Debt-to-Income Ratio Calculator
Your debt-to-income ratio (DTI) is your monthly debt payments divided by your gross monthly income. Enter your figures to see your front-end and back-end ratios, then compare them with the limits Fannie Mae, FHA and the CFPB publish.
Calculate your debt-to-income ratio
Enter monthly amounts. Income is gross: before tax and before deductions. Blank fields count as $0. Results update as you type. This calculator runs in your browser and does not send the numbers you enter.
Before tax and deductions.
Used in place of the monthly salary above. Documentation requirements vary.
Lenders commonly require a history, often two years, before counting it.
Lenders typically use a two-year average of net business income, not gross receipts.
Alimony, child support, pension, Social Security, rental, investment. Only income you can document is generally counted.
Leave blank if you are applying alone. Filling it in makes the result a joint ratio.
If a lender told you the payment it will use, enter it to see both ratios.
The minimum due each month, not the balance.
Used only to check the minimum payment above.
These generally count even if someone else pays them.
Your ratios
This calculator needs JavaScript. The formulas and the worked example on this page show the same math.
- Debts more than your income? Is credit counseling worth it?
- Borrowing against your home? HELOC debt-to-income limits
What not to count
Leave out utilities, phone, internet, groceries, insurance other than housing-related, streaming subscriptions, childcare, medical costs not on a payment plan, and 401(k) loan repayments in most cases. Lenders generally do not count them as debt payments, and including them makes your ratio look worse than a lender's.
Representative example
For a $5,000 loan at a 10% APR over 36 months, the monthly repayment would be $161.34. Over the term, the total repayment would amount to $5,808.24, with $808.24 in interest. The loan terms range from 6 months to 12 years, with APRs between 5.99% and 35.99%. The exact rate you receive depends on factors like your creditworthiness, loan size, and repayment schedule. Better rates are typically offered to those with excellent credit.
About this calculator
This tool computes your debt-to-income ratio from the figures you entered. It is an educational illustration, not an offer of credit, a quote, a pre-qualification, or advice about your situation. We are not a loan provider or broker; we connect users with lending partners who may offer loans. Submitting a connection request does not count as a loan application. The qualifying ratios shown are published by Fannie Mae, HUD, and the CFPB for mortgage lending and are cited with their publication dates; personal loan lenders set their own criteria and generally do not publish them. Lenders calculate income and debts using their own rules, which may produce a different ratio from the one shown here. We cannot guarantee loan approval or any particular rate or term.
Loans Generator may be paid when you click or submit a request through this link. This does not change what we report.
The two ratios
The CFPB defines it simply: "Your debt-to-income ratio (DTI) is all your monthly debt payments divided by your gross monthly income." To calculate it, "you add up all your monthly debt payments and divide them by your gross monthly income." The CFPB's own worked example uses $2,000 of monthly debt against $6,000 of gross monthly income for a 33% ratio. That page was last modified on 2023-08-30, and notably it does not publish a threshold, saying only that "different loan products and lenders will have different DTI limits."
Mortgage underwriting splits this into two numbers:
- Front-end ratio, sometimes called the housing ratio: housing costs divided by gross monthly income. Housing costs means principal, interest, taxes, insurance, and any homeowners association dues, not just the mortgage payment.
- Back-end ratio, sometimes called the total ratio: housing costs plus all other recurring debt payments, divided by gross monthly income.
Lenders write these as a pair, front-end first. "31/43" means a 31% front-end maximum and a 43% back-end maximum.
Gross, not net. Income before tax and before deductions. Using take-home pay makes your ratio look higher than a lender's.
What lenders actually publish
Fannie Mae
Fannie Mae Selling Guide B3-6-02, version dated 04/02/2025:
"For manually underwritten loans, Fannie Mae's maximum total DTI ratio is 36% of the borrower's stable monthly income. The maximum can be exceeded up to 45% if the borrower meets the credit score and reserve requirements reflected in the Eligibility Matrix."
"For loan casefiles underwritten through DU, the maximum allowable DTI ratio is 50%."
DU is Desktop Underwriter, Fannie Mae's automated underwriting system. So the practical ceiling on a conventional conforming loan is 50% through the automated path, 45% manually with compensating strength, and 36% manually without it. The guide also lists exceptions where the maximum is lower, including cash-out refinances and non-occupant borrowers.
FHA
HUD's FHA Resource Center publishes the manual-underwriting qualifying ratios, citing Handbook 4000.1 sections II.A.5.d.viii-ix. The baseline is 31/43. Above that, the ratios stretch only with documented compensating factors:
| Ratio | Requirement |
|---|---|
| 31/43 | Baseline for manually underwritten loans at any decision credit score, including 500 to 579 or no score. Energy Efficient Homes may stretch to 33/45. |
| 37/47 | Requires one compensating factor: documented cash reserves of 3 months (1 to 2 units) or 6 months (3 to 4 units) of total monthly mortgage payments, or a minimal increase in housing payment, or residual income. Credit score 580 and above. |
| 40/40 | No discretionary debt. The housing payment is the only open account carrying a balance, credit lines have been open at least 6 months, and those accounts have been paid in full monthly for at least 6 months. |
| 40/50 | Requires two compensating factors from the list, which at this tier also includes significant additional income not already counted in effective income. |
The 43% figure everybody still quotes
Most DTI articles say 43% is the legal ceiling for a qualified mortgage. That has not been correct for years.
The CFPB's General QM Loan Definition final rule, issued 2020-12-10 and published in the Federal Register on 2020-12-29, "removes the General QM loan definition's 43 percent DTI limit and replaces it with price-based thresholds." Under the current General QM definition, the qualifying test is based on the loan's price relative to the average prime offer rate, not on a hard DTI cutoff. Lenders must still consider and verify the consumer's debt-to-income ratio or residual income under the ability-to-repay requirements, but 43% is no longer the definitional line.
For how HELOC lenders count the new line's payment and the limits they publish, see HELOC debt-to-income limits.
Personal loans
There is no published equivalent. Personal loan lenders do not publish DTI thresholds the way the agencies do, and the ones that mention a number do so in marketing copy rather than in a rulebook.
Personal loan lenders each set their own limits and generally do not publish them. Some weigh income stability, payment history, or free cash flow more heavily than the ratio itself. Treat any single "personal loan DTI cutoff" you see quoted online with suspicion unless it names the lender and links to that lender's own disclosure.
Representative example. For a $5,000 loan at a 10% APR over 36 months, the monthly repayment would be $161.34. Over the term, the total repayment would amount to $5,808.24, with $808.24 in interest. The loan terms range from 6 months to 12 years, with APRs between 5.99% and 35.99%. The exact rate you receive depends on factors like your creditworthiness, loan size, and repayment schedule. Better rates are typically offered to those with excellent credit.
Worked example
Front-end ratio = housing costs ÷ gross monthly income. Back-end ratio = (housing costs + other debt payments) ÷ gross monthly income.
Gross monthly income $6,000. Housing $1,700. Other debts $850. Front-end 28.3%, back-end 42.5%. Against the published FHA manual-underwriting baseline of 31/43, both sit just inside.
Sources
- Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, What is a debt-to-income ratio?, accessed August 6, 2026.
- CFPB, Qualified Mortgage Definition under the Truth in Lending Act (Regulation Z): General QM Loan Definition, final rule, accessed August 6, 2026.
- Fannie Mae Selling Guide B3-6-02, Debt-to-Income Ratios, accessed August 6, 2026.
- HUD FHA Resource Center, What are the maximum qualifying ratio requirements for manually underwritten loans? (citing Handbook 4000.1 II.A.5.d.viii-ix), accessed August 6, 2026.
- Loans Generator, Loan Agreement Overview (live site APR disclosure and representative example), accessed August 6, 2026.