Boat Loan Calculator

If you're considering buying a boat but have limited available cash, then this boat loan calculator is for you. The tool will help you estimate monthly payments and calculate the total cost of your dream boat financing. This boat payment calculator also works in reverse, meaning that you can enter the desired monthly payment first to find the boat price within your budget.

In the article below, you can read about what a boat loan is and for how long boat terms are. We also explain how to use the boat loan calculator in step-by-step instruction with examples. Check the personal loan calculator to have a look at the more general tool!

A boat loan is a type of personal loan, usually with monthly payments and boat loan terms ranging from short- to mid-term (from 1 year up to 5 years). The main difference between a typical personal loan and a boat loan is the purpose of financing. A boat loan is given strictly for boat financing, while a typical personal loan can be invested in anything.

Consequently, the boat loan is secured with built-in collateral (the boat itself), and if you cannot pay back the borrowed money, you lose your boat as it legally belongs to the lender. Technically, it means that we can call the tool on this website a boat mortgage calculator. To see how it works with cars (another great example of financing with a defined purpose), check our car loan calculator.

Using this boat finance calculator is easier than you think, and you can do it at least in two different ways. Let's assume you have already found your dream boat, and you wonder what would be the monthly cost of the boat loan. Here is what you need to do:

• You need to know the amount of loan, which you should enter into the first boat calculator's field. Usually, it's 100% of boat value, but sometimes you may decide to have a loan with your own contribution. Let's assume you want to borrow $4000.

• Determine how many years you would like to repay your debt over and input it into the second box. How long are boat loans? Typically, it's 1-5 years. Obviously, the longer period, the lower monthly payments are. On the other side, the total cost of the loan grows up in correlation with a longer period. In our example, we want a boat loan term of 5 years.

• The last thing to know is the interest rate you will be paying (the interest rate calculator explains this metric in detail). In the boat finance calculator, you have a default value of 5%, based on the average cost for this type of financing. You can always change it by checking the interest rate proposed by your bank.

• That's it! Our boat loan payment calculator will show you the result immediately. In our example, we get the monthly payment equal to $75.48. You can also see how much of the additional interest you need to pay in the Total interest paid field.

In the next section, we explain the second way of using this boat payment calculator. Keep reading!

As we are in the middle of an economic discussion about loans, let us answer the above question in the most economical way: "It depends". It depends on many variables, your other debt liabilities, and overall consumption tendency.

The simple answer is the best. If you have enough disposable money per month (after paying necessary things such as rent, bills, other debt liabilities, food, etc.) to cover monthly payments, the answer is yes.

Let us show it on the example using the boat loan calculator.

Your monthly wage is $4,000. Your monthly outgoings include: (1) $1,500 rent; (2) $500 bills; (3) $400 car loan; (4) $300 food; (5) $300 other fixed payments. So, your disposable money per month is:

$4,000 - ($1,500 + $500 + $400 + $300 + $300) = $1,000

Having $1,000 disposable money per month technically allows you to take a loan with monthly payment up to that sum. However, taking into account any potential risks of losing part of your income within the boat financing period, we would rather take a maximum of 30% of disposable money (so $300), leaving a safe liquidity buffer for unexpected expenses. If you input that value into our boat mortgage calculator's monthly payment box, together with loan term and annual interest rate, the calculator will compute the loan amount you can take. In our example, for a 5% interest rate and 5 years boat loan term, it is $15,897.21. That should be enough to buy quite a decent boat!

Check also if you can afford other types of loans with the car affordability calculator or home affordability calculator.