Calculators
DSCR calculator
Debt service coverage ratio compares a property's rent to its own payment. It is the single number most investor property loans qualify on — not your income, not your tax returns, the property's.
Run the ratio
Every rate and cost below is an assumption you can change.
Indicative arithmetic on the numbers you enter. It is not a quote, a pre-qualification or any specific lender's calculation — programs differ on whether taxes, insurance, HOA and vacancy belong in the denominator, and on whether the rent figure comes from a lease or an appraiser's estimate. Lender pages carry each lender's own published criteria and the date it was verified.
What DSCR is and how it's computed
DSCR = Gross Monthly Rent ÷ Monthly PITIA, where PITIA is Principal + Interest + Taxes + Insurance + Association dues. A property renting for $2,450 with a $1,960 PITIA has a DSCR of 1.25. The same property renting for $1,800 against that payment has a DSCR of 0.92. Nothing about the borrower — income, employment, tax returns — enters the calculation. It measures whether the property's own rent covers its own debt.
How it's used in an underwriting decision
A DSCR loan qualifies the deal on this ratio instead of a debt-to-income calculation. Lenders set a minimum — commonly somewhere at or below 1.00 — and price better as the ratio climbs, since a higher ratio means more cushion if the rent dips or a vacancy hits. A property below a lender's floor isn't automatically dead: a larger down payment, an interest-only structure, or a different lender's threshold can still make it work. Each lender's actual minimum DSCR and how it prices around that minimum is published, with a verification date, on that lender's own page.
What this ratio doesn't capture
- Vacancy, turnover and true operating costs. DSCR uses gross rent, not net cash flow. It doesn't subtract vacancy, management fees, maintenance or capital reserves — the cash flow calculator does that.
- Whether the rent figure is real. On a vacant or newly purchased property, the rent input is an appraiser's market-rent estimate, not a signed lease. That estimate can be optimistic or conservative depending on the comps used.
- Return on your cash. DSCR says nothing about how much you put in or what you get back on it — that's cash-on-cash return, not DSCR.
- Rate risk on a floating loan. This tool assumes a fixed rate for the life of the payment. A floating-rate bridge or hard money loan needs the rate cap calculator instead.
Read the full mechanics, including how lenders tier pricing around the ratio and how to raise a DSCR that falls short, on the DSCR glossary entry.