FHA Loan Calculator

An FHA loan is a mortgage insured by the Federal Housing Administration (a part of HUD), which lets lenders offer more lenient credit and down-payment requirements — as little as 3.5% down with a credit score of 580 or higher. In exchange, every FHA loan carries mandatory mortgage insurance (UFMIP + monthly MIP) regardless of down payment size, unlike a conventional loan where private mortgage insurance (PMI) can be avoided entirely with 20% down and cancelled once you reach 78-80% LTV.

FHA requires 3.5% down for borrowers with a credit score of 580 or above, and 10% down for scores between 500 and 579. Below 500, most lenders won't approve an FHA loan. This calculator's down-payment field defaults to and floors at 3.5%, the standard minimum.

The Upfront Mortgage Insurance Premium (UFMIP) is 1.75% of your base loan amount, charged once at closing on every FHA loan. Most borrowers finance it into the loan rather than paying cash — that's what this calculator assumes, which is why the amortized total loan is slightly larger than your base loan. You can also pay UFMIP in cash to keep your amortized balance (and monthly P&I payment) lower.

Monthly MIP = base loan amount x annual MIP rate / 12. The annual MIP rate itself comes from a HUD table keyed by three things: your loan term (more or less than 15 years), your loan-to-value ratio, and whether your base loan is at/below or above the national conforming loan limit. For the common case — 30-year term, more than 95% LTV, loan at/below the conforming limit — the current annual rate is 0.55%.

Yes, but only if your initial down payment was 10% or more (LTV 90% or lower) — in that case, MIP is automatically cancelled after 11 years. If you put down less than 10% (which most FHA borrowers do), MIP continues for the life of the loan. The only ways out at that point are refinancing into a conventional loan once you have enough equity, or paying off the loan.

UFMIP is a one-time 1.75% charge on your base loan amount at closing, usually financed into the loan. Monthly MIP is an ongoing charge — a percentage of your base loan (looked up from the HUD MIP table) divided by 12 — added to every monthly payment for as long as MIP applies. Both exist on virtually every FHA loan; conventional loans only charge an ongoing PMI and only when the down payment is under 20%.

The conforming loan limit is the maximum base loan amount HUD treats as 'standard' for the annual MIP table each year (a fixed $726,200 nationwide, set by Mortgagee Letter 2023-05 and unchanged since — still $726,200 in 2026, and separate from the FHFA conforming loan limit that rises each year). Loans above that limit pay a slightly higher annual MIP rate (e.g. 0.75% instead of 0.55% for the >95% LTV, >15-year-term row). This calculator applies the above-conforming row automatically once your base loan amount crosses that threshold.

FHA's MIP table keys off LTV = base loan amount / home price — the loan before UFMIP is added. This is intentional: UFMIP is a financing charge, not part of the property-secured risk HUD is pricing MIP against. So a 3.5% down payment gives you a 96.5% LTV for MIP-table purposes even though your amortized loan balance (after financing UFMIP) is a bit higher than 96.5% of the home price.

HUD uses two separate MIP tables — one for terms of 15 years or less, one for terms longer than 15 years — and the shorter-term table charges meaningfully lower annual MIP rates at the same LTV (for example, 0.15% vs 0.55% at low LTV). Combined with a shorter amortization period, a 15-year FHA loan carries both less total interest and less lifetime mortgage insurance than an equivalent 30-year loan, at the cost of a higher monthly payment.

No. HUD periodically revises annual MIP rates and the conforming loan limit through Mortgagee Letters — the rates used here reflect Mortgagee Letter 2023-05 (effective March 20, 2023), whose annual MIP rates and $726,200 MIP-table threshold still apply in 2026. Always check the current HUD Mortgagee Letter before finalizing a loan, since HUD can revise them.

It depends on your credit score and down payment. FHA's mandatory MIP (both upfront and monthly, often for the life of the loan at low down payments) can make it more expensive long-term than a conventional loan with strong credit and 20% down, which pays no mortgage insurance at all. But for borrowers with a lower credit score or a smaller down payment, FHA's lenient qualification and lower monthly MIP rates (versus conventional PMI at the same credit tier) can make it the more affordable — sometimes the only available — path to homeownership.

These are two separate HUD figures that get confused often. The FHA loan limit is the maximum loan size HUD will insure in a given county — it varies county by county and has nothing to do with your MIP rate. The national conforming loan limit is a single, separate nationwide threshold that only decides which row of the annual MIP table applies to your base loan amount (the calculator's 'above-conforming' rows). A loan can sit comfortably under your county's FHA loan limit while still crossing the lower national conforming threshold and paying the higher MIP rate — check both figures with your lender, not just one.

No — this tool models a standard fixed-rate FHA 203(b) purchase loan, the most common FHA product. An FHA 203(k) loan lets you finance renovation costs into the mortgage based on the home's as-repaired value, and it carries its own upfront/annual MIP treatment and underwriting rules that this calculator doesn't reproduce. If you're planning to roll renovation costs into an FHA loan, treat these numbers as a starting point for the purchase-only math, not the full 203(k) picture.

Possibly. FHA's standard guideline caps debt-to-income around 31% for housing costs and 43% overall, but lenders can approve higher ratios when 'compensating factors' offset the risk — things like several months of cash reserves, little change from your current housing payment, or strong residual income after expenses. This calculator only estimates the payment itself; it doesn't evaluate your income, debts, or whether a lender would approve you at a higher ratio.