Maturity value of a certificate of deposit, and what breaking it early would cost
Estimates only, not financial advice. What you type stays on your device. Updated on 24 Oct 2026.A certificate of deposit at 5.00% APY turns 10,000 into 10,500 after one year, whatever its compounding frequency, because an advertised APY already includes compounding. Compounding a quoted APY a second time overstates a one-year return by about 0.13%, which is enough to pick the wrong account.
Enter the Deposit you plan to put into the certificate.
Under The rate you have, say whether the bank quoted an APY or an interest rate before compounding, then type it.
Set the Term in months, or tap one of the common term chips below it.
Add Your marginal rate under Tax if you want the interest after tax.
Read Value at maturity and Interest earned, and the Year by year table for longer terms.
A certificate of deposit is the simplest product a bank sells: one deposit, one rate, one date. The arithmetic behind it is one line — the balance after t years is the deposit multiplied by (1 + APY) raised to t — and two things still trip people up.
The first is which rate to use. American banks advertise the APY, the annual percentage yield, and the APY already includes compounding. A CD at 5.00% APY turns 10,000 into exactly 10,500 after a year whether the bank compounds daily, monthly or once. Feeding that advertised figure into a calculator that then compounds it daily gives about 10,513 instead, and a number 13 dollars too high on a one-year deposit is enough to make the wrong account look better. This page asks which number you have. Enter the APY and nothing further is applied; enter the nominal rate and the compounding you chose is applied to it, with the resulting APY shown so you can compare offers on equal terms.
The second is the penalty. Banks state early withdrawal penalties as a number of months of interest — three months on a one-year CD, six or twelve on a five-year one — and they charge it whether or not that much interest has been earned. Break a five-year CD in its first month with a six-month penalty and you get back less than you deposited. That case is shown here as a real loss rather than quietly floored at your deposit, because the loss is the whole point of the question.
Tax is the third thing worth knowing and the one most calculators skip. In the United States, CD interest is taxed as ordinary income in the year it is credited, not in the year the CD matures, so a five-year CD produces a tax bill every year. Enter your marginal rate to see the after-tax interest.
No rate is published on this page and none ever will be. CD rates change weekly and differ by bank, term and deposit size, so the only honest rate here is the one on the offer in front of you. Everything is calculated in your browser. Estimates only, not financial advice.
Multiply your deposit by one plus the APY, raised to the number of years. A 10,000 deposit at 5.00% APY for one year comes to 10,500; the same deposit for three years comes to 11,576. Enter your own figures above and the year-by-year path is shown beneath the total.
No. The interest rate is the rate before compounding; the APY is what you actually earn over a year once compounding is counted. A 5% rate compounded daily produces an APY of 5.13%. Banks advertise the APY precisely so two offers with different compounding can be compared directly.
Yes, and it is commoner than people expect. The penalty is a fixed number of months of interest and the bank charges it whether or not that much has been earned, so a long CD broken in its first weeks returns less than was deposited. Enter the withdrawal month to see the real figure.
Take the deposit, multiply by the nominal annual rate, then by the penalty months divided by twelve. A three-month penalty on 10,000 at a 4.88% nominal rate is about 122. That amount comes off the balance on the day you withdraw, not off the interest you happen to have earned.
CD interest counts as ordinary income and is taxed in the year the bank credits it, not the year the CD matures. A five-year CD therefore produces a 1099-INT every year. Enter your marginal rate above to see interest after tax, and treat the result as an estimate rather than tax advice.
Rates change weekly and differ by bank, term and deposit size, so any figure printed here would be wrong for most readers on most days. Type the rate from the offer in front of you instead. Nothing you enter is uploaded; the whole calculation runs in your browser.
Longer terms usually pay more, but not always: when banks expect rates to fall, shorter CDs sometimes pay better, which is called an inverted curve. Compare the actual offers you have by running each term through this page, and weigh the extra yield against being locked in for longer.
Formula only: no rates or limits are read from an official source.
Still stuck? Ask about CD Calculator and anybody who knows can answer. No account needed.
Same job, other tools: APY Pension Calculator – Pick a guaranteed APY pension and see what you pay each month until 60 · FD Calculator for Senior Citizens – Senior citizen FD interest, monthly or quarterly, with the extra rate added · FD Quarterly Payout Calculator – Interest a fixed deposit pays every quarter, and in a year · Atal Pension Yojana Chart – The APY chart by joining age: monthly contribution for each pension from ₹1,000 to ₹5,000.
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Also works as: APY Calculator.
In the collection Savings and Deposit Calculators.