When does your mortgage payment become mostly principal?
The crossover point for every year since 1971. For a fixed-rate loan taken out in each year at that year's average rate, we worked out the payment in which principal first overtakes interest, how much of every dollar paid goes to interest, and how much interest is paid before the loan turns the corner.
Key findings
- Today: a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage at 2026's average rate so far, 6.39%, doesn't become mostly principal until payment 231 of 360, in year 20 of the loan. By then the borrower has paid $102,227 of interest per $100,000 borrowed, more than the loan itself, and 55.5% of all the payments go to interest.
- Latest crossover: 1981, at 16.64%. The crossover came at payment 311, in year 26, with only 49 payments left. 80.1% of everything paid went to interest.
- Fastest crossover: 2021, at 2.96%. Principal overtook interest at payment 80, in year 7, and 33.8% of the payments went to interest.
- 1981 vs 2021: a borrower at 16.64% in 1981 paid $383,044 of interest per $100,000 borrowed before reaching the crossover, in year 26. A borrower at 2.96% in 2021 paid $18,086 and got there in year 7: 231 payments (19 yrs 3 mo) sooner. The 1981 borrower paid about 21 times as much interest to get there.
- The rule behind it: the crossover always falls a fixed number of months before the final payment, set only by the rate: ln 2 ÷ ln(1 + monthly rate), the time money takes to double at the loan's rate. At 6.39% that is 10.9 years before the end, whatever the loan amount. Loans taken out at 2026's rate cross over 151 payments later than 2021 loans.
- 15-year loans: in 14 of the 35 years since 1991 (2009–2022), a 15-year loan at the average rate was mostly principal from the very first payment. At 2026's 5.74%, the crossover is payment 36 of 180, in year 3.
Rates are annual averages of the weekly Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey®, through the week of September 17, 2026. Timing is the same for any loan amount; dollar figures are per $100,000 borrowed and scale in proportion.
The crossover by year taken out
Why the crossover doesn't depend on the loan amount
Each payment on a fixed-rate loan is the same, but the split changes: interest is the monthly rate times what you still owe, and the rest pays down principal. The principal part grows by a factor of (1 + monthly rate) every month. Solving for the first payment that is at least half principal, the loan amount cancels out:
payment t is mostly principal when t − 1 ≥ n − ln 2 ÷ ln(1 + r)
Here n is the number of payments and r the monthly rate. The loan amount isn't in it, so a $50,000 loan and a $1,000,000 loan at the same rate and term cross over in the same month. The second term is how long money takes to double at the loan's rate: the crossover comes that many months before the final payment. At 2.96% it is 23.4 years, which is why cheap loans cross early; at 16.64% it is only 4.2 years. This is the same closed form as on our methodology page, rearranged.
We checked it. For each of the 92 loans in the study, we ran the full month-by-month schedule, rounding interest to the cent, at $100,000 and at $50,000, $250,000, $500,000, $1,000,000. The schedule and the formula agree on the crossover payment at every size for 91 of the 92 loans. The exception is the 15-year loan from 2004, which sits almost exactly on the boundary: on a $100,000 loan, rounding to the cent makes payment 21 split exactly evenly, so it counts as the crossover there, while the formula and some other loan sizes give payment 22. That is a rounding effect of a single cent, not a real dependence on the loan size.
Full results
One row per year the loan was taken out. Dollar figures are per $100,000 borrowed. The same table, with the monthly payment and total interest, is available as a CSV file.
| Year taken out | 30-year fixed | 15-year fixed | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Average rate | Crossover payment | Loan year | Share of payments to interest | Interest before crossover | Average rate | Crossover payment | Loan year | Share of payments to interest | |
| 1971* | 7.54% | 251 | 21 | 60.4% | $131,114 | Series starts 1991 | |||
| 1972 | 7.38% | 248 | 21 | 59.8% | $126,841 | Series starts 1991 | |||
| 1973 | 8.04% | 258 | 22 | 62.3% | $143,969 | Series starts 1991 | |||
| 1974 | 9.19% | 271 | 23 | 66.1% | $174,028 | Series starts 1991 | |||
| 1975 | 9.05% | 269 | 23 | 65.6% | $170,087 | Series starts 1991 | |||
| 1976 | 8.87% | 267 | 23 | 65.1% | $165,293 | Series starts 1991 | |||
| 1977 | 8.85% | 267 | 23 | 65.0% | $164,856 | Series starts 1991 | |||
| 1978 | 9.64% | 275 | 23 | 67.4% | $185,901 | Series starts 1991 | |||
| 1979 | 11.20% | 287 | 24 | 71.3% | $228,224 | Series starts 1991 | |||
| 1980 | 13.74% | 301 | 26 | 76.1% | $299,635 | Series starts 1991 | |||
| 1981 | 16.64% | 311 | 26 | 80.1% | $383,044 | Series starts 1991 | |||
| 1982 | 16.04% | 309 | 26 | 79.4% | $365,479 | Series starts 1991 | |||
| 1983 | 13.24% | 298 | 25 | 75.3% | $285,007 | Series starts 1991 | |||
| 1984 | 13.88% | 301 | 26 | 76.4% | $303,264 | Series starts 1991 | |||
| 1985 | 12.43% | 294 | 25 | 73.8% | $262,230 | Series starts 1991 | |||
| 1986 | 10.19% | 280 | 24 | 68.8% | $200,840 | Series starts 1991 | |||
| 1987 | 10.21% | 280 | 24 | 68.9% | $201,305 | Series starts 1991 | |||
| 1988 | 10.34% | 281 | 24 | 69.2% | $204,813 | Series starts 1991 | |||
| 1989 | 10.32% | 281 | 24 | 69.2% | $204,342 | Series starts 1991 | |||
| 1990 | 10.13% | 279 | 24 | 68.7% | $198,989 | Series starts 1991 | |||
| 1991 | 9.25% | 271 | 23 | 66.2% | $175,373 | 8.40%* | 82 | 7 | 43.2% |
| 1992 | 8.39% | 262 | 22 | 63.5% | $152,903 | 7.94% | 76 | 7 | 41.7% |
| 1993 | 7.31% | 247 | 21 | 59.5% | $125,099 | 6.82% | 59 | 5 | 37.5% |
| 1994 | 8.38% | 262 | 22 | 63.5% | $152,685 | 7.89% | 76 | 7 | 41.5% |
| 1995 | 7.93% | 256 | 22 | 61.9% | $140,931 | 7.48% | 70 | 6 | 40.0% |
| 1996 | 7.81% | 255 | 22 | 61.5% | $138,076 | 7.32% | 68 | 6 | 39.4% |
| 1997 | 7.60% | 252 | 21 | 60.7% | $132,690 | 7.13% | 64 | 6 | 38.7% |
| 1998 | 6.94% | 241 | 21 | 58.0% | $115,811 | 6.59% | 55 | 5 | 36.6% |
| 1999 | 7.44% | 249 | 21 | 60.0% | $128,395 | 7.06% | 63 | 6 | 38.4% |
| 2000 | 8.05% | 258 | 22 | 62.3% | $144,178 | 7.72% | 73 | 7 | 40.9% |
| 2001 | 6.97% | 242 | 21 | 58.1% | $116,724 | 6.50% | 53 | 5 | 36.2% |
| 2002 | 6.54% | 234 | 20 | 56.2% | $105,947 | 5.98% | 42 | 4 | 34.1% |
| 2003 | 5.83% | 218 | 19 | 52.8% | $88,319 | 5.17% | 20 | 2 | 30.5% |
| 2004 | 5.84% | 219 | 19 | 52.9% | $88,785 | 5.21% | 21 | 2 | 30.7% |
| 2005 | 5.87% | 219 | 19 | 53.0% | $89,303 | 5.42% | 28 | 3 | 31.7% |
| 2006 | 6.41% | 231 | 20 | 55.6% | $102,594 | 6.07% | 44 | 4 | 34.5% |
| 2007 | 6.34% | 230 | 20 | 55.3% | $101,000 | 6.03% | 43 | 4 | 34.3% |
| 2008 | 6.03% | 223 | 19 | 53.8% | $93,292 | 5.62% | 33 | 3 | 32.5% |
| 2009 | 5.04% | 196 | 17 | 48.5% | $69,253 | 4.57% | 1 | 1 | 27.7% |
| 2010 | 4.69% | 184 | 16 | 46.4% | $60,893 | 4.10% | 1 | 1 | 25.4% |
| 2011 | 4.45% | 174 | 15 | 44.9% | $54,994 | 3.68% | 1 | 1 | 23.2% |
| 2012 | 3.66% | 134 | 12 | 39.4% | $35,864 | 2.93% | 1 | 1 | 19.2% |
| 2013 | 3.98% | 152 | 13 | 41.7% | $43,635 | 3.10% | 1 | 1 | 20.1% |
| 2014 | 4.17% | 162 | 14 | 43.0% | $48,362 | 3.29% | 1 | 1 | 21.2% |
| 2015 | 3.85% | 145 | 13 | 40.7% | $40,478 | 3.09% | 1 | 1 | 20.1% |
| 2016 | 3.65% | 133 | 12 | 39.3% | $35,531 | 2.93% | 1 | 1 | 19.2% |
| 2017 | 3.99% | 153 | 13 | 41.7% | $43,991 | 3.27% | 1 | 1 | 21.0% |
| 2018 | 4.54% | 178 | 15 | 45.4% | $57,240 | 4.00% | 1 | 1 | 24.9% |
| 2019 | 3.94% | 150 | 13 | 41.4% | $42,689 | 3.39% | 1 | 1 | 21.7% |
| 2020 | 3.11% | 94 | 8 | 35.0% | $22,080 | 2.60% | 1 | 1 | 17.3% |
| 2021 | 2.96% | 80 | 7 | 33.8% | $18,086 | 2.27% | 1 | 1 | 15.3% |
| 2022 | 5.34% | 205 | 18 | 50.2% | $76,432 | 4.58% | 1 | 1 | 27.8% |
| 2023 | 6.81% | 239 | 20 | 57.4% | $112,655 | 6.11% | 45 | 4 | 34.6% |
| 2024 | 6.72% | 237 | 20 | 57.0% | $110,291 | 5.96% | 42 | 4 | 34.0% |
| 2025 | 6.60% | 235 | 20 | 56.5% | $107,387 | 5.78% | 37 | 4 | 33.2% |
| 2026 (to date) | 6.39% | 231 | 20 | 55.5% | $102,227 | 5.74% | 36 | 3 | 33.1% |
* Partial year: the survey starts on April 2, 1971, and the 15-year series on August 30, 1991. 2026 is year to date through the week of September 17, 2026. Payment 1 means the very first payment is already mostly principal. Crossover month in the CSV assumes the first payment is due in January of the following year; for 1981, that is November 2007.
Methodology
- Data source. Weekly average rates for 30-year and 15-year fixed-rate mortgages from the Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey®, official history file downloaded September 23, 2026. The survey covers conventional, conforming loans; since November 2022 Freddie Mac has based it on applications submitted to its Loan Product Advisor rather than a survey of lenders.
- Annual averaging. Each year's rate is the simple mean of every weekly rate released in that calendar year, rounded to two decimals. We publish only these annual averages and our results, not Freddie Mac's weekly data.
- The loan. A fixed rate for the whole term, level monthly payments, every payment made on time, and no extra payments, refinancing or sale. No points, fees, mortgage insurance, taxes or insurance are included; the figures are principal and interest only.
- Calculation. Our amortization engine, the same one behind the site's calculators, with interest rounded to the cent each month. The crossover is the first payment where the principal part is at least as large as the interest part. Interest before the crossover counts the payments before that one.
- Caveat. These are averages. Borrowers' actual rates varied with credit, down payment, points paid, loan type and the week they locked, and most loans are refinanced or paid off early. Use the principal vs interest calculator to find the crossover for your own rate and balance.
Find your own crossover
- Principal vs interest calculator: find your own crossover month from your balance, rate and payment.
- Amortization schedule calculator: every payment's split between principal and interest.
- Extra payment calculator: how extra principal brings the crossover, and the payoff date, forward.
How to cite this study
You may use these figures with a link to this page. A suggested citation:
Owned Outright. "When does your mortgage payment become mostly principal? The crossover point for every year since 1971." September 23, 2026. https://ownedoutright.com/us/research/mortgage-crossover-study/
Please credit the underlying rates to the Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey®. The full results are in the downloadable CSV (92 rows: 56 for 30-year loans and 36 for 15-year loans, including 2026 to date). For questions or a custom cut of the data, email [email protected].
For education only; not financial advice. Rates are historical annual averages, not offers, and Freddie Mac has not reviewed or endorsed this study. Rates through the week of September 17, 2026; sources checked September 23, 2026.