Debt-to-Income (DTI) Calculator
Calculate your debt-to-income ratio from your gross monthly income and monthly debt payments, including separate front-end and back-end DTI.
How to Use
- Enter your gross monthly income — the amount before taxes and other deductions, not your take-home pay.
- Enter each monthly debt payment you have (they default to $0, so leave any that don't apply as-is). Only count actual debt obligations — not everyday living expenses like groceries, utilities, or insurance, which don't count toward DTI.
- The result shows your total monthly debt, your back-end DTI (every debt payment combined against your income), and your front-end DTI (housing payment alone against your income) — the two ratios lenders most commonly reference.
Formula
- Total monthly debt
- total_debt = housing + car loan + student loan + credit card minimums + other debt payments
- Back-end DTI
- back_end_dti = total_debt ÷ gross_monthly_income × 100
- Front-end DTI
- front_end_dti = housing_payment ÷ gross_monthly_income × 100
Worked Example
$6,000 gross monthly income, with $1,500 housing, $400 car loan, $200 student loan, and $150 in credit card minimums.
- Total monthly debt: $1,500 + $400 + $200 + $150 + $0 = $2,250
- Back-end DTI: $2,250 ÷ $6,000 × 100 = 37.5%
- Front-end DTI: $1,500 ÷ $6,000 × 100 = 25%
Result: Total monthly debt payments: $2,250.00 / Back-end DTI: 37.5% / Front-end DTI: 25% / Generally considered: Borderline.
About This Tool
What this tool does
This calculator finds your debt-to-income (DTI) ratio two ways: back-end DTI, which weighs every monthly debt payment you have against your income, and front-end DTI, which weighs your housing payment alone — both figures lenders commonly look at, especially for mortgage qualification.
When to use it
Use it before applying for a mortgage or other major loan to see roughly where you stand, or to check how paying down a specific debt (or taking on a new housing payment) would change your ratio.
What the result means
A lower DTI generally means more of your income is free after debt obligations, which is why lenders use it as a risk measure. Front-end DTI isolates housing costs specifically, since mortgage lenders often apply a separate, usually stricter, threshold to that number alone.
Assumptions & limitations
Income here must be gross (before taxes and other deductions) — DTI is conventionally calculated on gross income, not your net take-home pay, since that's the standard lenders use. Only actual debt obligations count as "debt" for this ratio: loan and credit payments, not everyday living expenses like groceries, utilities, subscriptions, or insurance premiums, which are real costs but aren't counted toward DTI by any lender. The guidance bands shown (36% and 43%) are general, informal rules of thumb, not a fixed regulatory ceiling or any specific lender's or loan program's actual requirement — DTI limits vary by lender and loan type and change over time; for example, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau removed the hard 43% DTI limit from its General Qualified Mortgage rule in its 2021 amendments. This is not a pre-qualification, loan approval, or lending decision of any kind.