Down Payment Calculator – How Much Do You Need for a House?
The down payment is the number every home search turns on — and it is never the whole bill. Type a price and a deposit, in dollars or percent, and this page works out the loan you are left with, flags whether PMI joins your monthly payment, previews that payment, and totals the full cash you will actually need to close.
The home, and what you are putting down
Advanced options — closing costs, earnest money, PMI, rate and term
Closing costs, earnest money, PMI, rate and term are already included in the result with their default values — open Advanced options to change them.
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Your down payment, and the loan it leaves
The numbers that matter
No PMI — you are at the 20% line NO PMI
At 20.00% down on a conventional loan there is no private mortgage insurance to pay. Drop below 20% and PMI joins the monthly bill until the loan falls to about 80% of the home’s value — try 10% in the boxes and watch it appear.
Cash to close — the money you actually need
Reading this purchase honestly
On a $400,000 home with 20.00% down, you bring $80,000.00 of down payment and $12,000.00 of closing costs — $92,000.00 of cash in total — and the $320,000 loan that remains costs an estimated $2,128.97 a month in principal and interest at 7% over 30 years, with no PMI on top. The down payment is the deposit; the cash to close is the commitment.
The payment preview covers principal and interest only (plus PMI when it applies). Property taxes and homeowner insurance ride on top of a real monthly bill and vary too much by address to guess here — the full mortgage calculator breaks a payment down further.
- A smaller deposit means a bigger loan and a PMI line in the monthly bill; a bigger deposit does the opposite — on the default $400,000 home, 20% ($80,000) is where PMI drops to $0.00.
- Cash to close is more than the deposit: on the default it is $92,000.00, of which $80,000.00 is down payment and $12,000.00 is closing costs.
- Earnest money is not extra money — it is part of the cash-to-close anatomy, not an amount on top of it.
- The down payment ladder
- How it works, in 3 steps
- How each figure is worked out
- Deep dives
- The same 20% at three prices: what scales and what does not
- Below the 20% line: the monthly price of a smaller deposit
- Earnest money is not extra money: the cash-to-close anatomy
- What this page’s monthly figure leaves out
- Saving toward the ladder: months, not just dollars
- Down payment questions, answered
The down payment ladder
Every common stopping point on the same home, side by side. The pattern never changes: a smaller deposit means a bigger loan and a PMI line in the monthly bill, while a bigger deposit does the opposite — and the cash-to-close bar underneath shows what each choice does to the money you need on the day.
How it works, in 3 steps
Start with the price
A down payment is a percentage of the price before it is anything else. On the default $400,000 home, each percent is $4,000 — so the argument about 10% versus 20% is really an argument about $40,000 of cash today versus the loan and the PMI it leaves behind.
Type dollars or percent — either way
The two deposit boxes mirror each other: type $40,000 and the percent becomes 10.00%, type 10% and the dollars become $40,000. When you change the price, the percent holds and the dollars follow, so the scenario you built survives a new price.
Read the whole bill, not the deposit
The results show the loan, a payment preview, the PMI flag and the cash to close — the down payment plus closing costs, minus any earnest money you have already paid. That last figure is the one your savings have to cover.
How each figure is worked out
The default, worked through. A $400,000 home at 20% down: the deposit is $400,000 × 20% = $80,000, and the loan is the $320,000 that remains. Because the deposit reaches the 20% line, PMI is $0. The payment preview at 7% over 30 years — r is 7% ÷ 12, n is 360 payments — comes to $2,128.97 a month of principal and interest. Closing costs at the default 3% of the price add $12,000, so with no earnest money paid yet, the cash to close is $80,000 + $12,000 = $92,000.
The same home at 10% down. The deposit halves to $40,000, but the loan grows to $360,000 and PMI switches on: $360,000 × 0.75% ÷ 12 = $225.00 a month until the loan falls to about 80% of the value. The payment preview rises to $2,395.09, so the true monthly figure is $2,395.09 + $225.00 = $2,620.09. Cash to close falls to $40,000 + $12,000 = $52,000 — $40,000 less cash today, $491.12 more every month. Neither answer is wrong; they are different purchases wearing the same price tag.
Earnest money is not extra money. The deposit you hand over when your offer is accepted — say $5,000 — is not a fee on top of everything else. It is credited at closing toward the down payment and costs, which is why this page subtracts it: the default $92,000 of cash to close becomes $87,000 still to bring, because $5,000 is already on the table.
Deep dives
What it is. Private mortgage insurance protects the lender, not you, if the loan goes bad — and you pay for it, because a smaller deposit means a riskier loan. On a conventional loan it typically runs between 0.5% and 1% of the loan amount per year, charged monthly: the 0.75% default on this page turns a $360,000 loan into $225.00 a month. Your actual rate depends on your credit score, the loan type and how far below 20% you are — the closer to 20%, the cheaper it gets.
How it ends. PMI is not a life sentence. Once your balance falls to 80% of the home’s original value you can ask the lender to cancel it, and under the Homeowners Protection Act it must terminate automatically when the balance reaches 78% on the original amortization schedule. Paying the loan down faster, or a rise in the home’s value with a fresh appraisal, can bring the date closer — but appreciation alone does not cancel it automatically; you have to ask. One exception to know: FHA loans charge their own mortgage insurance premium under different rules, and on many FHA loans it now runs for the life of the loan unless you put at least 10% down.
The honest way to judge it. PMI buys you the house years earlier, with a smaller deposit, at the price of a monthly fee and a bigger loan. Compare it against waiting: the ladder above shows both versions of the same home. If prices rise while you save, waiting has a cost too — it is just harder to put on a calculator.
Where the 20% idea comes from. Twenty percent is not a legal requirement — it is the deposit at which conventional lenders stop charging PMI, and tradition turned it into a rule of thumb. Real minimums are far lower: many conventional loans start at 3% down, FHA loans at 3.5%, and VA and USDA loans at 0% for borrowers who qualify. The median first-time buyer in the US puts down well under 10%.
What a bigger deposit buys. Three things: a smaller loan and therefore a smaller monthly payment, no PMI line, and instant equity that cushions a price dip. At 7% over 30 years, every $10,000 you do not borrow trims about $66.53 a month off the payment and about $13,951 of interest over the life of the loan. Lenders sometimes offer a slightly better rate for it too.
What it costs you. Cash has a job after closing as well as at it. Money poured into the deposit cannot be your emergency fund, your moving budget or your first-year repairs — and houses reliably present all three bills. A buyer who reaches 20% by emptying every account has traded a PMI line for real fragility. Many advisors would rather see 10% down and six months of reserves than 20% down and none; run both versions through this page and compare the cash-to-close figures, not just the monthly ones.
The same 20% at three prices: what scales and what does not
Hold the percent at 20% and change only the price, and every dollar figure on this page moves in lockstep — because at a fixed percent, the deposit, the loan, the closing costs and the payment are all the price multiplied by a constant. All three rows below were run through this page’s calculator at the default 7% over 30 years, with closing costs at the default 3% and no earnest money paid yet.
| Home price | Down payment (20%) | Loan left | Monthly principal and interest | Closing costs (3%) | Cash to close |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| $300,000 | $60,000 | $240,000 | $1,596.73 | $9,000 | $69,000 |
| $400,000 | $80,000 | $320,000 | $2,128.97 | $12,000 | $92,000 |
| $500,000 | $100,000 | $400,000 | $2,661.21 | $15,000 | $115,000 |
The lesson is in the ratios, not the rows. Moving from the $300,000 home to the $500,000 home raises the price by two-thirds, and the cash to close rises by exactly the same proportion, from $69,000 to $115,000 — an extra $46,000 of cash on the day for the same 20% deposit strategy. A buyer who has saved $92,000 has the full cash to close for the $400,000 home and is $23,000 short for the $500,000 one, even though the deposit percent never changed. Saving toward a percent without a price in mind is saving toward a moving target; the calculator’s cash-to-close figure is the number that turns a percent into a savings goal.
Notice also what does not change across the rows: PMI stays at $0 throughout, because every row sits exactly on the 20% line, and the payment per $100,000 of loan stays at $665.30 a month at this rate and term (the $400,000 row’s $2,128.97 divided by 3.2). That constancy is what makes the percent-holds behaviour of this calculator useful: change the price and the scenario survives, scaled, so a buyer can test a neighbourhood’s prices without rebuilding the deposit decision each time.
Below the 20% line: the monthly price of a smaller deposit
The page’s ladder already shows the deposit and the PMI at each rung. This section adds the monthly payment at each rung, so the trade-off is visible in full: less cash today against more every month. All figures below are this page’s calculator at the default $400,000 price, 7% over 30 years, PMI at the default 0.75% rate.
| Down payment | Loan left | Principal and interest | PMI per month | Monthly total | Cash to close |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20% — $80,000 | $320,000 | $2,128.97 | $0.00 | $2,128.97 | $92,000 |
| 15% — $60,000 | $340,000 | $2,262.03 | $212.50 | $2,474.53 | $72,000 |
| 10% — $40,000 | $360,000 | $2,395.09 | $225.00 | $2,620.09 | $52,000 |
Read the 20% row against the 10% row, as the page’s own worked example does: halving the deposit saves $40,000 of cash today and adds $491.12 to every monthly bill — $266.12 of extra principal and interest on the bigger loan, plus $225.00 of PMI. The 15% row splits the difference almost exactly: $20,000 less cash today than the 20% row, and $345.56 more every month. There is no rung where the monthly bill falls as the deposit falls; the only question is how much monthly room the buyer is trading for how much cash today.
PMI itself deserves a second look, because it is the only part of the monthly bill that can disappear without refinancing. The page’s deep dive explains the route: once the balance falls to 80% of the home’s original value the borrower can ask the lender to cancel it, and under the Homeowners Protection Act it must terminate automatically at 78% on the original schedule. On the 10% row that means the $225.00 line has a finish date the principal-and-interest line does not, which softens the long-run comparison — but only if the buyer actually asks, or the schedule actually reaches 78%. Until then, the $491.12 monthly gap is the honest price of buying now on 10% rather than waiting for 20%, and it should be weighed against what waiting costs: rent paid in the meantime, and a price that may not wait.
Earnest money is not extra money: the cash-to-close anatomy
The most misunderstood line on this page is the cash to close, because buyers add the earnest money to it instead of seeing it inside it. The calculator’s own arithmetic settles the point, and the $5,000 example from the page’s guide makes it concrete.
On the default purchase — $400,000 at 20% down, closing costs at 3% — the cash to close is $92,000 with no earnest money paid: $80,000 of deposit plus $12,000 of closing costs. Pay $5,000 of earnest money when the offer is accepted, and the calculator’s cash to close falls to $87,000. The $5,000 did not vanish and it did not double: it was credited at closing against the deposit, so the money still to bring on the day is $5,000 less. A buyer who budgets $92,000 plus $5,000 has budgeted $5,000 twice; a buyer who budgets $87,000 after paying earnest has budgeted exactly right, provided the earnest money is actually credited, which is what the purchase contract should confirm.
The same anatomy explains why the deposit is the smaller part of the story on a small down payment. At 10% down the cash to close is $52,000, of which the $12,000 of closing costs is nearly a quarter — and at 3.5% down, the FHA floor on this page, the deposit is $14,000 against the same $12,000 of closing costs, so closing costs are almost half the cash needed. The deposit gets the headlines, as the page’s ladder section says, but the closing-costs line is fixed by the price, not by the deposit percent, and it does not shrink when the deposit does. Any savings plan built on the deposit alone will come up short by exactly the closing costs, plus moving costs and a reserve the page’s questions already advise keeping untouched.
What this page’s monthly figure leaves out
The monthly total on this page is principal and interest plus PMI. That is a deliberate simplification, and the items outside it are large enough to state rather than leave to surprise.
Property tax and homeowners insurance are the two big absentees. On most purchases they are collected monthly into escrow alongside the mortgage payment, so the amount leaving the buyer’s account each month is higher than the figure this page shows — by an amount that depends entirely on the property’s tax bill and the insurance premium, neither of which this calculator asks for. A buyer comparing the page’s $2,128.97 on the default purchase with a rent cheque should add those two lines first, or the comparison flatters the purchase. The same applies to homeowners association dues where they exist, which are not part of any mortgage payment at all.
Two further limits are worth stating. First, the payment preview assumes the default rate holds for the whole term; an adjustable-rate loan reprices, and a fixed-rate preview does not describe it. Second, the calculator assumes the price is the value: if an appraisal comes in below the price, the lender lends against the appraised value, and the deposit, the loan and possibly the PMI position all change from the figures shown here. None of this makes the page’s figures wrong — they are the deposit, loan, PMI and cash-to-close arithmetic, done exactly — but they are the mortgage’s figures, not the whole cost of owning the home, and they should be read as such.
Saving toward the ladder: months, not just dollars
A deposit target in dollars is hard to feel; the same target in months of saving is immediate. The table below divides this page’s own cash figures by two round monthly saving amounts. It assumes nothing about interest on the savings, price movements or pay rises — it is division, not a forecast — and it counts the full cash to close, not just the deposit, because that is the money that must actually be in hand.
| Down payment rung | Cash to close | At $1,000 a month | At $2,000 a month |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20% — $80,000 deposit | $92,000 | 92 months | 46 months |
| 15% — $60,000 deposit | $72,000 | 72 months | 36 months |
| 10% — $40,000 deposit | $52,000 | 52 months | 26 months |
The gap between the rows is the real cost of waiting for 20%. At $1,000 a month, the 10% purchase is reachable forty months sooner than the 20% one — more than three years sooner — and at $2,000 a month it is twenty months sooner. Against those forty months stand the $491.12 a month extra the 10% purchase costs once bought, and the rent paid during the extra waiting time, which the table does not count because no rent figure belongs to this calculator. A buyer who can save $2,000 a month faces a different trade from a buyer who can save $1,000: the same ladder, the same dollars, but half the waiting time, which is why the deposit decision cannot be separated from the household’s actual monthly saving capacity.
One honesty note closes the section. The table holds the price fixed while the buyer saves, and real prices do not hold still. If the $400,000 home appreciates while the buyer saves toward 20%, the target rises with it, and the waiting time stretches beyond the table; if it falls, the target shortens. That is not an argument for rushing or for waiting in itself — it is a reason to re-run this calculator with the current price at each savings milestone, rather than treating a target set years ago as still true. The percent holds when the price changes, as the page’s guide explains, but the dollars do not, and the months follow the dollars.
Which pieces of the monthly payment the down payment actually moves
The monthly total has four kinds of pieces. The down payment moves two of them, and knowing which two keeps the ladder honest.
Principal and interest scale with the loan left after the deposit, at the same rate and term: on the $400,000 home in the ladder on this page, 10% down leaves a $360,000 loan and 20% down leaves a $320,000 loan, so the principal-and-interest piece at 10% down is 12.5% larger than at 20% down, because $360,000 divided by $320,000 is 1.125, and the same rate applied to a larger loan for the same term must cost more each month. The second piece the deposit moves is mortgage insurance: below 20% down on a conventional loan, the PMI line joins the monthly bill, $225 a month at 10% down on this page ladder, at the 0.75% default rate, and $0 at 20% down, where the line disappears entirely. Those two pieces together are the monthly price of a smaller deposit, and they are the only pieces the deposit changes.
Property tax and homeowners insurance do not move with the deposit at all: the same home carries the same tax bill and the same insurance premium whether the deposit was 5% or 25%, and the escrow pieces of the monthly total are identical in both cases, which is why the monthly total falls by less, in percentage terms, than the loan does when the deposit rises. Cash to close moves in the opposite direction from the monthly payment: a bigger deposit means more cash on the day, even though it means less each month, and earnest money already paid is part of that cash, not extra money on top of it, as the cash-to-close anatomy on this page explains. Judge a deposit choice on all three together, the monthly pieces it moves, the monthly pieces it does not, and the cash it demands on the day, and a choice that looks cheap on one of the three will not surprise you on the other two.
A car down payment follows the same arithmetic, on a shorter clock
No PMI, a shorter term, and faster depreciation, but the same rule: the deposit decides the amount financed, and the amount financed decides the payment.
On a $30,000 car, 0% down finances $30,000, 10% down finances $27,000, and 20% down finances $24,000, and at the same rate and term the monthly payment falls in the same proportion as the amount financed, because the payment is the price of borrowing the amount left after the deposit, spread over the term. There is no PMI line on a car loan to disappear at 20%: mortgage insurance belongs to home loans, and the car comparison is simpler for it, with only the amount financed, the rate, and the term deciding the payment. The term is where a car differs most: a home loan spreads the amount over decades, while a car loan commonly spreads it over a few years, so the same deposit change moves the monthly payment by more, in dollars, on a car than on a house, and a shorter term at the same rate always means a higher payment for the same amount financed, with less interest paid overall.
Zero down on a car means financing the full price, plus any tax and fees that are financed rather than paid in cash, so the payment is the highest the price allows, and the loan balance stays above the car value longest, because a new car loses value fastest in its first year while the balance falls slowest at the start of the loan. A larger deposit shortens that underwater period, lowers the payment, and leaves less interest to pay over the term, at the cost of cash that is no longer available for anything else, and the right size is the one that leaves an emergency reserve intact: a deposit that empties the savings account to lower a payment has traded a monthly saving for a fragility. Money or trade-in value put toward the price counts the same way, by reducing the amount financed, and the question to ask of any car deposit is the same as for a house, how much is financed, for how long, and what cash remains afterwards.
Down payment questions, answered
How much is a down payment on a $400,000 house?
It depends entirely on the percent you choose. On a $400,000 home: 20% down is $80,000, 15% is $60,000, 10% is $40,000, 5% is $20,000 and the FHA floor of 3.5% is $14,000. The ladder on this page shows the same home at every common stopping point — as the deposit falls, the loan grows and, below 20%, a PMI charge joins the monthly payment: $225.00 a month on the 10% version at the default PMI rate. The percent is the decision; the dollars are just arithmetic.
How much do I need for a down payment on a house?
There is no single required figure. Many conventional loans start at 3% down, FHA loans at 3.5%, and VA and USDA loans at 0% for borrowers who qualify. Twenty percent is only the point where a conventional loan stops charging PMI — a milestone, not a minimum. What you need beyond the deposit matters just as much: closing costs of roughly 2% to 5% of the price, which this page adds into the cash to close, plus moving costs and a reserve you do not spend. Type your price in and read the cash-to-close figure: that, not the deposit alone, is what your savings have to cover.
What is PMI, and how much does it cost?
PMI — private mortgage insurance — is a monthly charge added to a conventional loan when the down payment is under 20%. It protects the lender, and it typically costs between 0.5% and 1% of the loan amount per year, divided into monthly payments. At this page’s default rate of 0.75%, a $360,000 loan carries $225.00 a month of PMI. It is temporary: you can request cancellation once the balance reaches 80% of the home’s original value, and it must end automatically at 78% under the Homeowners Protection Act. FHA loans use a separate mortgage insurance premium with its own rules.
How much cash do I need in total to buy a $400,000 home?
More than the down payment. With 20% down and closing costs at the default 3% of the price, the cash to close is $80,000 + $12,000 = $92,000, before any earnest money you have already paid is credited back. At 10% down the same home needs $40,000 + $12,000 = $52,000 — but the loan grows to $360,000 and PMI adds $225.00 a month. Closing costs vary by state and lender, commonly 2% to 5% of the price, which is why the closing-cost percentage on this page is editable: replace it with your lender’s estimate for a figure you can plan around.
Does a bigger down payment lower my monthly payment?
Yes — twice over. A bigger deposit means a smaller loan, and the payment follows the loan: at 7% over 30 years, every $10,000 you do not borrow trims about $66.53 a month off the payment and saves about $13,951 of interest across the life of the loan. On this page’s default home, moving from 10% to 20% down cuts the payment preview from $2,395.09 to $2,128.97. And crossing the 20% line removes PMI entirely — here another $225.00 a month — which is why the drop from 19% to 20% down is worth more, dollar for dollar, than any other step on the ladder.
Does earnest money count toward my down payment?
Yes. Earnest money is the good-faith deposit you pay when the seller accepts your offer, and at closing it is credited toward your down payment and closing costs — it is part of the money, not an extra fee on top of it. That is why this page subtracts it in the cash-to-close box: pay $5,000 of earnest money on the default purchase and the cash still to bring falls from $92,000 to $87,000. Whether you get the deposit back if the deal falls apart depends on the contingencies in your contract, which is a question for the contract itself, not this calculator.
How much cash do I need on a $300,000 home at 20% down?
$69,000 in this calculator’s terms: a $60,000 deposit, which is 20% of $300,000, plus $9,000 of closing costs at the default 3%, with no earnest money paid yet. The monthly principal and interest on the $240,000 loan left behind is $1,596.73 at 7% over 30 years, with no PMI, because the deposit sits exactly on the 20% line. If you have already paid earnest money, subtract it from the $69,000: it is credited at closing, not charged on top.
Is 15% down much cheaper per month than 10% down?
Yes, by $145.56 a month on this page’s default home: the 15% version costs $2,474.53 a month ($2,262.03 of principal and interest plus $212.50 of PMI on a $340,000 loan), against $2,620.09 at 10% ($2,395.09 plus $225.00 of PMI on a $360,000 loan). The 15% version also needs $20,000 more cash on the day — $72,000 of cash to close against $52,000 — so the monthly saving is bought with cash today, as every rung on this ladder is.
Does the monthly total on this page include property tax and insurance?
No. The monthly total here is principal and interest plus PMI only. Property tax and homeowners insurance are usually collected monthly into escrow on top of the mortgage payment, and homeowners association dues sit outside the mortgage entirely, so the amount leaving your account each month will be higher than the figure this page shows. Add your property’s tax and insurance lines to this page’s figure before comparing it with rent or with your current housing cost.
What happens if the appraisal comes in below the price?
The lender lends against the appraised value, not the price, so the deposit, the loan and possibly the PMI position all change from the figures this page shows. If the price is $400,000 but the appraisal is $380,000, a lender offering 80% lends $304,000 against the value, and the buyer must cover the $96,000 gap between the loan and the price in cash, or renegotiate the price, rather than the $80,000 deposit this calculator shows. This calculator assumes price equals value; an appraisal gap is a separate negotiation, not a rounding error.
Is it better to put a large down payment on a car?
Usually, for the payment: a larger deposit finances less, so the monthly payment is lower and less interest is paid over the term at the same rate. It is not always better overall, because the cash is tied up in the car and no longer available for emergencies or other uses. The best deposit is the largest one that still leaves an emergency reserve intact.
What does zero down mean on a car?
Financing the full price, plus any tax and fees that are financed rather than paid in cash, with no deposit reducing the amount borrowed. The monthly payment is the highest the price allows, and the loan balance stays above the car value longest, because the car loses value fastest early while the balance falls slowest at the start of the loan.
Does a bigger down payment lower my property tax or insurance?
No. The same home carries the same tax bill and the same insurance premium whatever the deposit was. A bigger deposit lowers only the loan pieces of the monthly payment: principal and interest, through the smaller loan, and mortgage insurance, which disappears at 20% down on a conventional loan. The tax and insurance escrow pieces are unchanged.
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An estimate — not a quote, a pre-approval or financial advice.
Every figure on this page is arithmetic on the price, deposit, rates and percentages you see. PMI rates vary with your credit score, loan type and lender — the 0.75% yearly default is a mid-range illustration, not a quote — and real PMI is usually charged on the original loan balance under rules that differ by program. The payment preview covers principal, interest and PMI only; property taxes, homeowner insurance and any HOA charges ride on top of a real bill. Closing costs differ by state, county and lender. Your lender’s Loan Estimate is the document that counts — compare any real offer against it before you sign.