PPF (Public Provident Fund) Calculator
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How to Use the PPF (Public Provident Fund) Calculator
Enter the annual investment amount
Drag the slider or type how much you deposit into PPF each year, from Rs.500 up to the Rs.1.5 lakh annual limit. The default is Rs.1,50,000.
Set the investment period
Choose the number of years, from 15 to 50. PPF matures at 15 years but can be extended in blocks, so you can model longer horizons too.
Set the PPF interest rate
The current PPF rate is 7.1% p.a. You can adjust it or tap a preset chip to see how a future rate change affects your corpus.
Turn on inflation adjustment if needed
Switch on the Adjust for Inflation toggle to see the real purchasing power of the maturity corpus. The default inflation rate is 6%.
Review the summary, donut and smart insights
See your total invested, maturity amount, interest earned, total growth, corpus multiplier, effective yield, and tax-equivalent yield instantly.
Compare with an ELSS
Set the expected ELSS CAGR to see whether a market-linked ELSS beats your guaranteed PPF after long-term capital gains tax, with a clear break-even return and a comparison chart.
Open the year-wise breakdown
Tap View Year-wise Breakdown to see the opening balance, investment, interest, and closing balance for each year, and reset to defaults anytime.
PPF Calculator - Plan Your Public Provident Fund Corpus Year by Year
The Public Provident Fund (PPF) is one of the most valuable financial instruments available to Indian residents, and one of the most underused when it comes to strategic planning. It combines a sovereign government guarantee, a competitive interest rate, and complete exemption from tax at all three stages: contribution, accumulation, and maturity, which is the EEE structure. This PPF calculator helps you model exactly how your corpus builds year by year, see the compounding effect over a 15 to 50 year horizon, discount the maturity amount for inflation to reveal its real purchasing power, and compare your guaranteed PPF with a market-linked ELSS.
Enter your yearly investment amount (Rs.500 to Rs.1,50,000), your planned tenure, and the interest rate, which is currently 7.1% p.a. compounded annually. The calculator outputs a complete year-wise schedule showing the opening balance, the annual deposit, the interest earned, and the closing balance, plus a maturity summary. Toggle the inflation adjustment to see what your corpus will be worth in today's money.
What Makes PPF Uniquely Valuable
PPF's EEE (Exempt, Exempt, Exempt) tax status is its most powerful advantage. Your annual contributions qualify for a deduction under Section 80C (up to Rs.1.5 lakh per year, shared across all 80C instruments). The interest earned each year is not added to your taxable income. And the entire maturity amount, principal plus all accumulated interest, is received completely tax-free. No other commonly available savings instrument combines all three exemptions.
This is why the Tax-Equivalent Yield insight in this calculator matters. A bank FD at the same 7.1% rate, for an investor in the 30% tax bracket, earns roughly 4.97% after tax. Your tax-free PPF at 7.1% is therefore equivalent to earning about 10.1% on a fully taxable instrument. The higher your tax bracket, the more valuable this tax-free return becomes.
PPF is backed by the Government of India with a sovereign guarantee. There is no credit risk, no market risk, and no possibility of default. The account can be opened at any major scheduled bank or post office branch, and online management is available through most banks' net banking portals.
The PPF Interest Calculation - How It Works
PPF interest is calculated on the minimum balance between the 5th and the last day of each calendar month, then summed and credited to the account at the end of the financial year on 31 March. This monthly minimum balance rule has an important practical implication: if you deposit before the 5th of April each year, your annual contribution earns interest for the full financial year. If you deposit after the 5th, it earns interest only from the next month, losing one month of interest on that year's contribution.
Example: Rs.1,50,000 deposited annually for 15 years at 7.1%. Total invested is Rs.22.5 lakh. The maturity amount is about Rs.40.7 lakh, and the tax-free interest earned is about Rs.18.2 lakh, an 81% gain on the invested amount, entirely free of tax.
Extend the same for 20 years: total invested is Rs.30 lakh and the maturity is about Rs.66.6 lakh. Extend to 25 years: the maturity is about Rs.1.02 crore, crossing the Rs.1 crore mark on the maximum annual deposit. The compounding effect after year 15 is dramatically more powerful than in the first 15 years, which is why financial planners frequently recommend extending PPF accounts after maturity.
Understanding the Smart Insights in This Calculator
Beyond the headline numbers, this PPF calculator shows quick-read insights that turn raw figures into decisions:
- Total Growth: The percentage your deposits grow by over your chosen tenure. It shows how much of the maturity is pure interest rather than your own money.
- Corpus Multiplier: How many times your total invested amount your maturity represents. At 7.1% over 15 years the corpus grows to roughly 1.8 times your deposits.
- Effective Yield: The true annualised return on your invested capital. Because each year's deposit is made at a different time and then compounds, this real per-year return differs slightly from the nominal rate and is the most honest number for comparing with other options.
- Tax-Equivalent Yield: The pre-tax return a taxable instrument would need to match your tax-free PPF. In the 30% bracket, 7.1% tax-free equals about 10.1% pre-tax, showing how valuable the EEE structure really is.
- Real Return (net of inflation): Appears when you switch on inflation adjustment. It is the true growth of your purchasing power, roughly your PPF rate minus the inflation rate.
PPF vs ELSS - The Break-even Comparison
PPF and ELSS compete for the same Section 80C money, but they are completely different in risk. PPF is a guaranteed, tax-free, government-backed instrument. ELSS is the only equity-linked option under 80C, with a three-year lock-in, and it historically delivers 12 to 15% CAGR over long periods but can also fall sharply, since returns are market-linked and not guaranteed.
The extra panel in this calculator is the PPF vs ELSS Advantage. It puts the same annual deposit into an ELSS at the expected CAGR you choose, applies the 10% long-term capital gains tax on gains above Rs.1 lakh in a year, and then shows the single most important number: the break-even CAGR an ELSS needs to return so that its post-tax value simply matches your guaranteed, tax-free PPF. If your chosen ELSS CAGR is above this break-even number, the ELSS comes out ahead but only if those returns actually happen; if it is below, the PPF wins with zero risk.
For example, at Rs.1.5 lakh a year over 15 years, PPF at 7.1% matures to about Rs.40.7 lakh tax-free. An ELSS at 12% CAGR grows to about Rs.62.6 lakh before tax, but after a 10% LTCG on the gain, the post-tax value is around Rs.58.7 lakh, which is clearly more than the PPF. Yet the decision is not just about the number: the ELSS gain is not guaranteed and depends on markets, while the PPF figure is certain. The break-even CAGR tells you how much market risk you would take on for the chance to beat the guaranteed PPF.
Many investors use both: maximize the PPF for the guaranteed, tax-free base and add an ELSS SIP for higher, market-linked growth potential. This comparison gives you an honest starting point for that split.
PPF Liquidity - Withdrawals, Loans, and Extensions
Partial withdrawals: From the 7th financial year onwards, you may withdraw up to 50% of the balance available, with one withdrawal per financial year permitted.
Loans against PPF: From the 3rd through the 6th financial year, you can take a loan against the balance. The interest on a PPF loan is just 1% above the prevailing PPF rate, which is far lower than any personal loan.
Extension after maturity: At the end of 15 years, you have three options: close and withdraw the full amount tax-free; extend without contribution while the balance keeps earning PPF interest; or extend with contribution in blocks of 5 years while continuing to deposit up to Rs.1.5 lakh annually. The extension-with-contribution option is often the most financially optimal for investors who do not need the corpus immediately.
PPF vs ELSS vs NPS - Choosing the Right 80C Vehicle
PPF vs ELSS: ELSS has a 3-year lock-in, the shortest among 80C instruments, and historically delivers 12 to 15% CAGR, but returns are market-linked and not guaranteed, and gains above Rs.1 lakh in a year attract a 10% LTCG tax. PPF offers guaranteed, fully tax-free returns with no market risk. For the risk-averse, PPF is superior; for long horizons and higher risk tolerance, ELSS may build more wealth in absolute terms.
PPF vs NPS: NPS offers potentially higher market-linked returns and an extra Rs.50,000 deduction beyond the 80C limit, but only part of the corpus is tax-free at retirement and a portion must be used to buy a taxable annuity. PPF's entire maturity amount is tax-free with no annuity requirement, making it cleaner for pure corpus building. Many investors use both: PPF for the guaranteed, tax-free core and NPS for the equity-linked supplement.
PPF as a Retirement Planning Cornerstone
Among all the options available to Indian retirement savers, PPF occupies a unique position: guaranteed, tax-free returns with zero credit risk. For a 30-year-old investing Rs.1.5 lakh annually for 35 years (15-year base plus two 5-year extensions), the maturity amount at 7.1% crosses Rs.2.3 crore, entirely tax-free. No other fixed-income instrument in India offers this combination of safety, return, and tax efficiency over such a long horizon.
The strategy is simple but often overlooked: open the account in your late 20s or early 30s, contribute the maximum every year before 5 April, and extend indefinitely in 5-year blocks after the first 15 years. The compounding in years 16 to 35 is dramatically more powerful than in years 1 to 15 because the base balance is now large. PPF also serves as an excellent bond allocation in a retirement portfolio, delivering 7.1% tax-free, which is better than the pre-tax yield on most corporate bonds, at the cost of limited liquidity, which suits funds you will not need for 15 years or more.