Investment Return Calculator

In Your investment scenario, choose Investment currency (the currency in which your portfolio is valued) and Tax treatment (no investment tax, annual tax on positive gains, or tax on final positive gain). Set Starting investment, any Monthly contribution, and Investment horizon in years. Then enter Gross annual return, Annual management / fund fees, Illustrative investment tax rate, and Annual inflation. Use the slider for a quick estimate or type a precise number in its adjacent box. Inflation is assumed to be measured in your base currency.

In Currency exchange-rate changes, choose your Base currency. Currency calculations are always included. The Investment currency selectors are synchronized; changing either updates the other. If the base currency equals the investment currency, exchange-rate effects are automatically zero and no rates need to be entered. The Start date and End date must match the Investment horizon. When currencies differ, enter Exchange rate at start and Exchange rate at end. Important: enter the number of base-currency units received for one investment-currency unit. For example, if the portfolio is in USD and the base currency is EUR, enter EUR per 1 USD, not USD per 1 EUR. A falling number means each USD buys fewer EUR. Check your actual start and end quotes against a reliable source, including the rate direction. The ending portfolio conversion uses your entered end rate; intervening values are a smooth hypothetical path, not historical prices.

Your projected outcome begins with the projected portfolio value before modeled fees and taxes (left), then shows the value after fees and taxes (right). These are model comparisons, not a literal reproduction of a broker statement. To see the currency adjustment, inflation and your actual gain or loss in purchasing power, consult What determines your final investment outcome? and What happened to your investment? below the graph. Under Investment trajectories over time, tick or untick a label to display its line; select or tap a point for the year-by-year values. Portfolio value after exchange-rate changes shows the portfolio value after the illustrative FX adjustment, not a chart of exchange rates. The graph can start above zero to reveal differences clearly; always read the actual figures.

What determines your final investment outcome? compares gross portfolio growth, fees, modeled taxes, the FX effect on portfolio value, and inflation-adjusted purchasing power. What happened to your investment? reconciles these amounts in the selected base currency. The Gain or loss from currency exchange rate changes is the difference between valuing the same ending after-tax portfolio at the beginning and ending rate; it is not a record of completed currency trades. Actual gain or loss in purchasing power compares the purchasing power of the final portfolio with the inflation-adjusted value of all contributed capital. Green means gain and red means loss; inflation is a purchasing-power adjustment, not cash taken from the account.

Open Year-by-year calculation — View detailed results to inspect the annual modeled balances and download the CSV. Annual FX-adjusted values between the starting and ending rates are illustrative. Use Print / save PDF to print or save your result; Copy scenario link includes your entered assumptions in the URL.

The real value of your investment is the purchasing power of your final net balance in today's currency. To calculate a real investment gain, we subtract all contributions valued in today's purchasing power: your initial investment plus later contributions deflated from the dates invested. Thus investing more money is not counted as earning a return.

At the end of every month, the model applies a monthly-equivalent gross return, then an annualized asset-based fee using its monthly equivalent. Under the annual tax option, positive gains after fees for each calendar year are taxed at year-end; losses do not generate an immediate refund. With deferred tax, positive gains above contributed capital are taxed once at the end. These are illustrative conventions, not a representation of any particular country’s tax rules.

Initial capital is invested at the start. Each monthly contribution is deposited at the start of its month. Growth and fees are then applied for that month. There are no withdrawals or external cash distributions; returns are fully reinvested. The calculation assumes a constant annual return and constant inflation rate.

Gross is before fees and tax. After fees deducts asset-based fees; after tax uses the selected illustrative treatment. When investment and base currencies differ, the first three lines are converted using the starting exchange rate, after currency uses the modeled exchange rate for each year, and real purchasing power adjusts that currency-converted path for base-currency inflation. Between the two entered FX rates, the path is hypothetical. The vertical scale reflects all available trajectories and may not begin at zero; hiding a line does not rescale the remaining trajectories.

FX uses the explicit convention of base-currency units per one unit of investment currency. Endpoint conversion is exact for a single initial investment, given the user-supplied rates. Annual chart values between endpoints use a smooth implied exchange-rate path for illustration only. With monthly contributions, accurate real gains require the exchange rate used for every contribution month. This version estimates contribution conversions using the same illustrative path, rather than actual monthly rates. Exchange-rate values are entered by you and are never represented as verified historical data. Base-currency inflation is assumed to equal the rate entered above.

Investment risk, volatility, sequence-of-returns effects, withholding-tax treaties, dividend categories, varying tax rules, tax brackets, losses carried forward, transaction costs, automatically retrieved historical FX rates, changing fees, capital-gains exemptions or detailed country-specific wealth taxes. Actual investment outcomes may differ substantially from these smooth-path estimates.