How we calculate

• One source of truth for rates. Funding fee tiers, residual income tables, and loan-limit baselines live in a single configuration file that every calculator reads.
• Standard math, no lender pricing. We use published formulas and official tables, never a lender's rate sheet or proprietary adjustment.
• Dated and cited. Factual pages state when the underlying rates were last verified and link to the government source.
• No data collection. Inputs stay in your browser; results are never stored, sold, or turned into a lead.

The fee is the applicable rate times the base loan amount. The rate depends on loan type (purchase, cash-out refinance, or IRRRL), whether this is your first or a subsequent use of the benefit, and your down payment tier. Exempt borrowers get 0%.

Rates come from VA.gov's funding fee and closing costs page, effective April 7, 2023. Check them yourself against the full funding fee chart.

Principal and interest use the standard fixed-rate amortization formula, where r is the monthly interest rate and n is the number of payments:

payment = P × r / (1 − (1 + r)^−n)

Property taxes, homeowners insurance, and HOA dues are divided by twelve and added on top. VA loans carry no monthly mortgage insurance, so no PMI line is ever included. If you finance the funding fee, it is added to the principal before amortizing.

We take your gross monthly income, apply your chosen debt-to-income target, subtract existing monthly debts, and treat what remains as the housing budget. Taxes, insurance, and HOA are removed from that budget, and the remaining principal-and-interest capacity is converted back into a loan amount by inverting the amortization formula.

We deliberately do not hard-code 41% as a ceiling. VA has no maximum DTI; 41% is a threshold above which lenders document compensating factors. The calculator lets you model 30% to 60% and shows the residual income test that actually governs approval.

Requirement amounts come from VA's residual income tables in 38 CFR 36.4340(e), which vary by region, household size, and whether the loan is under or at least $80,000. We subtract estimated taxes, your housing payment, and other monthly debts from gross income, then compare the remainder to the table.

Taxes are estimated at a flat 20% of gross income because we do not ask for filing status, dependents, or state withholding. A lender will use your actual withholding, so treat our figure as a close approximation. Run it on the residual income calculator.

Cash to close is your down payment plus the lender's origination charge, third-party fees you enter, prepaid taxes and insurance, and the funding fee if it is not financed — less any seller or lender credit. VA caps the lender's flat charge at 1% of the loan amount, and seller concessions at 4% of the price. Third-party fee defaults are typical ranges, not quotes — replace them with your Loan Estimate figures for accuracy.

VA guarantees 25% of a loan. Full entitlement means no VA loan limit. When part of your entitlement is charged to a loan you still owe on, the county one-unit conforming limit caps the guaranty, so remaining entitlement equals 25% of that limit minus the amount charged, and the zero-down ceiling is four times what remains. Any loan above that ceiling requires 25% of the overage as a down payment. County limits follow the annual FHFA conforming loan limit announcement.

• These are educational estimates, not loan approvals, offers, or financial advice.
• We do not price interest rates. The rate you enter is your assumption, not a quote.
• Local taxes, insurance, HOA dues, and title fees vary widely; defaults are illustrative.
• Lender overlays, credit, and documentation drive real approvals more than any single ratio.
• Veteran Home Calc is independent and not affiliated with or endorsed by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.