Recurring deposit calculator
What does putting a fixed amount away every month mature to?
As quoted by the bank. RD rates usually sit a little under FD rates.
In months — banks sell RDs in 6-month multiples.
Without PAN the bank deducts TDS at 20% instead of 10%.
₹7,13,658at maturity, after 60 months
- You put in
- ₹6,00,000
- Interest earned
- ₹1,13,658
- Effective yield
- 3.8%
Compounded quarterly, the convention every bank uses for an RD. Interest is taxable at your slab; TDS is only an advance against it. Missing an instalment attracts a penalty this does not model.
- Paid in
- Interest
| Month | Paid in | Interest | Value |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | ₹30,000 | ₹334 | ₹30,334 |
| 6 | ₹60,000 | ₹1,177 | ₹61,177 |
| 9 | ₹90,000 | ₹2,536 | ₹92,536 |
| 12 | ₹1,20,000 | ₹4,420 | ₹1,24,420 |
| 15 | ₹1,50,000 | ₹6,839 | ₹1,56,839 |
| 18 | ₹1,80,000 | ₹9,800 | ₹1,89,800 |
| 21 | ₹2,10,000 | ₹13,314 | ₹2,23,314 |
| 24 | ₹2,40,000 | ₹17,389 | ₹2,57,389 |
| 27 | ₹2,70,000 | ₹22,034 | ₹2,92,034 |
| 30 | ₹3,00,000 | ₹27,260 | ₹3,27,260 |
| 33 | ₹3,30,000 | ₹33,076 | ₹3,63,076 |
| 36 | ₹3,60,000 | ₹39,492 | ₹3,99,492 |
| 39 | ₹3,90,000 | ₹46,518 | ₹4,36,518 |
| 42 | ₹4,20,000 | ₹54,164 | ₹4,74,164 |
| 45 | ₹4,50,000 | ₹62,441 | ₹5,12,441 |
| 48 | ₹4,80,000 | ₹71,358 | ₹5,51,358 |
| 51 | ₹5,10,000 | ₹80,928 | ₹5,90,928 |
| 54 | ₹5,40,000 | ₹91,160 | ₹6,31,160 |
| 57 | ₹5,70,000 | ₹1,02,067 | ₹6,72,067 |
| 60 | ₹6,00,000 | ₹1,13,658 | ₹7,13,658 |
A recurring deposit is a standing instruction to your own savings: the same amount leaves your account on the same date every month, the bank pays a fixed rate on whatever has piled up so far, and nothing can be taken out until the term ends. The awkward part is that the money does not all earn for the same length of time — your first instalment sits for the whole term, your last one for a single month — so the maturity figure never looks like the rate suggests. Put in the instalment, the rate your bank quotes and how many months you are signing up for, and this says what the bank will hand back, how much of that is your own money, and what the rate actually works out to on the money you parted with.
A worked example
₹10,000 a month for 60 months at 6.7%, with your PAN on the account. That rate is in the band banks have been quoting on medium-tenure RDs — use the number on your own bank’s deposit rate card, not this one. Set the four fields above to those and the page returns:
- ₹7,13,658 at maturity
- ₹6,00,000 put in, across 60 instalments
- ₹1,13,658 interest earned
- an effective yield of 3.8%, against a headline rate of 6.7%
- ₹6,00,000 Your instalments — money you saved, not earned
- ₹1,13,658 Interest the bank paid on it
Five years of a ten-thousand-rupee habit. Most of the maturity figure is the habit.
The 3.8% is the number worth sitting with. It is not a worse rate than 6.7% — it is 6.7% paid on money that was only there for part of the term. Instalment one earns for 60 months; instalment sixty earns for one. Averaged over everything you deposited, the return is a little over half the headline, and any RD anywhere works out this way.
It also means the interest arrives late. The table above shows why: twelve instalments in, the balance is ₹1,24,420 — only ₹4,420 of interest on ₹1,20,000 paid in. By month 36 the interest is ₹39,492, and the last two years alone add ₹74,166 of it, because by then there is a real balance to earn on.
Longer is disproportionately better
Same ₹10,000 instalment, same 6.7%, four different terms. The interest does not scale with the number of months — a term twice as long earns far more than twice the interest, because the early instalments have that much longer to compound.
You deposit five times as much over ten years as over two, and earn twenty-nine times the interest.
The ten-year bar is the first one that trips section 194A: interest crosses the threshold in the section, the bank starts deducting, and the ₹17,08,546 the deposit is worth becomes ₹17,07,691 in your hands.
What this number does not include
The maturity figure assumes a well-behaved deposit — every instalment on time, nothing withdrawn, one rate for the whole term. The things that make it wrong are mostly things you do, not things the bank hides.
The tax is not the TDS
RD interest is taxable at your slab. TDS under section 194A is an advance deducted by the bank once your interest at that bank crosses the threshold — 10% with PAN, 20% without. If your slab is 20% or 30% you owe more than was deducted, and the balance is yours to pay at filing. The TDS line here is deliberately conservative and understates a real deduction: read it as a flag that TDS starts, not as your tax bill.
Missed and early-closed months
A defaulted instalment costs a penalty per the bank’s charges schedule and the interest that instalment would have earned; enough consecutive defaults and the account is closed out. Closing early pays the rate for the period actually run, less a premature-withdrawal penalty of roughly one percentage point. Neither is in this schedule.
One rate, fixed on day one
An RD locks the rate you booked for the whole term, including instalments you have not paid yet. That protects you if deposit rates fall and costs you if they rise — a fresh FD each month would reprice, an RD will not. Senior-citizen and staff rates are not applied automatically either: type the rate you were actually quoted.
Quarterly compounding, and the post office is different
This compounds quarterly, the convention Indian banks use for RDs, and assumes each instalment starts earning from its month. A deposit paid late in the month earns from the credit date, which moves the maturity by rupees. The Post Office RD is a separate five-year product whose rate is set by the small-savings notification and revised quarterly — use that rate, not a bank’s.
One thing the figure is not: a real return. Nothing here is adjusted for inflation, and a deposit yielding under 4% on the money you actually parted with is doing well to hold its purchasing power once tax is out. That is a fair price for a savings instrument whose whole job is to be there in full on a known date — it is the wrong instrument for a goal fifteen years away.
Where to go next
If the money is already in your hands rather than arriving monthly, the fixed deposit calculator is the right one — the same ₹6,00,000 put in at once at 6.7% for five years earns ₹2,36,440 instead of ₹1,13,658, which is the cost of paying in gradually rather than a better bank. For the same monthly habit pointed at markets instead of a bank, compare the SIP calculator, and for a long-horizon monthly commitment with a tax deduction and a sovereign guarantee, the PPF calculator.
Why does my RD earn less than an FD at the same interest rate?
Because an RD does not have the money yet. A fixed deposit puts the whole amount to work on day one, so every rupee earns for the full term. An RD's instalments arrive one a month, so the average rupee is on deposit for roughly half the term — the last instalment earns interest for one month. At the same quoted rate, an RD therefore pays a little under half the interest an equivalent lump sum would — over five years at the same rate it is 48% of it, and the share falls the longer the term runs. Nothing is being shortchanged; that is the arithmetic of paying in gradually. The "effective yield" figure on this page is that truth stated as a percentage.
Is RD interest taxable, and is there any exemption?
It is fully taxable as income from other sources at your slab rate, with no exemption of the kind savings-bank interest gets under section 80TTA. Interest also accrues year by year rather than only at maturity, which is how it appears in your AIS and Form 26AS before the deposit has paid out — most people are safest declaring it annually on accrual and staying consistent, because the bank reports it that way. An RD is also not a section 80C investment: the instalments buy you no deduction.
Is TDS deducted on a recurring deposit?
Yes, under section 194A, the same provision that covers fixed deposits. The bank totals the interest it credits you across all your deposits at that bank in the financial year, and once that crosses the threshold in the section it deducts tax before crediting — 10% if your PAN is on the account, 20% if it is not, which is what the PAN switch on this page changes. The threshold is higher for senior citizens and was raised by the Finance Act 2025, so check the figure for the year you are in rather than assuming last year's. If your total income is below the taxable limit, Form 15G (15H for senior citizens) filed with the branch stops the deduction. TDS is only an advance: it is credited against your final tax, and it neither settles nor caps what you owe.
What happens if I miss an RD instalment?
The bank charges a penalty for each defaulted instalment — typically a few rupees per ₹100 of instalment per month of delay, per its schedule of charges — and after a run of consecutive misses many banks close the account and pay out what has accumulated. A missed month also costs you the interest that instalment would have earned, so the maturity figure lands under what this page shows. None of that penalty is modelled here: this assumes every instalment arrives on time.
Can I close an RD early or take part of the money out?
There are no partial withdrawals from an RD — it closes or it runs. Close it early and the bank pays interest at the rate applicable to the period the deposit actually ran, usually with a premature-withdrawal penalty of around one percentage point deducted from that, and many banks pay nothing at all if the account is shut inside the first month or two. Some will lend against it instead, which leaves the deposit earning. Read your bank's deposit schedule for the exact penalty before you count on the money.
This page starts from typical figures. In Hundo the same calculator opens on your own — the loan, the deposit, the salary already on the ledger — and says where each number came from.