Private mortgage insurance protects your lender and buys you nothing. Once you owe 80% of your home’s original value, you can ask in writing for it to end. Enter the loan you plan to take, or the one you have, to see that month and how much sooner extra principal gets you there.
Each bar is the wait until you can ask, with one monthly extra. A shorter bar is less PMI. Pick one to make it your plan.
Every row keeps your one-time payments.
The dotted line runs to the month PMI ends on its own.
Step 3
The 80% cancellation only happens if you ask. The 78% one is the servicer’s job.
The link holds your loan, the home value and the PMI, so a bookmark keeps them. The reminder is a calendar file your device makes; nothing is sent.
The two lines, worked out from the original value, and where your balance crosses them.
The first is free and sure. The last needs an appraisal and some luck.
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.
Each answer below uses your loan and what you pay now. Open a tool to change the rest; your numbers carry over.
PMI removalYou are here
When does the loan end now?
Try any extra amount, one-time payments or bi-weekly, and watch the date move.
Open the payoff calculatorSee every payment?
Every payment, split into interest and principal, with the rows an extra amount deletes.
Open the scheduleDebt-free in 20 years?
Or pay $61,225 once, today. Any other month works too.
Pick a dateDebt-free by age 65?
This line uses an example birthday, Jun 1985. The tool uses yours.
Price it in birthdaysInvest the $200 instead?
Assumes 7% a year after tax, to Jul 2056. Paying extra earns a guaranteed 6.5%; the 7% is not guaranteed.
Race the two roadsRecast after a $50,000 payment?
The new payment is $2,208.67. Keep paying $2,528.27 instead and the loan ends in May 2048.
See both roadsPay half every 2 weeks?
The loan ends 5 yrs 10 mos sooner. 26 half payments a year equal 13 full payments.
Run the true calendarRefinance at 5.5%?
The usual formula says 25. This line uses an example offer: 5.5% and $6,000 in costs, rolled in, a year from now.
Price an offerPay off the loan a year from now?
Your statement would show $395,529.10. The payoff adds 14 days of interest at $70.44 a day.
Price the payoffThree 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.
Again, starting with tax year 2026. The 2025 tax law lets you deduct mortgage insurance premiums as mortgage interest. Two limits decide whether it helps you. First, you have to itemize, and most households don’t: the 2026 standard deduction is $32,200 for a married couple. Second, the deduction shrinks by a tenth for every $1,000 of adjusted gross income over $100,000, so it is gone by $110,000 (half those figures if you’re married and file separately). Even fully deducted, PMI is still a cost: in the 22% bracket, the example’s $187 a month still costs you about $146. A deduction makes PMI cheaper. Removal makes it stop.
No. Unlike your interest rate, PMI buys you nothing you keep: no equity, no protection for you, and a tax break most households can’t use. 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.