 12), and principal is the remainder of your fixed payment after that interest is subtracted. Any extra payment you enter is applied directly to principal, which is what shortens the loan term and reduces total interest paid — the "Months Saved" summary card reflects that difference automatically.
Each year in the schedule above is broken out as its own row so you can see the principal-versus-interest split shift over time without scrolling through 360 individual months. Early years are dominated by interest — on a typical 30-year loan starting near 7%, well over half of your first year's payments go toward interest rather than principal. That ratio flips gradually every year as the balance shrinks, until eventually most of each payment is reducing your balance rather than paying the lender. Use the "View Year" filter buttons to jump straight to a specific year instead of scrolling — useful if you're trying to see what your balance will look like in, say, year 7 (a common refinance-consideration point) or year 15 (a common "how much equity do I have" checkpoint).
Because interest is calculated on your remaining balance every single month, an extra payment applied today keeps compounding in your favor for every month that follows — you're not just skipping one month's interest, you're permanently lowering the balance interest gets charged on for the rest of the loan. That's why the "Months Saved" figure often looks disproportionately large compared to the extra amount: on a $320,000 loan at 7%, an extra $200/month can cut several years off a 30-year term and save tens of thousands in interest, even though the extra payments themselves only add up to a fraction of that. If you're deciding between paying extra on your mortgage or investing that money elsewhere, the guaranteed "return" of an extra mortgage payment is effectively your interest rate — compare that to what you'd realistically expect from the alternative before deciding.
Two of the most common reasons people pull up an amortization schedule are to check how much equity they've built before selling, and to see exactly how many years of interest payments they'd be "restarting" if they refinanced. Both questions come straight out of the "Balance" column: subtract the balance at any given month from your original home value (adjusted for any appreciation) to estimate equity, or compare your current balance and remaining months against a hypothetical new 30-year loan to see the term-extension effect that our refinance calculator analyzes directly. If a refinance is on your radar, run the numbers on both calculators together — this schedule shows you exactly where you are today, and the refinance calculator shows what changes from here.
This calculator assumes a single, unchanging fixed interest rate for the full loan term, a consistent extra payment amount every month (rather than occasional lump sums), and no missed or late payments. It does not model adjustable-rate mortgages, balloon payments, biweekly payment schedules, or prepayment penalties. It also covers principal and interest only — property taxes, homeowners insurance, PMI, and HOA dues are not included in the schedule, since those are typically collected in a separate escrow account and don't reduce your loan balance. For your complete monthly obligation including those items, use our PITI calculator.