SBADecoded
Home / Calculators / Should you refinance?

Calculator

Should you refinance?

Watch two numbers, not one. A refinance can lower your payment and still cost you more overall — which is fine, if you meant to do it.

Guaranty fee on the new loan, plus closing. Rolled into the balance.

Change in monthly payment
Change over the life
Pay now
Would pay
Costs recovered in

Before and after

Watch the two numbers separately. A refinance that lowers your monthly payment while raising the total cost is not automatically wrong — buying breathing room is a legitimate reason — but you should know that is the trade you are making rather than discovering it later.

Two things to check first

Whether your current loan carries a prepayment penalty — on a term of 15 years or more inside the first three, it will. And whether the new lender will actually take it: SBA has specific rules about refinancing existing SBA debt, and the general test is that the new deal must be meaningfully better for you.