Investment calculators
FD and RD calculator: maturity value, and what it is worth after inflation
What your FD or RD is actually worth when it matures
Every bank calculator stops at the maturity value. This one carries on: it takes tax off the interest at your slab, then converts what is left into today's money at your inflation assumption. The last number is the one you can actually spend.
Set your deposit above to see the maturity value and what it is worth in today's money.
Nominal value versus today's money
The solid line is the balance the bank will show you. The dashed line is the same balance after tax on the interest, converted back into what it buys today.
Where the maturity value comes from
Your own money, the interest you keep, and the interest that goes to tax.
Year-by-year numbers
Balance at the end of each year, the same balance after tax on the interest accrued so far, and that after-tax figure expressed in today's money.
Educational only. These are projections from the numbers you entered — not advice, a quote, or a prediction. Real returns vary, and tax treatment differs by option and changes over time. Tax treatment of deposit interest, TDS thresholds and slab rates change — check the current rules before relying on the after-tax figure. Klera never lends or moves money.
The number banks show you and the number that matters
Put ₹5 lakh into a five-year fixed deposit at 7% and the bank's calculator returns something like ₹7.07 lakh. It is a satisfying number. It is also nearly meaningless on its own, because two things happen to it before you can spend it: the interest is taxed as income, and five years of inflation happen to the whole balance.
Do that arithmetic and the picture changes. At a 30% slab you keep roughly 70% of the interest, which turns a 7% headline into something closer to 4.9% in your hand. If prices are rising at 6%, you are losing a little under a percent a year in buying power while watching the balance go up. That is the trap: nominal growth and real growth point in opposite directions, and only one of them is displayed.
The rule underneath it is worth memorising, because it needs no calculator. Your deposit only gains ground when the quoted rate, after tax, exceeds inflation. At a 30% slab that means the rate has to clear inflation divided by 0.7 — so 6% inflation demands roughly 8.6% before you have earned anything at all. Deposits clear that bar occasionally. They do not clear it reliably, and never for long.
How FD interest is taxed, and why the headline rate misleads
Deposit interest is normally treated as ordinary income. It is added to your total for the year and taxed at your slab, which means the same fixed deposit produces genuinely different returns for two people holding it. Someone at the top slab keeps meaningfully less of the same 7% than someone below the taxable threshold does. No advertisement can tell you the return on an FD, because the return depends on the taxpayer.
Banks may also deduct tax at source once your interest crosses a threshold, and this catches people out in both directions. TDS is not the final tax. If your slab is higher than the deduction rate you still owe the difference at filing; if your income is below the taxable limit you can reclaim what was deducted. Either way, seeing a smaller credit in your account is not the same as having settled the bill.
Thresholds, deduction rates, slab structures and the special treatment for senior citizens all change from one Budget to the next, so treat any specific figure you read as needing a check. What does not change is the shape: the higher your income, the more of your deposit interest goes to tax, and the further the real return falls below the number on the poster.
Why an RD at the same rate earns far less interest than an FD
This is the section most people need and almost nobody is shown. Pay ₹50,000 a month into a five-year RD at 7% and you will have contributed ₹30 lakh and earned somewhere around ₹5.97 lakh in interest. Put ₹30 lakh into a five-year FD at exactly the same 7% and the interest is closer to ₹12.4 lakh. Same rate, same total money, more than double the interest.
Nothing is being hidden. An FD puts the whole amount to work on day one, so every rupee compounds for the full five years. An RD's first instalment does that too, but the second earns for a month less, and the last earns for about a month in total. Averaged out, money in a recurring deposit is invested for a little over half the tenure — so it earns a little over half as much interest.
The corollary trips people up in the opposite direction, so it is worth stating plainly: the annualised return on an RD is not halved. Per rupee, per year, you get roughly the rate you were quoted, which is why the real return above comes out close to the FD figure when you flip the toggle. An RD is not a worse rate. It is the same rate on money that is not there yet. The rupee total in RD mode still looks harsher than the FD one, because every instalment is counted at face value while the maturity value is discounted for the full term — the strict reading, and the conservative one.
So an RD is a savings discipline that earns interest, not an investment competing with a lump sum. If you already have the money, an FD is strictly better. If you do not — which is where most people are — an RD is a sensible way to build the lump sum you will eventually deposit.
Where a deposit is exactly the right answer
None of this makes deposits bad. It makes them specific. There are jobs where a guaranteed 7% is worth far more than an assumed 12%, and for those jobs nothing else comes close.
An emergency fund is the clearest case. Its purpose is to be there, in full, on the worst day of your year — a day that has an unpleasant habit of coinciding with a bad market. A fund that might be down 20% when you reach for it has failed at the only thing it was for. The same logic covers a house deposit due in eighteen months, a wedding next winter, or a car you have already chosen. Any money with a date attached inside two or three years belongs somewhere it cannot fall.
Over those horizons the inflation drag this page is about is also small enough to ignore. Losing a percent of buying power over two years to guarantee the amount is a trade worth making every time. The mistake is not using deposits — it is using them for a fifteen-year goal, where certainty costs you the compounding that was supposed to do the work. Run that longer goal through the goal SIP calculator and compare the two paths before deciding.
Breaking early, compounding frequency, and why laddering fixes both
Two smaller things quietly move the number. The first is premature withdrawal. Break a deposit before maturity and banks generally pay you the rate that applied for the period you actually held it, and then usually take a penalty off that. You do not simply lose the remaining interest; you often lose part of what you had already earned. The exact treatment varies by bank and by product, so read your own terms rather than assuming.
The second is compounding frequency, which the bank chooses and rarely highlights. Most fixed deposits compound quarterly, which is what this calculator assumes. A cumulative deposit reinvests the interest; a payout deposit hands it to you and compounds nothing. Two products quoting the same rate can mature meaningfully apart for this reason alone, and the difference grows with tenure.
Laddering softens both problems at once. Instead of one deposit for five years, open several with staggered maturities. Something matures every year, so a sudden need can be met from a maturing deposit rather than by breaking a live one, and each renewal happens at whatever rate prevails then instead of locking your whole balance into a single moment in the rate cycle. It costs nothing but a little admin.
What this model leaves out
Four things, all of which push the real answer around. Senior citizens usually get a somewhat better rate, which is not modelled here. Cumulative and non-cumulative payouts behave differently, and this assumes the cumulative version where interest stays invested. The inflation figure you enter is a headline average, while your personal inflation depends on what you buy — school fees and medical costs have run well ahead of the index for years, so a household carrying those loses more ground than a national number suggests. And a rate is only fixed until maturity: renewals happen at whatever is on offer then.
Once the deposit is open, the useful thing is tracking what it is really worth as it accrues rather than only on the maturity date. Klera holds fixed and recurring deposits as investment holdings and calculates their accrued value as they run, alongside PPF, EPF, NPS, gold, stocks and mutual funds, feeding into your net worth next to your budgets and savings goals. It works entirely offline, with no account and no server that ever sees a balance — get it free on Android if you would rather see the real number than the poster one.
Frequently asked questions
Is FD interest taxable in India?
Yes. Interest on a fixed deposit is normally added to your total income and taxed at whatever slab you fall into, so a higher earner keeps less of the same quoted rate than a lower earner does. Banks may also deduct TDS at source once interest crosses a threshold, but TDS is only an advance — you still settle the final amount at your slab when you file. Thresholds and slab rates change, so check the current rules.
What is the difference between FD and RD?
An FD is one lump sum deposited on day one, earning interest for the whole tenure. An RD is a fixed amount paid in every month, so the first instalment earns for the full term and the last earns for barely a month. At the same quoted rate an RD therefore produces roughly half the total interest of an FD holding the same total money, even though the annualised return per rupee is similar. Toggle between the two above to see it.
Do fixed deposits beat inflation?
Often only barely, and after tax frequently not at all. The test is simple: your rate has to clear inflation plus the tax you pay on the interest. At a 30% slab, a 7% deposit keeps about 4.9% after tax, which loses ground against 6% inflation. Set your own rate, slab and inflation assumption in the calculator — if the real gain comes out negative, that is the honest answer.
Is FD a good investment in 2026?
It depends entirely on the job you are giving it. For an emergency fund, a house deposit due next year, or any money you cannot afford to see fall, a deposit is excellent — the certainty is the product. For a goal fifteen years away, a return that struggles to beat inflation after tax is a poor way to build wealth. Match the instrument to the horizon rather than judging it in the abstract.
How is FD interest calculated — monthly or quarterly?
Most Indian banks compound fixed deposit interest quarterly, which is what this calculator assumes. Some products compound monthly, some pay interest out instead of reinvesting it, and a payout option will always mature lower than a cumulative one because nothing is compounding. Check which variant you are being sold, because the quoted rate looks identical on all of them.
Is an RD better than a SIP?
They answer different questions. An RD gives you a known amount on a known date, which is exactly what you want for a goal two or three years out. A SIP gives you an unknown amount with a higher expected return, which suits horizons long enough to absorb a bad stretch. Neither is better in general; the horizon and your tolerance for a shortfall decide it.