FHA Loan Calculator

An FHA loan is a mortgage insured by the Federal Housing Administration (a division of HUD) and originated by HUD-approved private lenders. The government insurance is what lets the lender accept lower credit scores (down to 500) and a 3.5% down payment, compared with a typical 5% to 20% down on a conventional loan that requires a 620-640+ score. The trade-off is Mortgage Insurance Premium (MIP): every FHA borrower pays both a 1.75% upfront fee at closing and an annual MIP, regardless of how much equity they put down. Conventional loans only charge Private Mortgage Insurance (PMI) when the down payment is under 20%, and PMI falls off automatically once the loan reaches 78% LTV. FHA is the default first-time-buyer route when credit or savings are the binding constraint; conventional is usually cheaper over the life of the loan once you can clear 5% down with a 700+ score.

UFMIP is 1.75% of the base loan amount (home price minus down payment), charged once at closing per HUD Handbook 4000.1. On a $386,000 base loan that is $6,755. Almost every borrower finances UFMIP into the loan balance instead of paying it in cash, which is why this calculator's 'financed loan amount' equals base loan + UFMIP, and the monthly P&I amortizes that combined figure. Financing the fee is a small but real cost: at 6.5% over 30 years, rolling in $6,755 of UFMIP adds roughly $40-45 to the monthly P&I and around $8,600 of interest over the full term. You can pay UFMIP at closing instead, but in practice the cash-conserving route wins for most first-time buyers.

Annual MIP is FHA mortgage insurance charged monthly. The rate depends on loan amount, term, and original loan-to-value ratio, not simply whether the property is in a high-cost county. For many 30-year loans at 95 percent LTV or less, the annual rate is 0.50 percent; above 95 percent it is often 0.55 percent. This calculator uses simplified inputs, so verify the current HUD MIP table and lender disclosure.

Two scenarios under the rules HUD set in 2013 and confirmed in current policy. If your origination LTV is greater than 90% (down payment under 10%), annual MIP is collected for the entire loan term. On a typical 3.5%-down 30-year FHA loan, that is 360 months. If your origination LTV is 90% or lower (down payment of 10%+), annual MIP is collected for 11 years (132 months), then falls off automatically while you keep making the same P&I payment on the rest of the loan. This is why the 10% down threshold is a real inflection point on FHA: the lifetime MIP savings from crossing it can be $40,000 to $60,000 on a mid-sized loan, even though the monthly payment difference at origination is much smaller. The 11-year vs life-of-loan rule is also why MIP duration is one of the headline outputs of this calculator.

For 2026, the one-unit FHA floor is $541,287 and the high-cost ceiling is $1,249,125. County limits can fall between those values, and special-area limits can differ. The limit applies to the base mortgage amount, not the purchase price. Use HUD's current FHA Mortgage Limits search for the property's county.