RD calculator — recurring deposit maturity and interest, month by month

How to use the RD calculator

1. Type your instalment in Monthly deposit, for example 5,000.
2. Enter the Interest rate (per year). The field starts at 6.7%, the Post Office 5-year RD rate for October to December 2026. Replace it with your bank’s rate if you are comparing a bank RD.
3. Set the Tenure in months: 12 for one year, 60 for five years.
4. Pick a Currency. Rupees are the default; the maths is the same in any currency.
5. Read the Maturity value, Total deposited and Interest earned, then check the Balance by year table to see how the deposit builds. The table can be downloaded as a CSV file.

What it does and when to use it

A recurring deposit lets you put the same amount into a bank or post office account every month for a fixed term. At the end you get back every instalment plus the interest it has earned. Because the rate is fixed when you open the account, the maturity value is known in advance. That makes an RD a common choice for a planned expense a year or a few years away: a school fee, a festival budget, a down payment or a first emergency fund.

The calculator answers the questions people ask before they sign up:

• How much will I get at the end? The maturity value, to the paisa, at the rate you enter.
• How much of that is interest? Shown separately, so you can see what the bank adds to your own money.
• How fast does it build? The year-by-year table shows what you have deposited and what it is worth at the end of each year.
• Which offer pays more? Run the same instalment and tenure with two banks’ rates and compare the maturity values.

If you already have a lump sum rather than a monthly amount, the FD calculator is the right tool. If you want to see how a monthly amount might grow in a market-linked fund, try the SIP calculator, keeping in mind that a fund has no fixed rate. For a long-term, tax-free government scheme with a yearly deposit, see the PPF calculator. For a savings plan with monthly or yearly compounding instead of quarterly, the compound interest calculator lets you set the frequency.

How it works

An RD is really a set of small deposits that start on different dates. Your first instalment stays in the account for the whole tenure. Your second stays one month less, and so on, until the last instalment, which earns interest for only one month.

The calculator values each instalment separately and adds them up:

M = Σ P × (1 + r ÷ 400)^(m ÷ 3)

• M is the maturity value.
• P is the monthly deposit.
• r is the yearly interest rate in percent, so r ÷ 400 is the rate for one quarter.
• m is the number of months that instalment stays invested, from the full tenure down to 1.
• Dividing m by 3 turns months into quarters, because interest is compounded every quarter.

Quarterly compounding means that every three months the interest earned so far is added to the balance and starts earning interest itself. This is the usual convention for Indian recurring deposits. It also means the effective yearly yield is a little higher than the quoted rate: 6.7% compounded quarterly works out to about 6.87% a year.

A step-by-step check. Take ₹5,000 a month for 12 months at 7%. The quarterly rate is 7 ÷ 400 = 0.0175.

• The first instalment stays 12 months, which is 4 quarters: 5,000 × 1.0175⁴ ≈ ₹5,359.30.
• The last instalment stays 1 month, a third of a quarter: 5,000 × 1.0175^(1/3) ≈ ₹5,029.00.
• The ten instalments in between fall between those two values.

Added together, the twelve instalments come to ₹62,310.66. You paid in ₹60,000, so the interest is ₹2,310.66. That is less than 7% of ₹60,000 because most of your money was in the account for only part of the year.

The year-by-year table uses the same idea. For each year-end it values only the instalments paid so far, each for the months it has been in the account.

Worked examples

These figures come from the calculator’s own function.

Post Office 5-year RD at the current rate. Monthly deposit ₹5,000, rate 6.7%, tenure 60 months. The calculator shows:

• Maturity value: ₹3,56,829.14
• Total deposited: ₹3,00,000.00
• Interest earned: ₹56,829.14

The table shows the value at each year-end: ₹62,210.16 after year 1, ₹1,28,694.30 after year 2, ₹1,99,746.04 after year 3, ₹2,75,679.20 after year 4 and ₹3,56,829.14 at maturity. Notice how the interest added each year grows. In the last year the deposit gains about ₹21,150 beyond the ₹60,000 you pay in, against about ₹2,210 in the first year, because the early instalments have been compounding for longer.

A one-year RD at 7%. Monthly deposit ₹5,000, rate 7%, tenure 12 months. Maturity value ₹62,310.66, total deposited ₹60,000.00, interest earned ₹2,310.66. This is the case worked by hand in the section above.

A three-year RD for a smaller goal. Monthly deposit ₹2,000, rate 6.7%, tenure 36 months. Maturity value ₹79,898.42 from ₹72,000 deposited, so the interest is ₹7,898.42. The yearly values are ₹24,884.06, ₹51,477.72 and ₹79,898.42.

Doubling the instalment doubles the result: ₹10,000 a month for 60 months at 6.7% matures at ₹7,13,658.29, exactly twice the first example.

Comparing two RD offers

Rates matter more than they seem over five years. To compare offers fairly, keep the instalment and tenure the same and change only the rate. Then look at Interest earned, not just the maturity value, since the deposits are identical. If one offer is a bank RD and the other is the Post Office scheme, also compare the terms that the calculator does not model: penalties for a missed instalment, rules for closing early, and whether you can take a loan against the deposit.

To see the difference that compounding frequency makes on a quoted rate, the effective annual rate calculator converts a nominal rate into a yearly yield. And to see what your maturity amount will buy after rising prices, run it through the inflation calculator.

Limits and tips

• On-time deposits only. The result assumes every instalment is paid on time each month. Banks and the post office may charge a penalty for a missed month, and the calculator does not model that.
• Before tax. RD interest is taxable in India and tax may be deducted at source. The maturity value shown is the gross figure.
• The default rate is a snapshot. The 6.7% default is the Post Office 5-year RD rate for 1 October – 31 December 2026, set by the Ministry of Finance. Small savings rates are reviewed every quarter, and bank RD rates are set by each bank and can differ for senior citizens. Always enter the rate on your own account.
• Rounding. Banks may round interest at each quarter or count days. Expect your statement to differ by a few rupees, not by large amounts.
• Early closure is not modelled. Closing an RD before maturity usually means a lower rate than the one shown here.
• Fixed rate, fixed result. Unlike a fund, an RD’s maturity value does not move with the market. That certainty is its main feature; the trade-off is that the rate may not keep up with inflation.
• Nothing you type is sent anywhere. The calculation runs in your browser.