Premium added to each payment
$186.57
On a $400,000 home with 3.5% down, mortgage insurance ends at month 99 when the rate is 3% and month 161 when it is 8% — 62 months and $11,567 apart on the same house, the same down payment and the same premium rate. The premium itself never moves with the rate; what moves is how fast the balance reaches the 78% line that ends it.
The premium is charged at the stated annual rate on the original loan amount, which is how insurers commonly price it. The statutory dates are those in the Homeowners Protection Act and apply to borrower-paid mortgage insurance on a conventional first mortgage for a principal residence; lender-paid insurance and FHA insurance sit outside them. A down payment of 20% or more on a conventional loan needs no insurance and returns zero months. Property value is held at the purchase price throughout, because that is the value the statute measures both thresholds against.
Mortgage insurance is charged as an annual percentage of the original loan amount, so a 3% loan and an 8% loan of the same size pay the same premium in every month. The note rate works through the amortization schedule instead: on a $386,000 balance the first payment is 40.7% principal at a 3% rate and 9.1% principal at 8%. A schedule that returns principal slowly takes longer to reach 78% of the original value, and every month in between carries a premium.
The 78% line comes from the Homeowners Protection Act, which measures it against the value of the home at origination and computes it from the initial amortization schedule alone. That is why the rate, rather than anything the borrower does afterwards, dominates this table: the schedule is fixed at closing.
Holding the loan fixed isolates the rate. The six bands below use the same $400,000 price, the same $14,000 down payment, the same 0.58% annual premium and the same 30-year term; only the note rate moves.
| Note rate | PMI ends at 78% | You may request at 80% | Premiums paid |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3.00% | 8y 3m | 7y 6m | $18,470 |
| 4.00% | 9y 3m | 8y 5m | $20,709 |
| 5.00% | 10y 3m | 9y 4m | $22,948 |
| 6.00% | 11y 4m | 10y 5m | $25,373 |
| 7.00% | 12y 4m | 11y 5m | $27,612 |
| 8.00% | 13y 5m | 12y 6m | $30,037 |
One $400,000 purchase with 3.5% down, a 0.58% annual premium and a 30-year term. Months are statutory termination at 78% of the original value and the earliest permitted request at 80%, both from the initial amortization schedule.
The progression is close to linear at about 12 months per percentage point, because each point cuts the principal share of an early payment by a roughly constant amount. Between the ends of the table the spread is 62 months and $11,567, which is what a rate difference costs in insurance rather than in payment.
A borrower comparing two quotes therefore has a second number to weigh. One percentage point lower is worth roughly a year of premiums in addition to the monthly saving, and that year is counted off the same schedule, so it does not depend on the premium rate the lender's insurer happens to charge.
A 20% down payment sets the loan-to-value at exactly 80.00% at closing, which is the threshold for requesting cancellation, so a conventional loan of that size is never charged for insurance. A 19.9% down payment sets it at 80.10% and is charged from the first month. Both tables in this section hold the note rate at 7.00% rather than today's 7.32%, so that the down payment is the only thing moving between rows; that 7.00% scenario is the one in the fifth row of the rate table above, and the two reconcile to the month.
| Down payment | Amount | Loan-to-value | PMI ends | Premiums paid |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19.0% | $76,000 | 81.00% | 3y 5m | $6,421 |
| 19.5% | $78,000 | 80.50% | 2y 11m | $5,447 |
| 19.9% | $79,600 | 80.10% | 2y 6m | $4,646 |
| 20.0% | $80,000 | 80.00% | never starts | $0 |
The same $400,000 home and 0.58% premium at a 7.00% note rate, held below today's 7.32% so that only the down payment moves. The last row needs no insurance at all, which is why its months and its dollars are both zero rather than small.
The last $400 of down payment removes $4,646 of premiums, which is 11.6 times its own size. The $3,600 that separates 19.0% from 19.9% removes $1,775. Everything below the threshold is a slope and the step onto it is a cliff, and no other $400 in this file moves that much.
The Act produces two dates that react to different things. Automatic termination follows the initial schedule and, in the statute's wording, applies irrespective of the outstanding balance; the right to request cancellation follows the actual balance. Extra principal therefore moves one and leaves the other where it started.
| Extra each month | You may request | PMI ends automatically | Months earlier | Premiums avoided |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $0 | 11y 5m | 12y 4m | — | — |
| $100 | 9y 5m | 12y 4m | 24 | $4,478 |
| $200 | 8y 0m | 12y 4m | 41 | $7,649 |
| $500 | 5y 7m | 12y 4m | 70 | $13,060 |
| $1,000 | 3y 9m | 12y 4m | 92 | $17,164 |
A 7.00% rate, the same held rate as the cliff table, on the same $400,000 purchase with 3.5% down, adding extra principal from the first payment. The termination column is computed from the initial schedule and cannot move; the request column is computed from the actual balance and can.
At $1,000 a month the request date arrives at 3y 9m instead of 11y 5m and $17,164 of premiums are avoided. Those payments also send $172,000 of extra principal, so the insurance saving is a side effect of a decision whose main effect is to retire the loan in month 172 rather than month 360.
At $500 a month the request date lands at 5y 7m and the premiums avoided are $13,060, against $114,000 of extra principal. Neither figure is a reason to prepay a mortgage; both are the correct measure of what prepayment does to a premium that would otherwise run to 12y 4m.
Four boundaries separate this table from a forecast of what a household will actually pay.
Each month is computed on a standard fixed-rate amortization schedule at the stated rate and term, with the premium charged on the original loan amount. The termination month is the first month in which the scheduled balance is at or below 78% of the purchase price; the request month is the first month in which the actual balance is at or below 80%, where the actual balance reflects extra principal. No prepayment, refinance or home-price change is modeled.
Two checks keep the table honest. The premium rate is held constant across all six bands, so the differences between rows come only from the note rate; and the interactive result above runs the same code as the table, so a figure typed into the calculator and a figure printed here are computed identically.
The arithmetic reproduces by hand: 386,000 × 0.58 ÷ 100 ÷ 12 = $186.57 a month, and 148 payments of it — the end of the 7.00% row — total $27,612.
No. The premium is a percentage of the original loan amount, so it is the same $186.57 whether the rate is 3% or 8%. The rate changes the number of months that charge is collected, from 99 to 161 across that range.
Principal accumulates faster when less of each payment is interest. On the same $386,000 balance the first payment is 40.7% principal at 3% and 9.1% at 8%, and that gap compounds: the balance crosses 78% in month 99 at 3% and month 161 at 8%.
At a 7.00% rate on a $400,000 home, 19.9% down is $79,600 and leaves a loan-to-value of 80.10%, just above the cancellation threshold at closing. 20.0% down is $80,000 and leaves exactly 80.00%, which ends the premium at closing instead of at month 30. The premiums avoided over that gap total $4,646.
Extra principal shortens the wait for the right to request cancellation but not the automatic termination date. At $1,000 a month the request date moves from month 137 to month 45 while the statutory date stays at month 148, so the premium saving depends on the servicer approving the request.
Automatic termination at 78% is arithmetic on a schedule and happens without the borrower doing anything. Cancellation at 80% requires a request and has conditions attached, which makes it a right rather than a date; building the headline column on it would describe an outcome the borrower has to ask for and might not get.
No. FHA mortgage insurance follows separate rules, including an upfront premium and a duration that turns on the down payment rather than on the loan-to-value reaching 78%, and the Homeowners Protection Act's cancellation provisions do not reach it.
How Long You Pay PMI: The Rate Sets the Clock lists each external figure it uses once, with the publisher that issues it and the date it was retrieved. The calculator takes these as its defaults, so any of them can be replaced with a number of your own; a figure that is not in the list is one this page did not take from anywhere.
| Figure | Value | Published by | Retrieved |
|---|---|---|---|
| 30-year fixed mortgage national average | 7.32% | Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey (PMMS) | 2026-10-26 |
| Annual PMI premium, low end of the published range | 0.58% | Fannie Mae, What to Know About Private Mortgage Insurance | 2026-10-09 |
| Annual PMI premium, high end of the published range | 1.86% | Fannie Mae, What to Know About Private Mortgage Insurance | 2026-10-09 |
Values are the ones this page is built with, not a live feed. Where a figure is revised on a schedule, the retrieval date above is when it was read, and the next scheduled refresh is shown at the top of the page.
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Cluster us/mortgage · Unit us-mortgage-pmi-duration-by-rate · Engine amortizing-loan / pmi · Method: Each month is computed on a standard fixed-rate amortization schedule at the stated rate and 30-year term, with the premium charged monthly on the original loan amount. The termination month is the first month in which the scheduled balance is at or below 78% of the purchase price; the request month is the first month in which the actual balance is at or below 80%, where the actual balance reflects any extra principal. No prepayment, refinance or home-price change is modeled, and every figure in the three tables is produced by the same code path that runs the interactive result.