Excel functions / Financial
Financial function · Excel
PMT function
PMT returns the fixed payment for a loan or annuity from the rate, the number of periods and the amount.
Arguments
| Argument | Required | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| rate | Yes | Interest rate per period. Divide an annual rate by 12 for monthly payments. |
| nper | Yes | Total number of payments. |
| pv | Yes | The loan amount today. |
| fv | No | The balance after the last payment. Default 0. |
| type | No | 0 pays at the end of the period, 1 at the start. |
Worked example
| A | B | C | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Loan | Annual rate | Months |
| 2 | 250000 | 0.065 | 60 |
=ROUND(PMT(B2/12,C2,-A2),2)Result: 4891.54
The annual rate is divided by 12 to match monthly payments. The minus sign on the loan shows the payment as a positive number.
Try it
Edit the formula and run it against the table above. Results come from a browser spreadsheet engine.
Availability
| Platform | Status |
|---|---|
| Excel | All current desktop versions, Microsoft 365, Excel for the web. |
| Google Sheets | Available. |
Common mistakes
- Using an annual rate with monthly periods overstates the payment heavily.
- PMT returns a negative number when the loan amount is positive.
Do it with AI
Paste this prompt into Copilot, Gemini or another assistant. Check the result on a small sample first.
Build a monthly amortization table for a loan in B1 at the annual rate in B2 over the months in B3, using PMT, IPMT and PPMT.