80% LTV · Homeowners Protection Act · No fee to cancel
Private mortgage insurance protects your lender and buys you nothing. Once you owe 80% of your home’s original value, you can ask for it to be cancelled in writing. Enter your loan to see that exact month, and how much sooner extra principal gets you there.
The ledger correction
Enter your loan and your home’s original value above to see the correction.
Every month until removal, $187 leaves without touching your balance. Match it with the same amount to principal and the 80% line moves closer; over the loan that keeps $106,326 of interest and lands payoff at Apr 2051. Add $187 a month to your plan.
Extra principal does more than end PMI early. See what it does to your whole loan on the payoff calculator, or pick a target month on debt-free by date. Your loan and your habit carry over.
All the math runs in your browser; nothing you enter is stored or sent anywhere. Last updated July 2026.
PMI is priced off your loan, paid by you, and protects the lender. Dollar figures use the example loan: $400,000 at 6.5% for 30 years on a $450,000 home, with $187/mo PMI. Run your own numbers above.
Once your balance reaches 80% of the home’s original value, your servicer must cancel PMI on request, if your payment history is clean. That is federal law: the Homeowners Protection Act. On the example loan, the gap between asking at 80% (Oct 2033) and waiting for automatic termination at 78% (Jan 2035) is 15 months of premiums: $2,805 mailed to an insurer for nothing. Put the request in writing the month you cross the line.
The 80% request date is computed from what you actually owe, so extra payments pull it closer month by month. On the example loan, $200/mo moves the request date from Oct 2033 to Aug 2031 (2 years 2 months less PMI, worth $4,862), and every one of those dollars also shortens the loan itself. The automatic 78% date won’t budge (it follows your original schedule by law), which is exactly why asking is on you.
Many servicers will also cancel PMI based on today’s value; the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac rules behind most conventional loans allow it. The usual bar: 25% equity if the loan is two to five years old, 20% after five, proven with an appraisal you pay for. This calculator sticks to the original-value rules. They are the guaranteed path: no appraisal, no luck needed. Treat appreciation as upside: call your servicer and ask what evidence they accept before spending anything.
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 amount
The statement says $395,529.10. The check that clears the loan says $396,515.26.
PMI removalYou are here
Asking at 80% instead of waiting for 78% keeps $2,805. Both dates, dated.
Three dates matter under the Homeowners Protection Act. You can request cancellation in writing at 80% of the home’s original value. PMI must end on its own when the scheduled balance first reaches 78%. And it must end at the loan’s midpoint no matter what (month 180 of a 30-year term), as long as you’re current. The calculator above shows your first two dates on your own calendar.
At 80% loan-to-value you may ask and the servicer must cancel (with a clean payment history); at 78% it must cancel on its own. The gap sounds small but it’s real money: on a $400,000 loan against a $450,000 original value, it’s 15 months (about $2,805 at $187/mo) paid entirely because nobody asked.
Yes: through the 80% request date, which follows your actual balance. Extra principal pulls that date closer: $200/mo on the example loan moves it from Oct 2033 to Aug 2031. The automatic 78% date is the exception; the law pegs it to your original amortization schedule, so prepaying doesn’t move it. If you prepay and don’t ask, you’re donating the difference.
Not under the federal 80%/78% rules; those use the original value, the lesser of purchase price and original appraisal. But most conventional-loan servicers follow Fannie Mae / Freddie Mac guidelines that allow cancellation based on current value: usually 25% equity when the loan is two to five years old, 20% after five, documented by an appraisal you pay for. If prices in your area have run up, that route can beat every date on this page. Ask your servicer what they require.
No. FHA loans carry MIP, which follows different rules: for FHA loans made since June 2013 with less than 10% down, MIP lasts for the life of the loan no matter how much equity you build; with 10% or more down it ends after 11 years. The usual exit is refinancing into a conventional loan once you have 20% equity, a decision that depends on rates, not just insurance.
A written request; a payment history with no 30-day lates in the last year and no 60-day lates in the last two; no junior liens on the property; and possibly evidence the value hasn’t declined, which may mean a broker price opinion or appraisal. Cancelling itself is free; be suspicious of anyone charging a fee to “process” a PMI removal you can request with one letter.
No. Unlike your interest rate, PMI buys you nothing you keep: no equity, no deduction you can count on, no protection for you. It was the price of buying with less than 20% down, and the Homeowners Protection Act exists precisely because servicers had no incentive to end it. The only question is which of the dates above ends it first, and whether you ask.