Tools · DSCR
DSCR Calculator
Debt Service Coverage Ratio in 10 seconds. Free forever. Powered by SaintSal AI.
Every assumption is on screen and editable — nothing hidden in an advanced drawer, no email wall before the answer. Calculation runs entirely in your browser.
Inputs
Live calculationOptional. Used only to label your result and to prefill the full Deal Analyzer — nothing is stored unless you save.
75.0% LTV
$4,500 / month
Percent of gross rent
Percent of effective gross income
Percent of gross rent
Typical DSCR programs: 1.15x – 1.25x
Result updates live as you type — the button just jumps to it
A DSCR of 0.86 means net operating income does not cover annual debt service. The gap is $5,611 per year, which has to come from outside the property.
Breakdown
Supporting metrics
To clear 1.25x
Gross rent would need to rise about $18,918 per year ($1,576/mo), or annual debt service would need to fall about $12,471 — through a lower loan amount, a longer amortization, or a lower rate.
Sensitivity
These sliders share state with the inputs above — move either one.
Next Step
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Coverage is one test. The Deal Analyzer runs the full metric set against sourced property data, grades the deal A–F, issues the verdict, and produces a lender-ready packet with a retained audit trail. Your inputs carry over.
Education
What DSCR is, why lenders care, and how to move it
Coverage is the single number that decides whether a rental property qualifies on its own merits instead of on your tax returns.
What is DSCR?
Debt Service Coverage Ratio is net operating income divided by annual debt service. At 1.00 the property exactly pays its own mortgage. At 1.30 it produces 30% more income than the debt requires. Below 1.00 the shortfall comes out of your pocket.
NOI is income after vacancy and operating expenses but before debt service, capital expenditures, depreciation and income tax. Mixing debt into NOI is the most common modeling error.
Why lenders care
A DSCR program underwrites the asset, not your personal income — no tax returns, no debt-to-income test. Coverage is therefore the entire credit story, so lenders set a hard floor, commonly 1.15x to 1.25x, and price up as coverage thins.
- 1.25x+ — priced in the comfortable band
- 1.15x – 1.25x — qualifies on many programs, priced wider
- 1.00x – 1.15x — exception territory, expect leverage cuts
- Below 1.00x — typically declined on a DSCR product
How to improve yours
- Reduce the loan amount — coverage responds faster to leverage than to rate.
- Lengthen amortization where the program allows it; a 40-year term cuts annual debt service materially.
- Raise achievable rent, then document it with a lease or a market rent analysis the lender will accept.
- Attack fixed expenses: appeal the assessment, re-shop insurance, verify the HOA figure.
- Correct optimistic assumptions before the lender does — a 3% vacancy assumption in a 7% vacancy submarket gets re-underwritten.
Methodology
Every formula, stated
Deterministic arithmetic, computed client-side. No provider data is called and no value is inferred — what you type is what is used.
Formulas used
- EGI = Gross Rent − (Gross Rent × Vacancy %)
- Effective gross income after vacancy loss.
- OpEx = Taxes + Insurance + HOA + (EGI × Mgmt %) + (Gross Rent × Maint %)
- Operating expenses. Management is taken on collected income; maintenance is taken on gross rent.
- NOI = EGI − OpEx
- Net operating income — before debt service, capital expenditure and income tax.
- Monthly Debt = P × r / (1 − (1 + r)^−n)
- Standard amortizing payment where r is the monthly rate and n the number of monthly periods.
- DSCR = NOI ÷ Annual Debt Service
- Coverage ratio. 1.00 is exact break-even on debt service.
- Monthly Cash Flow = (NOI − Annual Debt Service) ÷ 12
- Pre-tax cash flow before capital expenditure reserves.
Known limitations
- Excludes capital expenditure reserves, lease-up costs, and one-time repairs — real cash flow will be lower than modeled.
- Assumes a fully amortizing fixed-rate loan. Interest-only, ARM, balloon and step-rate structures produce different debt service.
- Excludes closing costs, points, prepaid escrows and financed reserves from the down payment figure used for cash-on-cash.
- Property tax is entered as a fixed figure; reassessment on transfer can materially change it in states like California.
- Lender-calculated DSCR may differ: some programs use market rent from an appraisal form, gross rent rather than NOI, or add a reserve haircut.
- This tool makes no credit, appraisal, legal, tax or investment decision, and does not verify any input.
Investment Analysis Disclaimer
This calculator is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not an appraisal, a credit decision, a loan offer, or investment, legal or tax advice, and no advisory relationship is created by using it.
Past performance is not indicative of future results. All real estate investment involves risk, including loss of capital. Output depends entirely on the assumptions you enter, which may prove incorrect.
Lenders calculate coverage using their own program definitions and verified documentation. A result produced here does not indicate that any lender will approve, price, or size a loan in the manner shown.