How much cash do I need to close?
Two inputs: the price and the down payment percent. The calculator returns the check you write at closing: the down payment, plus closing costs from Freddie Mac's published 2% to 5% range, plus any discount points, minus seller credits. Put down less than 20% and it also quantifies the consequence: the mortgage insurance the smaller down payment adds to the monthly payment, and when the law makes it end.
Loading the calculator.
What cash to close is
Cash to close is everything you wire or bring as a cashier's check on closing day: the down payment, plus the one-time costs of getting the loan and transferring the home, minus whatever the seller agreed to credit you. At the defaults, that is $80,000 down on a $400,000 price plus $14,000 of closing costs, a check of $94,000. Discount points, if you buy the rate down, join the costs side: a point is 1% of the loan, so it prices off the amount you borrow, not the price of the house.
The model has one hard rule, and it is the one people get wrong: seller credits offset closing costs and points, never the down payment. The down payment is equity you are required to bring; the credits can only shrink the fee side of the check. With $10,000 of credits at the defaults the check falls to $84,000, and a credit larger than the costs stops there. The warning under the result reports the unusable excess when you cross that line.
Every figure on this page and in the JSON twin comes from one function, so the two never drift. The closing-cost default is a published range's midpoint, not a guess; the price and down payment are examples to be replaced.
What closing costs contain
The closing-cost estimate is one percentage standing in for a stack of line items. The stack has four broad layers: lender fees (origination, underwriting, the credit pull), title work (the search, settlement, and title insurance), third-party reports (the appraisal, sometimes a survey or inspection the lender requires), and prepaids (property tax and homeowners insurance paid into escrow at closing, plus interest for the days before your first payment).
Freddie Mac puts the total at 2% to 5% of the purchase price. On a $400,000 home that is $8,000 to $20,000; the default here is the middle of the range, $14,000. Where you land inside it depends mostly on your state's taxes and title customs and on the lender's fees, which is why the rate is an adjustable assumption rather than a constant. When your Loan Estimate arrives, enter its actual total as a percent of the price and the check updates.
Putting down less than 20 percent
The down payment percent is the biggest lever on the check, and it prices a real decision. Dropping from 20% to 10% down on the default price cuts the check from $94,000 to $54,000, keeping $40,000 in your pocket on closing day.
The consequence is monthly. The loan grows to $360,000, and a conventional loan under 20% down requires private mortgage insurance, which Freddie Mac puts at 0.36% to 0.84% of the loan per year. At the mid-range 0.6% that is about $180 a month here, on top of the larger principal-and-interest payment the bigger loan carries.
PMI is not forever. Under the Homeowners Protection Act, as the CFPB explains it, you can request cancellation once the balance reaches 80% of the home's original value, and the servicer must terminate it automatically when the balance is scheduled to reach 78%. The trade the calculator lets you price is cash now against a removable monthly cost; whether it is worth it depends on what the kept cash would otherwise do.
What the calculator does not know
What a point buys. The calculator prices the cost of a discount point exactly, 1% of the loan, but the rate reduction a point purchases varies by lender, loan, and day. Pricing that trade needs the two quotes side by side; this page prices the upfront side only.
Your state and your contract. Transfer taxes and recording fees differ enormously by state and city, which is most of the spread inside the 2% to 5% range. Prorations, where the buyer and seller split the current property tax bill or HOA dues at the closing date, shift the check in either direction. Both are in your Loan Estimate and Closing Disclosure, not in a national default.
Timing. Earnest money you deposited when the offer was accepted is credited at closing, so part of this check may already be paid. The model prices the total cash the purchase takes, not the schedule you paid it on. And lender-specific rules, like the cap on seller contributions for your loan program, can bind before this model's arithmetic does.
For agents and scripts
This calculator is built to be used without a browser. Every input is a query parameter on this page, and the same parameters on the JSON twin return the complete answer as a document.
GET /tools/cash-to-close.json?price=550000&downPct=10
The response carries inputs after parsing and clamping, result with the down payment, the loan and its loan-to-value, closing costs, points, the credits applied, the cashToClose check itself, and the monthly mortgage insurance a down payment under 20% adds, plus sensitivity tables by down payment percent and closing-cost rate, drivers ranked by effect with a plain sentence each, assumptions that say for every field whether you supplied it and which source the default came from, sources with URLs and as-of dates, warnings, a disclaimer, and in tool the canonicalUrl and jsonUrl that carry only your non-default parameters. The canonical URL is the answer's permanent address; use it when you cite the number.
Parameters, all optional, in any order:
price($), default $400,000.downPct(%), default 20%.closingRate(%), default 3.5%, from Freddie Mac, What are closing costs and how much will I pay?.points(%), default 0%.sellerCredits($), default $0.
Values accept plain numbers and loose human formats such as 100k, $100,000, or 6.5%. Unknown parameters are ignored, values outside a field's range are clamped and reported in warnings, and the endpoint never fails on bad input. Responses are cacheable for a day; the defaults change when their sources publish, and tool.version changes when the method does.
Common questions
How much cash do I need for a $400,000 house?
At 20% down with closing costs at the published mid-range 3.5% of the price, you bring $94,000: $80,000 of down payment plus $14,000 of closing costs. At 10% down the check falls to $54,000, but the smaller down payment adds mortgage insurance of about $180 a month to the payment. Enter your own price and the page recomputes as you type.
What is the difference between closing costs and cash to close?
Closing costs are the one-time fees of getting the loan and transferring the home: $14,000 at the defaults, 3.5% of the $400,000 price. Cash to close is the whole check: those costs plus the down payment, plus any discount points, minus any credits. The down payment is by far the larger part at most down payment levels, which is why the check moves so much more with the down percent than with the fee estimate.
Can the seller pay my closing costs?
Yes, through seller credits negotiated into the contract, and this calculator models them with one floor: credits offset closing costs and points, never the down payment. With $10,000 of credits at the defaults, the check drops from $94,000 to $84,000. Lenders also cap what a seller may contribute, and the cap varies with the loan program and the size of the down payment, so a large credit may not be fully usable; ask the lender for the cap on your loan.
Are discount points worth it?
The calculator prices the side of that trade it can know: one point costs 1% of the loan, $3,200 at the defaults, paid at closing on top of the down payment and closing costs. What a point buys is the side it cannot: the rate reduction varies by lender and by day, so there is no universal answer. Get the with-points and without-points quotes from the same lender on the same day, then weigh the upfront cost here against the monthly difference over the years you expect to keep the loan.
What happens if I put less than 20 percent down?
Two things move in opposite directions. The check shrinks: $54,000 at 10% down against $94,000 at 20% on the default price, keeping $40,000 in your pocket. And the monthly payment grows, because the loan is bigger and a conventional loan under 20% down adds private mortgage insurance, about $180 a month here at Freddie Mac's mid-range 0.6% rate. Under the Homeowners Protection Act you can request cancellation at 80% loan-to-value, and the servicer must end it automatically at 78%.
Can an agent or a script use this calculator?
Yes. Every input is a query parameter, and the same parameters on /tools/cash-to-close.json return the full answer as JSON: inputs, the down payment, loan, closing costs, points, applied credits, the cash to close, the monthly mortgage insurance a low down payment adds, drivers, sensitivity tables by down payment percent and closing-cost rate, assumptions with sources, and warnings. No browser, no API key.
Sources
- Freddie Mac, What are closing costs and how much will I pay?, as of 2026-02-26. Closing costs typically run 2% to 5% of the home purchase price, paid in addition to the down payment.
- Freddie Mac, Breaking down PMI, as of 2026-08-21. Private mortgage insurance typically costs $30 to $70 per month for every $100,000 borrowed (0.36% to 0.84% of the loan per year). Required on conventional loans with less than 20% down.
- CFPB, When can I remove private mortgage insurance (PMI) from my loan?, as of 2023-08-28. Under the Homeowners Protection Act a servicer must automatically terminate PMI on the date the principal balance is scheduled to reach 78% of the home's original value; the borrower may request cancellation at 80%.
Default values on this page: closing costs 3.5% of the price (Freddie Mac, What are closing costs and how much will I pay?). The price and down payment defaults are examples, and points and seller credits default to zero. The monthly mortgage-insurance context figure uses 0.6% of the loan per year, the middle of the range in Freddie Mac, Breaking down PMI, with the removal rule from CFPB, When can I remove private mortgage insurance (PMI) from my loan?.
Want the number for your actual finances?
Carlo is a personal finance agent. It knows your accounts, debts, and goals, so instead of the check on an example house it can tell you what this purchase leaves in your emergency fund, what the monthly payment does to your savings rate, and whether the smaller down payment is worth it for you. Text it the question.
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Written by Tejas Shah, Co-founder, Engineering. Building Carlo — the financial model that begins with the decision you're actually weighing. Previously engineering leadership across fintech and consumer startups.
This models the check at closing from your inputs and a published range for closing costs. It is not a Loan Estimate, a Closing Disclosure, or financial advice. The Closing Disclosure your lender sends before closing is the figure that counts.