Calculate your recurring deposit maturity amount, total deposits and estimated interest instantly.
The amount you want in hand when the deposit matures.
Enter the annual interest rate applicable to your RD. The presets are illustrative examples, not rates quoted by any bank.
Most Indian bank RDs compound quarterly. Change this only if your product states otherwise.
| Year | Total deposited | Interest earned | Estimated value |
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| Month | Deposit | Interest | Deposited so far | Balance |
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Interest is estimated using a quarterly-compounding RD model by default, with each instalment earning interest only for the months it actually stays in the account. Actual maturity values may differ slightly between institutions.
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Illustrative calculation produced by the ToolAdda RD Calculator. RD interest rates and terms vary by bank and product. This calculator provides an estimate based on the interest rate, deposit amount and tenure entered by you, before any tax.
Recurring deposit maturity is not a single lump sum growing for one period. Each instalment enters the account at a different time and earns interest only for the months it is actually there. The first instalment earns interest for the full tenure; the last earns it for about a month.
Writing R for the monthly instalment, i for the periodic interest rate (the annual rate divided by the number of compounding periods a year) and f for how many times a year interest compounds, one month of growth is a factor of:
k = (1 + i) ^ (f / 12)
An instalment paid in month m of an N-month tenure sits in the account for N − m + 1 months, so the maturity value is the sum of every instalment grown for its own remaining period:
M = R × ( k¹ + k² + k³ + … + k^N ) = R × k × (k^N − 1) ÷ (k − 1)
For the standard Indian case of quarterly compounding (f = 4), this is algebraically the same expression as the RD formula banks publish:
M = R × [ (1 + i)^n − 1 ] ÷ [ 1 − (1 + i)^(−1/3) ]
where i = annual rate ÷ 4 ÷ 100
n = number of quarters = tenure in months ÷ 3
Substituting k = (1 + i)1/3 collapses the two into one another. This page uses the series form because it is defined for every tenure — including 7 months or 25 months, which are not whole quarters and where the published closed form has no meaning. The two agree to within a rounding error wherever both apply, and the test suite for this calculator asserts exactly that.
The remaining two figures follow directly:
Total deposits = R × N Interest earned = M − (R × N)
When the interest rate is zero, k is exactly 1 and the sum reduces to R × N — your deposits back, no interest. The calculator branches explicitly for that case rather than dividing by a value that has just become zero, which is why a 0% rate returns a clean figure instead of an error.
This is the model, not a promise. The convention used is shown next to every result so you always know which basis produced the number.
Worked at an illustrative 7% a year with quarterly compounding. These are generated by the same engine as the calculator above, so they can never drift out of step with it.
7% is used here purely as a round illustrative figure. It is not a quoted rate from any bank. Enter the rate your own bank offers to get a figure that means something for you.
A recurring deposit is a savings product offered by banks, small finance banks, co-operative banks and the post office in which you commit to depositing a fixed sum every month for a fixed period. In exchange the institution fixes an interest rate at the time you open the account, and that rate applies for the whole tenure regardless of what happens to rates afterwards.
The appeal is structural rather than mathematical. Most people do not have a large lump sum sitting idle, but almost everyone has a monthly surplus, however modest. A recurring deposit converts that surplus into a disciplined commitment: the instalment is usually collected by standing instruction from your savings account on a set date, so the saving happens before the money can be spent on something else. Tenures typically run from six months to ten years, and minimum instalments at most banks start somewhere between ₹100 and ₹500.
Because the rate is contractual, you know at the outset roughly what you will receive, subject to tax and to the bank's rounding conventions. That certainty is the whole point of the product, and it is what distinguishes a recurring deposit from a market-linked investment where the outcome is genuinely unknown until you get there.
An RD calculator answers one question: if I put this much away every month, for this long, at this rate, what will I have at the end? It takes three inputs — the monthly deposit, the tenure and the annual interest rate — and returns three figures: the total you will have deposited out of your own pocket, the interest that accumulates on those deposits, and the maturity amount you receive when the term ends.
That sounds simple enough to do on paper, and for a single instalment it is. What makes it awkward by hand is that every instalment has a different holding period, and interest compounds on top of interest already credited. A five-year RD has sixty instalments each growing for a different length of time. Doing that arithmetic by hand sixty times, then again when you want to compare two tenures, is where the calculator earns its place.
This particular calculator adds a few things beyond the headline number: a year-by-year table so you can see when the interest starts to matter, a full month-by-month schedule, a growth chart, and a reverse mode that solves for the instalment you would need in order to hit a specific savings goal.
Internally it walks the account forward one month at a time. It starts at zero, adds your instalment, applies one month's worth of growth, and repeats. After the final month the balance is the maturity amount. Subtracting the money you put in gives the interest.
Running it as a month-by-month walk rather than a single formula has a practical benefit: it produces the intermediate figures as a side effect. The value at the end of year three is simply the balance after month thirty-six — no separate calculation and therefore no way for the table to disagree with the headline. Every panel on this page reads from one result object produced by one function, which is a deliberate design decision. Calculators that recompute the same quantity in three places eventually show three different answers.
The single most common misunderstanding about recurring deposits is to treat the total deposited as though it earned interest for the whole tenure. It does not, and the difference is large.
Consider ₹5,000 a month for five years. You deposit ₹3,00,000 in total. If that entire ₹3,00,000 earned 7% for five years, you would be looking at well over a lakh in interest. The actual estimated interest is closer to ₹59,664 — a little over half. The reason is that the average rupee in a recurring deposit is only invested for roughly half the tenure. Your first instalment gets the full five years; your last gets one month; the average across all sixty sits near thirty months.
This is also why comparing a recurring deposit to a fixed deposit at the same headline rate is misleading if you only look at the interest earned. The fixed deposit earns more, but only because the money went in earlier. Judged as a rate of return on the money actually committed at each point in time, the two are the same product with a different payment schedule.
If you want to sanity-check the calculator by hand, work in these steps:
Step four is the one that is tedious by hand, but it is a plain geometric series, so the shortcut k × (kN − 1) ÷ (k − 1) gets there in one line. Anyone reproducing this in a spreadsheet can lay the sixty terms out in a column and sum them, which is a useful exercise precisely because it makes visible how little the final instalments contribute.
Take a saver putting ₹10,000 a month into a five-year recurring deposit at an assumed 7%. Total deposits come to ₹6,00,000 and the estimated maturity is about ₹7,19,328, so roughly ₹1,19,328 is interest.
What the year-wise table shows is that the interest is heavily back-loaded. In year one there is very little balance to earn anything, so the interest is small. By year five the account is carrying most of its eventual balance for the whole twelve months, so that year alone contributes far more interest than year one did. This is worth internalising before shortening a tenure: cutting a five-year RD to three years does not remove two-fifths of the interest, it removes the most productive years.
Neither is universally better; they solve different problems. If you have ₹3,00,000 today, a fixed deposit puts all of it to work immediately. If you will have ₹3,00,000 only after saving ₹5,000 a month for five years, a recurring deposit is the instrument that matches your actual cash flow. Comparing their headline maturity figures without noting that difference is comparing two things that were never alternatives. You can run the lump-sum side of that comparison on our FD calculator.
The two look similar because both take a fixed sum monthly, and that surface resemblance causes a lot of confusion. The difference is what happens to the money afterwards. A recurring deposit is a loan to a bank at an agreed rate. A SIP buys units in a fund whose value moves with the market. Any comparison of the two that presents a SIP's assumed return alongside an RD's contracted rate as though they were the same kind of number is misleading, because one is a promise and the other is an assumption. If you want to model the market-linked side, use the SIP calculator — and read its output as a projection, not a maturity value.
This page does not offer a view on which you should choose. That depends on your time horizon, your tolerance for seeing a balance fall, and what the money is for — none of which a calculator knows.
Compounding frequency is the number of times a year the accumulated interest is added to the balance and starts earning interest itself. Indian banks conventionally compound recurring deposit interest quarterly, which is why this calculator defaults to quarterly.
The effect of frequency is real but modest. On ₹5,000 a month for five years at 7%, moving from annual to quarterly compounding adds a little under ₹1,700 to the maturity value; moving from quarterly to monthly adds a few hundred more. It is worth getting right for accuracy, but it is not where the big money is. Tenure and rate dominate: an extra year, or an extra half a percent, moves the outcome far more than the compounding basis does.
The selector on the calculator exists because not every product follows the quarterly convention, and because seeing the difference for yourself is more convincing than being told it is small. What the calculator will not do is silently mix conventions — whichever basis you pick is applied consistently and is displayed alongside every result.
The rules are set by the bank, not by any universal standard, so the only reliable answer is the one in your own account terms. That said, the general shape is consistent across most institutions.
A missed or late instalment usually attracts a penalty, often charged per month of delay and scaled to the instalment size. Repeated defaults — commonly six consecutive missed instalments, though this varies — can cause the bank to close the account early and pay interest at a reduced rate. Separately from any penalty, a missed instalment simply means less money in the account earning interest, so the maturity value falls by more than the instalment itself.
This calculator models a schedule where every instalment is paid on time. It does not attempt to project the effect of a default, because doing so would require encoding one particular bank's penalty structure and presenting it as though it were general.
Most recurring deposits permit premature closure, but on terms that are deliberately unattractive. Typically the interest is recalculated at the rate that would have applied to the period the deposit actually ran, rather than the rate you contracted for, and a penalty of some fraction of a percent is often applied on top.
The practical consequence is that the amount you receive on early closure can be well below both the maturity figure and your naive expectation. On a long tenure closed near the start, it is possible to receive little more than your deposits back.
The figure this page produces is the full-tenure outcome. It is not a prediction of premature-closure proceeds, and it should not be used as one. If early access is a realistic possibility, that is worth factoring into the choice of tenure at the outset rather than discovering it later.
Interest earned on a recurring deposit is generally treated as taxable income in India and added to your total income for the year, taxed at whatever rate applies to you. Banks may also deduct tax at source once the interest paid crosses the applicable threshold, and there are forms that can be submitted where your total income falls below the taxable limit.
Thresholds, rates and the forms themselves are set by tax rules that change from time to time, and the effect on any individual depends on their total income from all sources. For those reasons this page states the position in general terms only and does not compute a tax figure.
The maturity and interest amounts shown by the calculator are gross — before any tax. There is deliberately no "after tax" figure, because producing one would require assumptions about your circumstances that the tool has no way to know, and a wrong after-tax number is worse than no after-tax number. For income tax planning more broadly, see the income tax calculator, and treat this paragraph as general information rather than advice about your own position.
The more useful question is often the reverse of the default one: not "what will ₹5,000 a month become?" but "I need ₹5,00,000 in five years — what do I have to put away?"
Because the maturity value is directly proportional to the instalment, the reverse is straightforward. Work out what a ₹1 monthly instalment would grow to over the tenure at the given rate, then divide the target by that figure. At 7% over five years, ₹1 a month grows to about ₹71.93, so a ₹5,00,000 target needs about ₹6,951 a month.
The Target RD mode on this page does exactly that, using the same series as the forward calculation rather than a separate formula, and rounds the answer up to the nearest rupee so that the projection reaches the goal rather than landing just under it. Switching back to the standard mode with that instalment reproduces the target, which is the check worth doing on any reverse calculator you use.
A recurring deposit is a bank or post office savings product where you deposit a fixed amount every month for a fixed tenure at a fixed interest rate agreed at the time of opening. At the end of the tenure you receive your deposits plus the interest accumulated on them.
An RD calculator estimates what a recurring deposit will be worth at maturity. You enter the monthly deposit, the tenure and the annual interest rate, and it returns the total you will have deposited, the estimated interest and the estimated maturity amount.
Each monthly instalment earns interest only for the time it actually stays in the account. The first instalment earns interest for the full tenure, the last for roughly one month. Indian banks normally compound this quarterly, so the total is the sum of every instalment grown for its own remaining period.
The commonly published form is M = R × [(1 + i)^n − 1] ÷ [1 − (1 + i)^(−1/3)], where R is the monthly instalment, i is the quarterly interest rate (annual rate ÷ 4 ÷ 100) and n is the number of quarters. This calculator uses an equivalent series that also works for tenures that are not whole quarters.
At an assumed 7% annual rate with quarterly compounding, ₹5,000 a month for 5 years means ₹3,00,000 deposited and an estimated maturity of about ₹3,59,664, of which roughly ₹59,664 is interest. Change the rate in the calculator to match your bank's actual offer.
At an assumed 7% annual rate with quarterly compounding, ₹10,000 a month for 5 years means ₹6,00,000 deposited and an estimated maturity of about ₹7,19,328. Because the formula is linear in the instalment, this is exactly double the ₹5,000 result.
At an assumed 7% annual rate with quarterly compounding, ₹20,000 a month for 5 years means ₹12,00,000 deposited and an estimated maturity of about ₹14,38,656.
Yes. Interest already credited to a recurring deposit starts earning interest itself. Most Indian banks compound recurring deposit interest quarterly, which is why the maturity value is higher than simple interest on the same deposits.
Quarterly is the usual convention for recurring deposits at Indian banks. This calculator defaults to quarterly and lets you switch to monthly, half-yearly or annual compounding if your product uses a different basis.
A recurring deposit takes a fixed amount every month over the tenure, so it suits saving out of monthly income. A fixed deposit takes one lump sum at the start, so the whole amount earns interest for the full period. For the same rate and tenure, a lump sum earns more interest than the same total paid in monthly instalments, because the money is invested for longer.
An RD is a deposit product where the interest rate is set by the bank when you open it. A SIP is a way of investing regularly in mutual funds, where returns are market-linked and not fixed. An RD gives a contractual rate; a SIP carries market risk and its outcome is not known in advance.
Interest earned on a recurring deposit is generally treated as taxable income in India and is added to your total income for the year. The rate that applies depends on your own tax situation. This calculator shows gross figures before any tax; consult a qualified tax adviser for your circumstances.
Banks may deduct tax at source on recurring deposit interest once it crosses the applicable threshold for the year. Thresholds, rates and exemption forms are set by tax rules that change from time to time, so check the current position with your bank or a tax adviser.
The consequences depend on the bank and the product. Many banks charge a penalty for a missed or delayed instalment, and repeated defaults can lead to the account being closed early. A missed instalment also means less money in the account earning interest, so the maturity value falls. Check your own bank's terms.
Most recurring deposits allow premature closure, but the interest paid is usually recalculated at a lower rate and a penalty may apply. The amount you receive can therefore be noticeably less than the maturity figure shown here. This calculator projects the full-tenure outcome only.
Yes. At 0% the maturity amount is simply the monthly deposit multiplied by the number of instalments, and the interest shown is zero. The calculation branches explicitly for this case rather than dividing by zero.
Yes. The tenure accepts anything from one month up to 30 years, entered as years plus months. Note that many banks cap recurring deposit tenures at 10 years, so check what your bank actually offers before planning around a longer term.
Yes. Switch to Target mode, enter the amount you want at maturity along with the tenure and rate, and the calculator solves the same RD formula backwards for the required monthly deposit. It rounds up to the nearest rupee so the projection reaches the goal rather than falling just short.
No. Every figure here is an estimate based on the rate you typed and a standard quarterly-compounding model. Your bank's contracted rate, its rounding rules, the exact deposit dates and any tax deducted will all move the real number. Treat the output as an illustration, not a promise.
Banks vary in how they round intermediate interest, which day of the month they treat the instalment as received, and how they handle part periods and holidays. Those small differences accumulate over a long tenure. A gap of a few hundred rupees on a multi-year RD is normal; a large gap usually means the rate or tenure entered does not match the actual product.
Yes, by entering the rate that applies. Banks commonly offer senior citizens a higher rate on deposits, but the size of that difference varies by bank and by product, so this calculator does not assume one. Enter the actual rate your bank quotes.
By default, yes, because that is the usual convention for recurring deposits at Indian banks. The compounding frequency is shown next to every result and you can change it to monthly, half-yearly or annual if your product differs.
No. The whole calculation runs in your browser. Nothing you type is uploaded, and the optional recent-calculations list is stored only in your own browser's local storage until you clear it.
Yes. It is free, needs no sign-up, no email address and no app install, and there is no limit on how many calculations you can run.
No. It shows gross maturity and gross interest only. Because the tax on recurring deposit interest depends on your total income and current tax rules, showing an after-tax figure would be misleading without knowing your circumstances.
The calculator accepts a monthly deposit from ₹100 up to ₹1 crore and a tenure from one month up to 30 years. Real bank products usually have narrower limits, typically a minimum of six months and ₹100 to ₹500 a month, so check what your bank allows.
Other ToolAdda calculators that pair naturally with a recurring deposit plan.
ToolAdda's RD Calculator is an educational tool, not financial advice. Recurring deposit rates, minimum instalments, tenure limits, penalty rules and premature-closure terms are set by each bank and change over time. Figures shown are gross, before any tax. Confirm the actual terms with your bank before committing to a deposit.