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Term Deposit Calculators

Fixed Deposits and Recurring Deposits are India's most widely held savings instruments. These calculators help you understand their real returns.

FD Maturity

Standard quarterly-compounding formula:

Maturity = P × (1 + r/4)^(4×n)

Where r is the annual interest rate and n is years.

Banks compound quarterly by default. Some small finance banks offer monthly compounding — if that's your bank, the actual maturity will be slightly higher.

FD Post-Tax Return

FD interest is taxed as income at your slab rate. TDS is deducted at 10% if interest exceeds ₹40,000/year (₹50,000 for senior citizens).

The post-tax calculation:

  1. Compute pre-tax interest earned
  2. Apply your tax slab to get tax payable
  3. Subtract tax from maturity value
  4. Back-compute the effective post-tax CAGR

For a 30% tax bracket holder, a 7% FD has an effective post-tax return of ~4.9%. This is often below inflation.

Alternative: PPF at 7.1% is fully tax-free (EEE). For amounts within the ₹1.5L annual cap, PPF consistently beats FD on a post-tax basis for taxpayers in the 20–30% bracket.

RD (Recurring Deposit) Maturity

RD is a monthly deposit instrument. Each monthly installment earns compound interest for its remaining tenure:

Maturity = Σ [D × (1 + r/4)^(4 × remaining_months/12)]

Summed across all monthly deposits.

RDs are useful for forced savings with no market risk, but the same post-tax limitation applies as FDs.

FD vs Debt Mutual Fund

Post-budget 2023, debt mutual fund gains are taxed at your income slab rate (no indexation benefit). This levelled the playing field significantly.

The comparison now comes down to:

  • FD: guaranteed return, predictable
  • Debt MF: variable return (typically slightly higher than FD for similar duration), more liquid (no lock-in), subject to credit and interest rate risk

For short-term (<3 year) goals with safety as priority, FD often wins after tax. For 3–5 year tenures where you can hold through interest rate cycles, quality debt funds can edge ahead. The FD vs Debt MF calculator lets you model this with your specific rate assumptions.