DTI Calculator (Debt-to-Income Ratio)
Calculate your front-end DTI (housing only) and back-end DTI (all debts) from your monthly income and housing, auto loan, student loan, and credit card payments, and see how you compare to common mortgage lending guidelines.
What is DTI (Debt-to-Income Ratio)?
DTI (Debt-to-Income Ratio) measures how much of your monthly gross income goes toward paying off debt. It is one of the most basic metrics lenders use to assess a borrower's ability to repay a mortgage or other loan.
There are two common versions: front-end DTI, which divides only your housing payment (mortgage or rent) by your income, and back-end DTI, which divides your total monthly debt payments — housing plus auto loans, student loans, credit cards, and other obligations — by your income. Lenders generally place more weight on back-end DTI.
How to use
- Enter your monthly gross income Enter your total pre-tax monthly income (you may include household income if applying jointly)
- Enter your housing payment Enter your mortgage payment or monthly rent
- Enter your other debt payments Enter your monthly auto loan, student loan, credit card, and other debt payments
- Review the result Your front-end and back-end DTI are shown along with a rating against common lending guidelines
Tips for getting more out of it
- For a mortgage, include monthly property tax, homeowners insurance, and HOA dues (if applicable) alongside principal and interest for a more accurate housing payment figure.
- Enter the minimum monthly payment for credit cards, not your total available credit. Overspending on cards you barely pay down can understate your true DTI.
- If your back-end DTI is above 43%, paying down high-interest debt such as credit cards first is often more effective at improving your approval odds than reducing your front-end DTI alone.
- If you are self-employed or have variable income, lenders typically average your income over the past one to two years rather than looking at a single month, so plan accordingly.
Use cases
Pre-checking before a mortgage application
See whether your DTI meets common lending guidelines before applying with a lender
Planning debt reduction
Estimate how much your DTI would improve by paying down credit cards or an auto loan
Evaluating a refinance or additional loan
Check how much your DTI would rise before taking on additional borrowing such as a HELOC or home equity loan
Setting an income target
Estimate the income needed to reach your target DTI while keeping your current debt level
Glossary
- DTI (Debt-to-Income Ratio)
- The ratio of your total monthly debt payments to your monthly gross income. It is widely used in mortgage and other loan underwriting.
- Front-end DTI
- The ratio of your housing payment (mortgage or rent) alone to your monthly gross income. It reflects the burden of housing costs specifically.
- Back-end DTI
- The ratio of all your monthly debt payments — housing plus auto loans, student loans, credit cards, and other debts — to your monthly gross income. This is the figure lenders usually weigh most heavily.
- 28/36 rule
- A traditional guideline suggesting front-end DTI should stay at or below 28% and back-end DTI at or below 36% for the most favorable mortgage terms.
- FHA loan
- A mortgage insured by the U.S. Federal Housing Administration, which can approve borrowers with a higher DTI (typically up to around 43-50%) than conventional loans.
FAQ
Side Note — Why DTI became such a central lending metric
DTI became a cornerstone of mortgage underwriting in large part because of the global financial crisis of the late 2000s, when loans were often approved without adequately verifying a borrower's ability to repay. In the aftermath, lenders and regulators placed much greater emphasis on objectively measuring debt relative to income before extending credit.
The widely cited 28/36 rule has been used in the U.S. for decades, but it is a traditional rule of thumb rather than a legal requirement. In practice, lenders weigh DTI alongside credit history, down payment size, employment stability, and other factors when making a final decision.
Similar concepts exist in mortgage underwriting around the world, even where the exact terminology and thresholds differ. The underlying idea — checking how much of a borrower's income is already committed to debt repayment before extending new credit — is a common thread across lending practices internationally.