CAGR & XIRR calculator — and what is left after tax and inflation
The yearly growth rate of an investment, before and after tax and inflation.
Result
₹1,00,000.00 became ₹2,50,000.00 in 5 years — a smoothed rate of 20.11% a year.
After everything
From the headline figure to what is left
- Ending amount · the figure most calculators stop at₹2,50,000.00
- Less tax on the gain · at the published rates for what is held₹3,250.00
- Less the fall in buying power · at the inflation rate you entered, over 5 years₹43,939.49
- Left, in starting-date rupees₹2,02,810.51
The three deductions add back to the ending amount exactly, because the calculator defines them that way. Tax comes from the published rates. The buying-power line is arithmetic on the inflation figure you supplied. It is not a forecast of inflation.
Where the ending amount goes
- Left, in starting-date rupees₹2,02,810.51
- Taken by tax on the gain₹3,250.00
- Taken by the fall in buying power₹43,939.49
The three parts add back to the ₹2,50,000.00 ending figure exactly. Tax is worked out from the published rates. The buying-power part is arithmetic on the inflation rate you entered.
How the tax figure is built
| Line | Charged on | Rate | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|
| Long-term capital gains — listed equity & equity-oriented funds | ₹25,000.00 | 12.5% | ₹3,125.00 |
| Health & education cess | ₹3,125.00 | 4% | ₹125.00 |
| Total tax | 2.17% of the gain | ₹3,250.00 |
1,25,000 rupees of the long-term gain falls inside the s.112A (1961 Act), now s.198 (2025 Act) exemption. That is one threshold across every such gain in the financial year — not one per holding.
Held for more than 12 months, so the gain is treated as long-term.
The inflation-adjusted figure is the same money counted in what a rupee bought on the starting date. It is arithmetic on the inflation rate entered, not a measurement of prices.
Each file lists the source and the check date for every rate. The CSV comes as two files, the figures and their sources.
The link carries only these inputs. Saved inputs stay in this browser only, and are off until you turn them on.
Try one change
Each button changes exactly one input and says what that did to the headline figure. Reset undoes it.
Tax rates as at 4 September 2026 · day count actual/365, the same convention a spreadsheet’s XIRR uses.
What this calculator does and does not do
What this calculator does
- Gives the annualised rate for one amount over one period, and the XIRR for a series of payments each on its own date.
- Solves the same identity backwards for whichever term you are missing — the end value, the rate, or the number of years.
- Shows what is left after the tax you specify, and then what that is worth in today's money.
What it does not do
- Say which return is achievable, or suggest that a rate observed in the past continues.
- Describe the path. Two very different sequences with the same endpoints produce exactly the same annualised rate.
- Handle cashflows without dates — an XIRR needs the date of every payment, not just their order.
Show the method and assumptions
The method
- CAGR = (ending value ÷ starting value)^(1 ÷ years) − 1.
- XIRR finds the one yearly rate at which your dated cash flows add up to zero.
- Reverse mode solves the same formula for the ending value, the starting value or the years.
What it assumes
- Growth is smoothed into one steady yearly rate. Real returns go up and down.
- Tax on the gain uses the published equity capital-gains rates.
Sources, effective dates and exclusions
- Calculated on
- today
Tax rates are the ones in force today.
- Rules in force from
- 23 Jul 2024
- Source published
- not listed
- Last reviewed
- 5 Oct 2026
Not included
- Live market prices. Every price here is one you type.
What could change this?
- Which measure fits the cashflows. One amount in and one out is CAGR. Dated flows are XIRR. The two answer different questions.
- The dates. XIRR credits each amount only for the days it was invested, so moving a contribution by a month moves the rate.
- The tax assumptions. Each payment is taxed on its own holding period at the published rates. The exemption is one per person per year, not per holding.
- Flows that change direction more than once. They can have more than one mathematical rate, and the page says so rather than picking silently.
Which measure applies to your situation
The three figures answer different questions. Picking the wrong one is the most common way a return gets misread.
CAGR — one amount, one period
is (ending ÷ starting) raised to the power of 1 ÷ years, minus 1. It is the single constant annual rate that would have carried the starting amount to the ending amount. It assumes one lump sum at the start, with nothing added and nothing withdrawn. It says nothing about the path taken in between. A holding that fell 40% and then recovered has the same CAGR as one that never moved much.
Absolute return is the same result with time removed. Over five years, 150% in total and 20.11% a year are the identical outcome described two ways. The calculator prints both together, because one on its own invites the wrong comparison.
XIRR — many payments, each on its own date
The moment there is a second dated payment, CAGR has nothing to work with. solves for the one annual rate that makes all the dated amounts balance: each amount divided by (1 + rate) raised to its own age in years, summing to zero. A monthly plan is the standard case. The first instalment has been invested for years, the last for a few weeks. Only XIRR can hold both at once.
Building a monthly plan rather than measuring one you already have? The SIP calculator works forwards from an instalment amount. This page works backwards from what actually happened.
How the XIRR is solved, and why the method is printed
Newton-Raphson runs first, from a starting guess of 10% a year. It is fast, and it is what nearly every online XIRR tool ships. On its own it is also fragile. The slope it steers by can flatten to nothing. A single step can also throw the estimate below −100% a year, where the arithmetic is no longer defined. That is why irregular flows so often produce a blank or an error elsewhere.
So every Newton failure here falls through to bisection. A failure is a diverging step, a flat slope, or settling somewhere that does not actually balance the equation. The bisection runs between -99.99% and 1000% a year. Bisection cannot diverge. It only halves a range already known to contain the answer. It is slower and it always finishes.
The result line names the method and the iteration count. It also states how much residual is left in the equation. That is deliberate. A solved figure with no working shown is a figure you have to take on faith. The day count here (actual/365) is the same one a spreadsheet uses, which means any result on this page can be reconciled against a cell of your own.
The flows can change direction twice or more: out, back, out again. Then the equation can be satisfied at several different rates. The tool counts those changes and says so, rather than quietly returning whichever root it happened to land on. Flows that are all outgoing, or all incoming, have no rate at all. That returns a plain sentence saying why, never a zero.
Why each payment is taxed on its own dates
A monthly plan redeemed in one go is not one holding. It is one holding per instalment, each bought on a different date. On the day it is all sold, the earliest instalments may have passed the 12-month mark while the most recent ones have not. Charging the whole gain at a single rate gets that wrong.
The split is not an estimate. At the solved rate, each instalment is worth its own amount compounded to the closing date. Those amounts add back to the closing figure exactly. That identity is what "the rate balances the flows" means. So each instalment's own gain and own holding period decide its own rate. The table on the right shows the split, day counts included.
The flows may not be that ordinary shape. There may be a partial withdrawal, or money going out again in the middle. Then there is no single correct way to allocate the proceeds back to the payments. The tool shows the rate and declines to show a tax figure, with the reason stated. It does not print an approximation that looks exact.
What the inflation adjustment does, and what it does not
The last figure restates the post-tax amount in what a rupee bought on the starting date. It divides that amount by (1 + inflation) raised to the number of years. The rate beside it uses the same relationship rather than a subtraction. A 4% inflation assumption does not simply take 4 points off the annual rate, and the gap widens as rates rise.
The inflation figure is your assumption. That is why it is an editable field and not a constant in the code. It is pre-filled with the midpoint of the inflation target currently notified for the central bank. That is a policy target. It is not a measurement of prices, and not a projection of what any particular reader will meet. Change it, and every figure below it is recomputed from your number.
Worked through with numbers rather than asserted: Diversification and inflation: two things a return figure hides sets 8% growth against 6% inflation both ways: 2% by subtraction, about 1.89% by the ratio. It then shows the same arithmetic turning 5% against 6% slightly negative.
Published figures and their sources
Every one of these is declared once, in one module. Each carries the provision that sets it and the date it was last checked against its source. Nothing on this page re-states a rate as loose text. A change is therefore a single edit, and cannot leave a stale figure stranded in the copy. Rates and thresholds are announced in the Union Budget and can change. Re-check the source before relying on any of them.
| Figure | Value | Provision | In force from | Checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Long-term capital gains — listed equity & equity-oriented funds | 12.5% | Income-tax Act, s.112A (1961 Act), now s.198 (2025 Act) | 23 July 2024 | 4 September 2026 |
| Short-term capital gains — listed equity & equity-oriented funds | 20% | Income-tax Act, s.111A (1961 Act), now s.196 (2025 Act) | 23 July 2024 | 4 September 2026 |
| s.112A (1961 Act), now s.198 (2025 Act) exemption, per person per financial year | ₹1,25,000 | Income-tax Act, s.112A (1961 Act), now s.198 (2025 Act) | 23 July 2024 | 4 September 2026 |
| Holding period that makes listed equity long-term | 12 months | Income-tax Act, s.2(42A) (1961 Act), now s.2(101) (2025 Act) | 23 July 2024 | 4 September 2026 |
| Health & education cess | 4% | Finance Act — health and education cess | 1 April 2018 | 4 September 2026 |
| Surcharge ceiling on capital gains under ss.111A/112/112A (1961 Act), now ss.196/197/198 (2025 Act) | 15% | Finance Act — proviso to the surcharge schedule | 1 April 2022 | 4 September 2026 |
| Pre-filled inflation assumption (editable) | 4% | RBI Act, section 45ZA — inflation target notified by the Central Government | 1 April 2026 | 4 September 2026 |
A worked example, and what the single rate hides
₹1,00,000 becomes ₹2,50,000 over five years. The whole-period change is 2,50,000 ÷ 1,00,000 = 2.5, which is a gain of 150%. The annualised rate is the fifth root of that ratio, minus one:
CAGR = (end ÷ begin) ^ (1 ÷ years) − 1
= (2,50,000 ÷ 1,00,000) ^ (1 ÷ 5) − 1
= 2.5 ^ 0.2 − 1
= 0.2011 → 20.11% a yearCheck it the other way round: 1,00,000 × 1.2011⁵ comes back to ₹2,50,000. That is the whole of CAGR. It is not a measure of anything that happened. It is the constant rate that would have produced the same two endpoints.
Which is exactly what it hides. A steady climb produces 20.11%. So does a fall of 50% in the first year, followed by a five-fold rise over the remaining four (1,00,000 → 50,000 → 2,50,000). The start, the finish and the annualised rate are the same. Only one of the two is something anybody stays invested through. When the payments are dated rather than a single amount, use the XIRR above instead. It solves the same identity with each cashflow weighted by how long it was actually in.
Common mistakes
- Comparing a CAGR with an absolute return. CAGR divides the growth across the years. An absolute return ignores time. The same doubling is a very different annual rate over two years and over ten.
- Reading an XIRR as a CAGR. XIRR weights every dated cash flow. A single deposit and a single withdrawal give the same answer as CAGR, but a series of them does not.
- Trusting an XIRR with two sign changes without reading the solver's note. Such a series can have more than one mathematical solution. The calculator names the method, the iterations and the residual so the answer can be checked.
CAGR and XIRR FAQ
What is the difference between CAGR and XIRR?
CAGR assumes one amount put in at the start, with nothing added or taken out afterwards. It needs only a starting value, an ending value and a number of years. XIRR works from a list of dated amounts, which is why it copes with money going in and out on different dates. A monthly investment plan needs XIRR. Each instalment has been invested for a different length of time, and CAGR has no way to represent that.
Why does this calculator show a figure after tax and after inflation?
Because a maturity figure is not what the money is worth. Two things stand between the ending amount and what a person can actually spend. One is tax on the gain. The other is the fall in what a rupee buys over the period. Both are arithmetic: one on published statutory rates, one on the inflation rate you enter. The tool prints them rather than stopping at the larger, nominal number.
Which capital-gains rates does the calculator use?
For listed equity shares and equity-oriented funds it applies 20% under s.111A (1961 Act), now s.196 (2025 Act) where the holding is 12 months or less, and 12.5% under s.112A (1961 Act), now s.198 (2025 Act) on the gain above the annual exemption of ₹1,25,000 where it is longer, plus 4% health and education cess and any surcharge you enter. Every one of those figures is held in one place in the code with its statute, its source and the date it was last checked (4 September 2026), and the page prints that table below.
Is the s.112A (1961 Act), now s.198 (2025 Act) exemption available on every holding?
No. It is one threshold of ₹1,25,000 per person per financial year, across all s.112A (1961 Act), now s.198 (2025 Act) gains together — not one per holding and not one per folio. The calculator has a field for the part of it already used elsewhere in the year so the figure it shows is not the best case by default.
How is the XIRR actually solved?
It solves the same equation a spreadsheet's XIRR solves — the dated amounts discounted at one annual rate, summing to zero, on an actual/365 day count. Newton-Raphson runs first from a starting guess of 10%. If it diverges, flattens out or steps outside the range where the maths is defined, the solver falls back. It halves a bracket between -99.99% and 1000% a year, which cannot diverge. The result says which method answered and after how many iterations.
Why does it sometimes warn that more than one rate is possible?
When money goes out, comes back, and goes out again, the equation can be true at more than one annual rate. That is a property of the arithmetic, not a bug. Most tools print one of the answers and say nothing. This one counts the changes of direction in your flows. It tells you when the figure is one valid answer among several. You can then read it alongside the amounts rather than on its own.
Why does the inflation rate default to a figure I can change?
Because nobody can publish the inflation a particular person will meet. The field starts at 4% for one reason. That is the midpoint of the inflation target currently notified for the central bank. It is a policy target, not a measurement and not a forecast. Change it to whatever assumption you want to test. Every figure below it is recomputed from your number.
Where to go from here
The asymmetry a single annualised rate hides. A percentage is always applied to the balance that is left, which is why a fall and the rise that undoes it are never equal.
Read the lesson Then thisEMI & loan schedule calculatorThe same compounding running against you: what a loan costs month by month, and what a lump-sum or a higher monthly payment saves, in months and in interest.
OpenLast checked on 4 September 2026.
CAGR expresses the change between a starting value and an ending value as a single constant annual rate.
Read moreXIRR is an annualised rate of return.
Read more