Home Loan Calculator: SBI, HDFC, ICICI EMI Rates Explained (2026)

Why the same loan amount produces a different EMI at SBI and HDFC

The formula is identical everywhere. What changes is the interest rate that goes into it. Since 2019, every bank in India is required to link floating-rate home loans to an external benchmark, usually the RBI repo rate. But each lender adds a spread on top of that benchmark to cover its own cost of funds, operating costs, and risk assessment. That spread is called the credit risk premium.

SBI’s home loan rate in 2026 starts at roughly 8.50 percent per annum for borrowers with a CIBIL score above 750, a salaried employment profile, and a property in a metro. HDFC Bank starts at approximately 8.75 percent. ICICI Bank sits close to HDFC. Axis Bank and Canara Bank both sit in the 8.65 to 9.00 percent range depending on loan amount and LTV. These differences look small on paper. On a 20-year loan of Rs 75 lakh, a 0.25 percent rate gap translates to roughly Rs 12,000 in additional annual interest.

The home loan calculator on Square Yards lets you run these comparisons side by side in under two minutes. If you want to do it manually first, the next section has the formula and worked examples.

The home loan EMI formula: how every bank including SBI calculates it

The formula is:

EMI = P x R x (1 + R)^N divided by ((1 + R)^N minus 1)

Where:

• P is the principal loan amount (the amount borrowed, not the property price)
• R is the monthly interest rate (annual rate divided by 12 divided by 100)
• N is the total number of monthly EMIs (tenure in years multiplied by 12)

One worked example. Rs 50 lakh, 8.75 percent per annum, 20 years.

• P = 50,00,000
• R = 8.75 divided by 12 divided by 100 = 0.007292
• N = 20 multiplied by 12 = 240
• EMI = 50,00,000 x 0.007292 x (1 + 0.007292)^240 divided by ((1 + 0.007292)^240 minus 1) = approximately Rs 44,167 per month

You do not need to run this by hand. The Urban Money EMI calculator on Square Yards does it instantly and lets you toggle loan amount, tenure, and rate.

Home loan calculator SBI: EMI for popular loan amounts in 2026

SBI’s home loan rates start at 8.50 percent for eligible borrowers. The table below uses that floor rate and a 20-year tenure, which is the most common combination for first-time buyers.

Note: these are indicative figures based on a flat 8.50 percent floating rate for 20 years. Actual EMI depends on the SBI-specific spread applied to your profile, the property location, and any processing-fee capitalisation your bank applies.

Home loan EMI calculator HDFC, ICICI, Axis Bank, PNB and Canara: what changes between banks

Each bank arrives at your rate differently, even though all use the repo rate as the external benchmark.

• HDFC Bank. Floor rate approximately 8.75 percent. Known for competitive rates on salaried borrowers with CIBIL above 750, and for faster digital disbursal in metro cities. Processing fee: up to 0.50 percent of loan amount.
• ICICI Bank. Floor approximately 8.75 percent. Slightly faster approval timeline for existing salary-account holders. Offers step-up EMI (lower EMI in early years, rising later) as a specific product for young borrowers.
• Axis Bank. Floor approximately 8.75 to 8.85 percent. Strong on pre-approved offers for existing customers. Good for loan amounts above Rs 75 lakh where SBI’s processing can be slower.
• PNB (Punjab National Bank). Floor approximately 8.50 percent for eligible borrowers. Government bank, so often preferred by government-sector employees for documentary reasons. Processing can be slower than private banks.
• Canara Bank. Floor approximately 8.65 percent. Well-regarded for Karnataka-based borrowers and for projects where Canara has an existing developer relationship.
• LIC Housing Finance. Floor approximately 8.50 to 8.65 percent. No prepayment penalty on floating-rate loans. Popular with NRIs and older borrowers for flexible tenure up to 30 years.

The practical approach is to shortlist two or three lenders, get pre-approval offers from each, and then compare the final sanctioned rate (not the advertised floor). A 0.25 percent difference in sanctioned rate on a Rs 1 crore loan for 20 years is approximately Rs 1,900 per month. Over 20 years, that is Rs 4.56 lakh.

What the amortisation schedule tells you that the EMI calculator does not

The EMI number alone hides something important. In the early years of a home loan, most of each EMI payment goes toward interest, not principal. On a Rs 50 lakh loan at 8.75 percent over 20 years, the first EMI of Rs 44,167 breaks down as approximately Rs 36,458 in interest and only Rs 7,709 in principal. By year 10, the split has shifted. By year 15, principal dominates.

Why does this matter? Because prepayment saves dramatically more money in years 1 to 7 than it does in years 15 to 20. If you receive a bonus, an inheritance, or a salary increment in the early years of your loan, a lump-sum prepayment in year 3 saves far more total interest than the same amount prepaid in year 12.

Under RBI guidelines, banks cannot charge a prepayment penalty on floating-rate home loans for individual borrowers. This means prepayment is always free. The only question is whether you choose to reduce your EMI or reduce your tenure when you prepay. Reducing tenure saves more interest overall. Reducing EMI improves your monthly cash flow.

Pre-EMI interest: the cost nobody budgets for in under-construction property

When you take a loan on an under-construction property, the bank does not disburse the entire amount on day one. It releases tranches as the builder hits construction milestones. Between each disbursement and the start of your full EMI, you pay pre-EMI: interest only on the amount disbursed so far, not the full principal.

On a Rs 80 lakh loan where the bank releases Rs 20 lakh in tranche one, you pay interest of roughly Rs 14,583 per month for the period before the next tranche. This continues across all disbursement stages, and adds up to a meaningful sum over a 24 to 36 month construction period. Many buyers do not budget for it because it does not show up in the home loan calculator.

Two things you can do. Ask the bank for a projected disbursement schedule from the builder before you sign the loan agreement. And factor pre-EMI cost into your total acquisition cost when comparing ready-to-move versus under-construction property. Our fixed vs floating interest rate guide covers the rate-type decision that affects both your EMI and your pre-EMI exposure.

The bank comparison Priyanka ran before choosing SBI over HDFC

This is the conversation we have most often with first-time buyers in the Rs 50 to 75 lakh bracket.

She was 33, a salaried architect at a Bengaluru urban design firm, looking at a 2 BHK in Sarjapur with a ticket size of Rs 65 lakh. Her CIBIL score was 762. Her take-home was Rs 82,000 a month. She walked into our Whitefield office with two pre-approval letters: SBI at 8.50 percent and HDFC at 8.75 percent. Both were for 20 years. The EMI difference was Rs 1,040 per month. She had spent a week trying to decide which one mattered more: the lower EMI at SBI, or the faster disbursal timeline HDFC had promised.

The advisor pulled up the amortisation table for both. Over 20 years, the interest saving at SBI was approximately Rs 2.5 lakh. But HDFC’s project-approved list included the Sarjapur builder; SBI’s did not. That meant SBI would need to do its own independent property verification, adding four to six weeks to disbursal and putting her agreement-to-sale timeline at risk because the seller had a hard 60-day deadline.

She took the HDFC loan. The slightly higher rate cost her Rs 1,040 a month. The faster disbursal kept the deal alive.

“I had spent a week staring at the EMI difference between SBI and HDFC and thinking the Rs 1,040 mattered more than anything else. The Square Yards advisor showed me that my builder was on the HDFC approved list and not SBI’s, which meant SBI would have needed 6 weeks just to verify the property. I would have lost the apartment. The EMI calculator told me the number. The advisor told me which number actually mattered.”

A small note on this story. The buyer’s real name and a few identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of our customers. The story and the outcome are real, shared with the buyer’s written consent.

How to use the home loan EMI calculator on Square Yards

The Urban Money home loan EMI calculator on Square Yards works in three steps. Enter your loan amount. Enter the interest rate (use the bank’s current floor rate as a starting point). Enter your preferred tenure. The calculator returns your monthly EMI, total interest payable, and a year-by-year amortisation schedule that shows principal and interest breakdown for every year of the loan.

The same calculator accepts multiple rates side by side. Enter SBI’s 8.50 percent and HDFC’s 8.75 percent in two separate runs, note the EMI and total interest difference, and use that delta to frame your bank negotiation. Banks have a small range of discretion on the spread. If you come with a competing offer in hand, the conversation gets more productive.

For deeper reading, our home loan eligibility criteria guide explains what determines how much loan you can get, our how to improve home loan eligibility guide covers what to do if the sanctioned amount is lower than you need, and our tax benefits on home loan guide shows how to calculate the after-tax cost of your EMI. The salary required to buy a flat guide is the right companion read if you are still deciding on your budget.