Debt consolidation calculator (India)

What consolidation means in India

Debt consolidation replaces several expensive balances with one cheaper loan, and in India the gap between the two is unusually wide. SBI Card's Most Important Terms and Conditions (retrieved 2026-09-03) state finance charges of 3.75% a month, or 45% a year, on unsecured cards, with 2.75% a month on secured and defence variants. State Bank of India's published personal loan schedule (retrieved 2026-09-03) sets its personal loan at a two year MCLR of 8.75% plus a spread of 1.25% to 6.25%, an effective 10.00% to 15.00% a year from 30.06.2026, with a mean of 11.54% for the quarter. Card rates of 36% to 48% a year against loan rates of 10% to 18% a year is the shape of the market.

There is a second, quieter gap. Goods and services tax at 18% applies to credit card interest, because issuers treat card finance charges as a taxable service, while it does not apply to interest on a loan. A card quoted at 42% a year therefore behaves like about 49.6% once tax is added to each month's finance charge, while a personal loan at 13% stays at 13%. That widens the real gap by several percentage points, and it is missing from most consolidation calculators.

The minimum-due trap

The reason consolidation is discussed at all is that a revolving card does not clear itself. Indian minimums are typically set as a flat percentage of the outstanding: Standard Chartered Bank India's published card terms (retrieved 2026-09-03) state a minimum amount due of 5% of the outstanding, and a rupee floor of around ₹100 to ₹200 applies underneath. SBI Card's formula (retrieved 2026-09-03) is component based instead, taking 100% of GST, EMI amounts, fees and finance charges plus a small percentage of the rest, subject to a ₹200 floor. The calculator above models the flat shape, 5% of the outstanding with a ₹200 floor, for any row where the monthly payment is left at zero.

A percentage minimum shrinks as the balance shrinks, so the payment falls as fast as the debt does. At 42% a year plus GST, roughly 4.1% of the balance is charged as interest each month while the minimum asks for 5%. The difference between the two is what comes off the principal, and it is tiny: on ₹2,50,000 across two cards, paying only the minimum takes 378 months, a little over 31 years, and costs about ₹8,67,500 in interest. The Master Direction requires the minimum to be set so the balance does not grow through capitalisation, which prevents the worst outcome without making minimum paying a cheap way to carry debt.

The three routes, and why the middle one matters

Most consolidation calculators compare two things: what you pay now, and what you would pay on the loan. That comparison credits the loan with a saving that came from paying a different amount each month. The calculator above adds a third column between them.

• Keep paying as now. Each debt on its own terms, cards on the minimum if you leave the payment at zero, EMIs on their instalment.
• Same payment on the cards, highest rate first. The exact monthly amount the loan would demand, aimed at the existing balances in avalanche order, with no loan and no fee. This is the honest benchmark.
• Personal loan. The full balance refinanced at the loan rate over the chosen tenure, with the fee, the tax on it and any foreclosure charge counted.

All three are costed the same way over the loan's horizon: payments made through that month plus whatever is still owed at the end of it, so nothing looks cheap merely by being unfinished.

A worked example

Take two cards, ₹1,50,000 at 42% a year paid to the minimum only and ₹80,000 at 40% a year with ₹5,000 a month going to it, which is what the calculator above loads. Against them, a personal loan of ₹2,30,000 at 13% a year over 36 months with a 2% processing fee, GST at 18%, and the fee paid from pocket.

• The loan. The instalment is ₹7,750 a month. Interest over the 36 months comes to about ₹48,986. The processing fee is ₹4,600 with ₹828 of GST on top, so ₹5,428 leaves your pocket on day one. Total outlay, fee included, is about ₹2,84,414.
• Carrying on as now. The two cards start at a combined payment of about ₹12,810 a month, more than the loan instalment, yet take 378 months to clear. Over the same 36 months the position is worth about ₹4,64,350, payments plus the balance still outstanding.
• The same ₹7,750 aimed at the cards. At a weighted 41.3% a year, grossed up by GST, the two cards charge about ₹9,350 in interest in the first month. A ₹7,750 payment does not cover that, so the balance grows and the debt never clears. Over 36 months the position is worth about ₹6,25,865: three years of payments plus a balance that is larger than it started.

The loan wins by roughly ₹3,41,450 against the same-payment route and by about ₹1,79,940 against carrying on as now. Break-even arrives in month 1, because the fee is small next to the monthly interest it displaces. The break-even loan rate is about 47.6%: any personal loan priced below that beats aiming the same money at these cards, which leaves a wide margin over the 10% to 18% the market offers.

One detail there reverses the usual story. The current payments on ₹2,30,000 come to about ₹12,810 a month, more than the ₹7,750 instalment, so the loan lowers the monthly outgo and still clears the debt in three years. Where the current payment already exceeds the loan instalment, the middle column is paying less than you pay today, so it shows the loan beating a smaller payment aimed at the cards rather than beating your current effort. Entering what you actually pay in the worksheet fixes that comparison.

Processing fees, GST and foreclosure

The processing fee on the new loan is the largest of the three costs. State Bank of India's Real-Time Xpress Credit page (retrieved 2026-09-03) states up to 1.50% of the loan amount, subject to a minimum of ₹1,000 and a maximum of ₹15,000, plus GST; secondary market surveys (retrieved 2026-09-03) put the range across lenders at 1% to 3% plus GST. Adding the fee to the loan instead of paying it up front keeps cash in hand but raises the principal, the instalment and the total interest, and the checkbox in the calculator shows the difference.

Foreclosure charges arise only where an existing EMI loan is closed early; cards have none. The Reserve Bank of India (Pre-payment Charges on Loans) Directions, 2025 (retrieved 2026-09-03) bar pre-payment charges on floating rate loans to individual borrowers for purposes other than business, whatever the source of the repayment money. Most Indian personal loans are fixed rate and fall outside that protection, where secondary surveys (retrieved 2026-09-03) report roughly 2% to 6% of the outstanding plus GST, often with a lock-in and a charge that falls as the loan ages. The percentage from your own sanction letter belongs in the foreclosure column, not a market average.

The fourth route: balance transfer on EMI

For card balances there is a fourth option that involves no personal loan at all. A balance transfer on EMI moves the outstanding from another bank's card onto a new card as a fixed instalment plan, commonly at 0.83% to 1.75% a month with a processing fee of about 1% to 2% plus GST. It is quicker to arrange, and narrower: card balances only, the transferred amount eats into the new card's credit limit, and tenures are shorter at most issuers. The India balance transfer calculator models it with the published fees, and balance transfer on EMI explained covers the mechanics.

When consolidation does not pay

• The rate is not actually lower. A loan priced above the weighted average rate of the debts it replaces cannot save money whatever the tenure. The calculator flags this case directly.
• The tenure is stretched too far. A longer tenure lowers the instalment and raises the total interest, and moving from 36 months to 60 can turn a comfortable saving into a marginal one.
• The balances are small. A ₹1,000 fee minimum plus GST on a ₹40,000 consolidation can sink the case on fees alone.
• The cards get run up again. The common failure, and no calculator can price it. The cards are cleared, the limits sit open, and a year later there is a loan instalment and a card balance. If the cards will not stay at zero, the loan has added debt rather than replaced it.
• The debt would clear soon anyway. On a balance that clears in a few months at the payment you already make, the fee buys very little.

Paying the cards off without a loan

Two ordering methods do the same work with no fee at all. Avalanche pays the minimum on everything and puts every spare rupee against the highest rate balance first, which minimises total interest. Snowball pays the smallest balance first, which costs a little more but clears accounts sooner and is easier to sustain. The middle column of the calculator is an avalanche run at the loan instalment, so comparing it with the loan column shows what the loan buys beyond the payment itself: a fixed end date, one instalment instead of several, and protection from the card rate if a month goes badly.

What no ordering can do is rescue a payment that is below the monthly interest. When the payment does not cover the interest charged, the balance grows whatever the order, and the loan is then doing something the cards cannot: fixing the rate low enough that the same money finally amortises. Formulas, defaults and known limitations are set out on the methodology page.