Future Value Calculator
What money becomes: a lump sum, plus optional regular additions, grown at a rate for a number of years — the fundamental time-value-of-money calculation.
The time value of money, forward direction
A sum today, a rate, and time: the future value is what the sum becomes if the rate is earned and the earnings keep earning. It is the calculation beneath every savings projection, pension promise and 'your money works for you' sentence ever written.
FV = P × (1 + r ÷ m)m × years (+ contributions, each compounded for its remaining time)
Example: $5,000 at 7% for 15 years, compounded monthly, becomes about $14,236 — nearly tripled without a single addition. The growth line in your result separates your principal from time's contribution.
Future value is a statement about assumptions
The formula is exact; the inputs are wagers. A future value computed at an assumed return is best read as 'the destination if this rate repeats' — and quoted with the rate attached, always. A bare FV without its rate and years is a number with its evidence removed.
How this is calculated
Standard compounding of the lump sum at the nominal rate divided by the chosen frequency. The optional per-period contribution is an ordinary annuity added at period end (each installment compounds for the periods remaining after it lands). No taxes, fees or inflation are applied — the inflation calculator supplies the other half of that picture.
Frequently asked questions
Future value vs compound interest — same page?
Same engine, different emphasis: the compound interest calculator is built around contributions and bank-style compounding choices; this one is the financier's single-sum tool with a contribution option.
Can future value handle a negative rate?
Yes — enter a negative rate and the sum shrinks: decay is compounding with the sign flipped, which is also how depreciation and deflation arithmetic runs.
Why is there a frequency choice?
Because '7%' is incomplete without it: at 7% nominal, monthly compounding produces an effective 7.23%. The frequency is part of the rate's meaning.
What about inflation — is FV in real terms?
No, FV is nominal: the future count of currency units. What those units will buy is the present-value/inflation question, handled on the inflation page.
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