One balance · One check · Not the same number
Your statement shows the balance. The wire that actually clears the loan adds interest for every day since your last payment. This ledger prices the real check, to the cent, for any month you pick. And it shows what waiting costs, per day.
The ledger correction
Enter your loan and pick a payoff month to see the real check.
There is nothing left to wire by then: the current path retires this loan on its own by Jul 2056. If the real plan is a sooner goodbye, work backwards from the month you want. Find the habit that gets there.
Not writing the whole check? The payoff calculator prices any extra payment against your schedule, and the debt-free-by-date calculator works backwards from the month you want. Your loan carries over; your payoff date stays here.
All the math runs in your browser; nothing you enter is stored or sent anywhere. Last updated July 2026.
The check shrinks a little every month, because each payment retires principal. But look at what you pay along the way to make it shrink.
| Wire month | The check | Interest paid meanwhile | Principal retired meanwhile |
|---|
One honest note: paying off the loan ends principal and interest only. Property taxes and insurance never stop, and your escrow refund arrives separately after closing the account.
Dollar figures use the example: a $400,000 loan at 6.5% over 30 years, one year of payments made, wire landing on the 15th. Run your own numbers above.
Mortgage interest is paid in arrears: the payment due on the 1st pays last month’s interest. So the moment a statement prints, new interest is already accruing behind it. On the example loan the balance says $395,529.10, but a wire landing on the 15th must carry 14 more days at $70.44 a day. The real check is $396,515.26. Not a fee, not a penalty. Just interest, counted daily, the way your servicer counts it.
The per-diem clock starts the day after your payment is due. A wire that lands on the 2nd carries one day of interest: $70.44 on the example loan. The same wire on the 28th carries 27 days. That gap is $1,831.44, and it buys you nothing. When you schedule the payoff, you choose how many days ride on the check. Choose few. It is the easiest money on this whole site.
The payoff amount is the whole prize, but the math never demands all of it. On the example loan, a single $1,000 of extra principal sent this month deletes $5,488 of scheduled interest over the life of the loan. Five and a half times the money, earned by mail. The payoff calculator prices any amount you can actually spare, monthly or one-time, against your real schedule.
Every tool inherits what you type here. Nothing to re-enter, nothing stored. Dollar figures are the example loan: $400,000 at 6.5% over 30 years.
Make your plan
Payoff calculator
Add $200 a month and watch $111,892 of interest die. Lump sums and milestones too.
Amortization schedule
Every payment, split into interest and principal. $200 a month deletes 67 rows.
Debt-free by date
Pick the month; it finds the smallest extra that gets there. Twenty years costs $454.03 a month.
Before retirement
Paid off at 65 instead of 71 costs $221.89 a month. Priced in birthdays, not dates.
Weigh your options
Prepay vs invest
The market has to beat your mortgage rate after tax. Both roads run to the cent.
Bi-weekly payments
Half-payments every two weeks finish 5 years 10 months sooner. The paid programs get priced too.
Recast
A $50,000 lump can cut the payment $319.60 a month. The lower payment’s price: $137,661.
Refinance
The advertised break-even says 25 payments. The honest ledger says 20. You see both.
Today’s numbers
Payoff amountYou are here
The statement says $395,529.10. The check that clears the loan says $396,515.26.
PMI removal
Asking at 80% instead of waiting for 78% keeps $2,805. Both dates, dated.
Because mortgage interest is paid in arrears. Each payment covers the month behind it, so on any day between payments there is interest that has accrued but not yet been billed. The payoff must include it, counted per day from your last due date to the day the money lands. That per-diem is the whole gap. There is no prepayment fee hiding in it on a standard loan.
No, and you should always order the official one before wiring. This page prices the principal-and-interest math, which is nearly all of the number. The official statement adds interest through your exact funding date, any recording or statement fees, and a good-through date. It is the only document your servicer is bound by. Use this page to understand the quote and pick your date; use the letter to write the check.
The quote already includes per-diem interest up to that date. If your money arrives on or before it, the quote clears the loan. If the wire slips past it, the payoff comes up short by the extra days of interest, the loan stays technically open, and you get a bill for the shortfall. Schedule the wire with margin, and if the closing moves, order a fresh quote.
It closes, and the servicer refunds whatever is in it, usually within a few weeks of the payoff. The refund is separate money; it is not subtracted from the payoff amount. Remember what the escrow was doing, though: from now on you pay property taxes and homeowners insurance directly. Put those on a calendar the same day the refund arrives.
The title or closing company will order the official payoff quote for you and pay the loan from the sale proceeds at closing. This page is how you check their work before you sit down: the balance, the per-diem, and the check size for your closing month, so the payoff line on the settlement statement is a number you already expected instead of a surprise.
To the cent, for the loan as entered, on the standard 365-day count. The page proves its per-diem live: multiplied across the average month it reproduces the next interest line of your own schedule exactly. One honest caveat: a few servicers count interest on a 360-day year, which shifts the per-diem by pennies. The official statement settles the last few dollars; the shape of the number comes from here.